Posted on 12/15/2009 5:01:51 AM PST by Daffynition
A Christmas card has been withdrawn from two Tesco stores in York after complaints that it makes fun of children with ginger hair.
The card shows a child with ginger hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and the words: "Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones."
Davinia Phillips, 30, of York, whose three daughters are redheads, said she found the card offensive.
Tesco said it was sorry if the card had "caused any upset".
Ms Phillips, of Dringhouses, York, spotted the card while visiting her Tesco store in the city's Tadcaster Road.
She said: "I picked it up and I couldn't believe it.
"I just thought 'What is so funny about that?' I didn't really get the joke.
"I thought I would buy it, because I wanted proof that I had seen it."
Ms Phillips, herself a natural redhead, added: "The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got and I told the lady who worked in the store I was not happy."
'Absolutely disgusted'
When Ms Phillips returned to the shop later that evening she said the card had been removed.
She added that the card had also been withdrawn from the Tesco branch at Clifton Moor, York, after her sister-in-law complained.
"I thought maybe it was just me because I am a mother of kids with red hair, but a lot of my friends and other people I know, we are absolutely disgusted," Ms Phillips said.
It is never our intention to offend any customer and we are sorry if this card caused any upset Tesco spokesman
"Society comes down hard on how people look and there are so many children these days who are bullied because of how they look.
"If the card had been about an overweight child ...
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
We live in a world of people with too much time on their hands, wandering around looking for reasons to be offended.
Get
a
life.
I am lmao at the card - and I’m a redhead. I suppose she wouldn’t like it when I use the phrase ‘beat her like a redheaded stepchild’ either.
Yes indeed!
One of my favorite email recipients of BLOND JOKES is a natural blond Swedish girlfriend of mine.
She is also VERY conservative and a crack shot.
Sorry boys, she’s MARRIED! LOL!
I saw a story on this once. In the UK, there really is a bias against red-heads (gingers)....to the point that peope dye their hair to avoid being detected. They are unexplainably thought to have lower intelligence, and just generally are looked down upon. For some reason, it fascinated me...but making fun of red heads has a little more bite in UK than it does here.
There is a Sherlock Holmes story, The Red-Headed League, that centers around a man with fiery red hair. I guess it could be said that he was depicted as having lower intelligence since he was hired to copy the Encyclopedia Britannica and didn't ask any questions until his job disappeared.
In the British kids TV show, Fireman Sam, one of the main characters is a fatherless boy with "ginger hair", who is portrayed in a lovable way, but is generally naughty and mischievous and sometimes the cause of the incidents that the protagonist has to deal with.
“I just thought ‘What is so funny about that?’ I didn’t really get the joke.
So, you didn’t get the Joke.. so what? You don’t go crying about it.
Dare I say it, to the British redheads are so bad they are practically Irish, which is to say they are almost subhuman in the British mind. Yes, there is still that sort of bias there. Muzzies are okay though.
My wife, who grew up in England, admitted to me that most Brits dislike the Irish. So my wife had sort of a puzzling attitude when she discovered my love of Irish folk music. She evenutally grew to like Irish music and looked forward to our trips to the Milwaukee Irish Fest every August. Then last year she discovered she has an Irish ancestor who came over during the Potato Famine. That completely changed her attitude towards things Irish. We visited Ireland last Spring, and the wife can't wait to go back.
Geez, miss a few days online and I miss a compliment! Thank you! :) (Although she is much redder than I ever was - more auburny here. And I have a few freckles...sigh).
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