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| Modigliani, Redhead in a Black Dress, 1918 |
I read something interesting and well written on The Huffington Post yesterday. In and of itself that's news. As my Dad would say, "Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while." Anyhow, the piece if found was
an essay written by Katherine Bindley called Being a Redhead: Why it's a Love Hate-Relationship.
A highlight:
I admit that being a redhead isn't the only hair curse. Having tightly wound, frizzy, unmanageable locks is no blessing for your average kid, either. And yet, I've never heard anyone threaten to "beat someone like a curly haired stepchild."
Disclaimer: I am a redhead.
Every word that woman wrote rung so true I couldn't believe it. It's as if she talked to me before she wrote her essay. But really, she didn't have to talk to me. We're members of the same tribe. She knows and I know what having red hair means without uttering a word.
Redheads are tormented as kids, tormented. That can't be repeated often enough. We're tormented. If there's any truth to the idea that we have quick tempers, that temperament stems from an endless chorus of "redhead peed the bed" we hear all through elementary school. It's an easy difference to spot and latch onto. That it's encouraged by absurd stereotypes their parents hold onto just makes it worse. In the West, we're the
other kind of white person and having red hair taught me early and valuable lessons about what it feels like to be an
other.
Red hair's not an exclusively Caucasian trait though and it's thought that it first appeared in Africa some 50,000 years ago. Asian, African, Middle Eastern and European redheads get our hair color from a genetic mutation on chromosome 16. Due to that mutations, we produce more of a pigment called eumelanin than we do the more typical melanin. Our skin color tends to follow our hair color and regardless of race, redheads are always more light complected. That light complexion is a double-edged sword. In tropical climates we get more skin cancer. But in temperate climates we can make more vitamin D in low light. Tropical redheads are a lot more rare than temperate ones as a result.
In addition to being able to make more vitamin D in low light, we're also more prone to be left handed, we require on average 20% more anesthetic to knock us out, we retain heat better, go deaf more often, have worse than average vision and bees sting us more readily.
Worldwide, we make up between 1 to 2% of the population. In the US, we're somewhere around 3%. Scotland, the land my red-headed ancestors called home, has the world's highest percentage at 14%.
History hasn't been kind to us, redheads have always been viewed with a suspicious eye. In the Spanish Inquisition, people with red hair were assumed to be Jewish automatically, rounded up and slaughtered. In ancient Egypt, red heads were rounded up and burned alive to purge society of bad elements. Adolf Hitler's insane beliefs about genetics led to laws that forbade two redheads from marrying. In Medieval Europe, red hair was seen as a sign of someone who was oversexed and untrustworthy. In England today we're called gingers and discrimination against gingers is reported to be widespread. In Australia, we're called rangas, slang for orangutan.
Here's a quote from Heinrich Kramer's
Malleus Maleficarum. Heinrich Kramer a Catholic Inquisitor in Germany in 1487.
Those whose hair is red, of a certain peculiar shade, are unmistakably vampires. It is significant that in ancient Egypt, as Manetho tells us, human sacrifices were offered at the grave of Osiris, and the victims were red-haired men who were burned, their ashes being scattered far and wide by winnowing-fans. It is held by some authorities that this was done to fertilize the fields and produce a bounteous harvest, red-hair symbolizing the golden wealth of the corn. But these men were called Typhonians, and were representatives not of Osiris but of his evil rival Typhon, whose hair was red.
Being a redhead then makes dealing with the childhood harassment of today seem mild to say the least.
It's taken me a lifetime to get used to my red hair and at this stage of my life I love it. I think the tide turned some time when I was around 25 or so. I had about a 15 year run until it started to change color to something more like reddish brown. The hair on my head at any rate. Without getting too indelicate, the hair on the rest of me is as red as its ever been. That hair color change is also reported to be typical. redheads tend not to get gray hair. Rather, our hair changes color all at once. From coppery red as kids, to something more red-red as teens, to brown-red as adults, then onto gold-red, light gold and finally, white. Based on what I saw unfold for my beloved grandmother Stewart, I will be an old man with gold-tinged hair at some point in my late 60s. When I hit 75, it'll be as white as snow.
I have a very large family. I have five brothers and a sister. I have 23 nieces and nephews, two great-nephews and a great-niece. I love those kids with a love so deeply it scares me sometimes, regardless of their hair color. In total, my immediate family now numbers 39 people once I include my sibs, their spouses and kids. By any stretch, that's a lot of people. Two of my older brothers are red-headed too and despite how prolific they've been, there haven't been any more redheads in the generation that follows me. However, all of that changed last spring with the arrival of my great-nephew Xavier.
Even in his pre-verbal state, the redhead brotherhood runs as deep as it runs strong. That little boy and I share the same mutation on chromosome 16. Beyond that, when he and I lock gazes, we share something else, an almost knowing allegiance. I make it a point not to have favorites among my many nieces, nephews and assorted greats. But this little guy's going to challenge all of that.
All of those kids I'm related to are already perfect in my eyes and there's nothing any of them can do that will ever make me think less of them. However, Xavier's something more than perfect. He's something closing in on sanctified.
I know he's going to get hassled when he's a kid and I know he'll always be described as "that red-headed guy." But what Xavier can't know that I do know is that he's going to age better than his peers will. He'll have a better tolerance for pain (which will help with the bee stings). He'll be viewed as an exotic species for the rest of his life, and eventually he'll see that as a positive. By the time he's 25, I'll be the drooling, inconsequential old man in the corner and though he may not know it then, he will have always had the the undying adoration of his great-uncle Paul. Even though he doesn't play favorites.
Chime in if you're a redhead (or ginger or ranga)!
