Quote:
Originally Posted by monkat
On a bit of a side-note, I don't understand why a lot of people seem to not like freckles or redheads. I understand the social joke about gingers, not having souls and whatnot, but I think freckles are really cute, even in large amounts.
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I think it's a
really weird application of transference.
Picture this scenario:
A. Person X watches the
Harry Potter film franchise.
B. Person X finds the gingers portraying the characters mind-numbingly irritating.
C. Person X transfers the image of mind-numbing annoyances onto ALL gingers.
D. Person Y creates a memetic mutation of the "mind-numbingly irritating ginger" stereotype.
E. Person X uses the meme created my Person Y to reinforce their bias against gingers.
As a result, Person X becomes incapable of distinguishing
real gingers from
stereotypical gingers, and maybe passes this onto another generation or two as intrinsic fact.
Those future generations perhaps remove some social incentives for gingers, as "they wouldn't use them anyways."
Gingers, now unable to break free of the stereotype by traditional means, create their own moronic subculture.
A few "break the mold" and excel beyond the typical gingers, but this is a rare occurrence and is portrayed as the exception rather than the potential rule.
That creates a disadvantage for gingers as a whole, with non-gingers pretending that they're "doing the gingers a favor."
This is hugely counterproductive, and is
exactly why "little things" like racism are such a colossal issue.