Redhead Student: They Kicked me and Ran

(CBS/AP)  A redheaded sixth-grade girl victimized by a Facebook prank calling for students to participate in "Kick a Ginger Day" says she was scared that the incident could have gotten worse.

Hannah Krieger, 11, told CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday that the students who hurt her, "kicked me and ran away."

She said, "I didn't even really know what happened."

Hannah's mother, Susan, said she wished parents of the students who kicked the redheaded children would have monitored Facebook more closely.

"This could have been stopped," Susan Krieger said.

Investigators say at least seven redheaded students were attacked at a Southern California middle school after a Facebook group announced "Kick a Ginger Day."

Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Wednesday that detectives identified eight boys at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, Calif. as formal subjects of the investigation into Friday's attacks. No arrests have been made.

Whitmore says the most serious assault was on a 12-year-old boy, whose cuts and bruises were treated by a school nurse. Four girls and two other boys were pushed, shoved and bullied by their classmates.

Sheriff's investigators say the Facebook message may have been inspired by a "South Park" TV episode that satirized racial prejudice by portraying a campaign against red-haired, fair-skinned "ginger" people.

[dyithought]

@brigatine9
you're trollin' and taking a big leap of logic with comments like that. Yes yes, USA bad everyone else better. Think for yourself and don't be a "useful idiot" by repeating what you heard someone else say.

[mjk229]

What children do on Facebooks are a mystery to many parents the children can post and join these FB groups not just on their computers or netbooks/laptops, but also using their phones.

Sure the parents are responsible for buying and allowing these gadgets for them. But we need tools to monitor them. FB should impose a function that notifies parents/guardians (emails or texts) of their minor-aged members' activities on FB with various levels of monitoring/control available to the parents.

Parents are more than willing to be parents but we need modern tools and all websits that cater to the youths must provide such tools or banned from entering my house through the internet or cellphones.

[Volkgarten]

Is history repeating, or is this flouting juvenile influence? Then again, I can think of no faster way to identify concentrations of susceptible citizens and future comrades. Think global, folks. Those kids represent everything an enemy could want for his country or yours.

[erb0087]

This is interesting...

"Gingerism (prejudice/discrimination towards redheads)

Red hair was thought to be a mark of a beastly sexual desire and moral degeneration. A savage red-haired man is portrayed in the fable by Grimm brothers (Der Eisenhans) as the spirit of the forest of iron. Theophilus Presbyter describes how the blood of a red-haired young man is necessary to create gold from copper, in a mixture with the ashes of a basilisk.

Montague Summers, in his translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, notes that red hair and green eyes were thought to be the sign of a witch, a werewolf or a vampire during the Middle Ages:

"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."

In modern-day UK, the words "ginger" or "ginga" are sometimes derogatorily used to describe red-headed people, with terms such as "gingerphobia" (fear of redheads) or "gingerism" (prejudice against redheads) used by the media. Some have speculated that the dislike of red-hair may derive from the historical English sentiment that people of Irish or Celtic background, with a greater prevalence of red hair, were ethnically inferior. Redheads are also sometimes referred to disparagingly as "carrot tops" and "carrot heads". "Gingerism" has been compared to racism, although this is widely disputed, and bodies such as the UK Commission for Racial Equality do not monitor cases of discrimination and hate crimes against redheads. A UK woman recently won an award from a tribunal after being sexually harassed and receiving abuse because of her red hair; a family in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, was forced to move twice after being targeted for abuse and hate crime on account of their red hair; and in 2003, a 20 year old was stabbed in the back for "being ginger." In May 2009, a British schoolboy committed suicide after being bullied for having red hair. The British singer Mick Hucknall, who believes that he has repeatedly faced prejudice or been described as ugly on account of his hair colour, argues that Gingerism should be described as a form of racism. This prejudice has been satirised on a number of TV shows. The British comedian Catherine Tate (herself a redhead) appeared as a red haired character in a running sketch of her series The Catherine Tate Show. The sketch saw fictional character Sandra Kemp, who was forced to seek solace in a refuge for ginger people because they had been ostracised from society. The British comedy Bo' Selecta! (starring redhead Leigh Francis) featured a spoof documentary which involved a caricature of Mick Hucknall presenting a show in which celebrities (played by themselves) dyed their hair red for a day and went about daily life being insulted by people. In real life, Hucknall has commented that derogatory references to his red hair are a form of bigotry.

The pejorative use of the word "ginger" and related discrimination was used to illustrate a point about racism and prejudice in the "Ginger Kids", "Le Petit Tourette" and "Fatbeard" episodes of South Park.

Films and television programmes often portray school bullies as having red hair;[59] for example, Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story or the O'Doyle family in the movie Billy Madison. The bully character Caruso in Everybody Hates Chris is a redhead. However, children with red hair are often themselves targeted by bullies; "Somebody with ginger hair will stand out from the crowd," says anti-bullying expert Louise Burfitt-Dons."

Wikipedia

[erb0087]

"A redheaded sixth-grade girl victimized by a Facebook prank calling for students to participate in "Kick a Ginger Day"
============================

I heard that Conan O'Brien has doubled his security staff after reading about this.

[HGOODGUY]

I lived in that general area for many years and I can tell you, based on my exposure, that these parents are probobly "self indulgent, materialistic snobs" that obviously have no clue what their children are doing because they are too busy trying to impress their friends or planning their next social outing!!!!! They are also quick to blame someone else other than these spoiled brats!!!

[ffoulkes-2009]

I can pretty-much guarantee those parents know about THIS now...

[cbsblogger]

Were the perps of this of another race? If so then why weren't they prosecuted as hate crimes?

It seems obvious that much of the society that once made us a great country has been turned into the dregs of society. Yes we have become a country of haves and have nots and that needs changed. But why does less money always equal a lack of sense and sense of responsibility?

[ffoulkes-2009]

Could be that those with less sense and sense of responsibility tend to have less money...

[moo_jii]

The amount of money you have has nothing to do with character. In fact, I have noticed an opposite trend; those that have expendable income tend to lack a sense of social responsibility, feeling that their higher tax contributions make up for their moral bankruptcy.

[rwsmith29456]

Bloody little idiots. They'll do anything they see on the TV or internet.

[Volkgarten]

I agree with some of that, because a study was done in our school 42 years ago that came to the same conclusion, repeated so often as to constitute proof. There was a week of playground fights and reprisals polarized between the kids who acted out parts of the movies, and the kids who were trying to keep themselves and others out of it. After the first two days another group became apparent - those who would egg it on. And these were 1st and 2nd graders.

[excoachken]

What else could you expect from people who spend their life watching cartoons that promote crude behavior. It's lazy parenting America in its' shining hour.

[curiously1]

"Kids"? What "Kids"? These are monsters. They ought to be sent to some other country to have them whipped in public.

[ffoulkes-2009]

I say we have that in this country...at least public spankings.