Can sharing food open doors? Why, just before Thanksgiving, a holiday focused around meals, and preceding the winter holidays of gift giving and food treats would middle school students single out anyone seemingly different to beat up, kick, and possibly maim for life? Do parents and teachers underestimate the impact of visual media when applied to children’s social networking?
And for those who pretended to kick students, what did the kids hope to gain other than getting suspended? Or was it partly about the loneliness and anger surrounding family holidays not living up to students’ expectations last season?
Would sharing ethnic, multi-cultural food and sensitivity training have prevented middle school students from hate flares that created the pre-Thanksgiving holiday Kick a Ginger Day or Kick a Jew Day chaos that sent 12-14 year old children fearing for their lives at school? Or did attitudes in the student’s homes contribute to the mayhem?
Could students have become more aware of one another by breaking and baking bread together or discussing how food brings people together? Or were the perpetrators ever bullied at school by other kids or at home themselves?
Why would middle-school kids single out red-haired individuals to beat up? What’s so special about inheriting red hair and freckles? Are they jealous of the beauty of redheads? November 24, newspapers reported on "Kick A Ginger Day."
The “Ginger Kids” episode of South Park, which first aired in 2005, brought with it redhead stereotypes for a generation that had never even heard the term “ginger” before. And while the episode is extremely funny, the campaign against redheads which it spawned is is about singling out redheads, including children and beating them up.
For more information on violence against redheads, see the Nov. 19, 2009 article, "Fearing for my life on Ginger Day," by Vince Fitzpatrick. People have also taken the sound track from the cartoon and using a voice over, dubbed the sound track it into a popular Harry Potter movie on uTube. See the video, "South Park & Harry Potter Voiceovers Ginger Kids." Or view the original “Ginger Kids” episode of South Park cartoon video at Metacafe.
The hate crime day focused on singling out red-haired children and perhaps kicking them to oblivion. Soon after the first news reports, the hate escalated to focus on another group of children in this war of kids against their classmates.
Unfortunately, the hate problem has escalated from natural red-haired individuals to people students have decided are of a particular ethnicity or religion. Are kids hard-wired to hate or show envy for reasons unknown but perhaps linked to the perpetrator’s home lives?
See the NBC-2 video after the hate theme escalated from singling out kids with red hair to get kicked or beat up to "Kick a Jew Day." Why are middle-school students so full of hate and anger at fellow American students based on traits such as hair color or their parent’s ethnicity?
Too many children complained of being singled out because of red hair and usually, freckles. What’s it all about? Who started Kick a Jew Day and why?
How does it relate to kick a ginger day? Why haven’t parents taught children to create a day of love instead of hate in the sense of doing a good deed for someone instead?
Check out the newspaper articles on the event, first noted in Facebook. How did the middle school kids know who in their school is Jewish, whether or not their parents are observant of any faith? It’s not about being singled out by dress, hair color, or even surname.
So how did kids age 12-14 know who in their entire school is actually Jewish or part Jewish and why were the kids singled out? The same goes for kick a ginger day, focusing on kids of any ethnicity with red hair and freckles.
Why pick on someone to beat the person up? What’s next, picking on kids with special needs or disabilities? Who started children on the war against other kids? It’s not about a war against the weak, or jealousy of serious students.
What’s the hate about? How would a cartoon spur acts of hate, if it even could be blamed on a silly cartoon? Did the cartoon reinforce any stereotypes at a subliminal level? If not, was it the parents’ attitudes?
What really spurred the unprovoked hate crimes in middle schools? Can sensitivity training actually help those kids? Or will they tune out any teaching about caring for others?
The hate crime began in a California middle school after a Facebook group announced Kick a Ginger Day. Children participating in it should have known better. The middle school students ranged in age between 12 and 14.
Those are the years kids are supposed to be learning responsibility and how to care for one another and repair what’s wrong in the world, namely hate of someone that either looks different or is rarer than average in some other way be it hair color, ethnic origin, religion, or special needs. Why didn’t schools teach sensitivity to middle school children before?
See the article regarding the southern California kids, "SoCal kids victims of ‘ginger‘ attacks – Sacramento News – Local …." According to the news article, middle school after a Facebook group announced "Kick a Ginger Day. Also see the following articles on the beating of students that may hve been tied to a Facebook post on a made-up Kick a Ginger Day.
No such day exists, of course. But students beat one another up just the same, following advice as if they were lemmings runing in a herd over a cliff of hate and violence for no reason other than their own boredom and anger instead of volunteerism and having a purpose in making the world a kinder and gentler–safer place. See the article, "SurfWax: News, Reviews and Articles On Ginger," and "Cops: 5 SoCal kids victims of ‘ginger‘ attacks – Sacramento News …"
Where did the students get the idea from to kick somebody that they could single out? Was it from a South Park cartoon, note some newspaper reports? See, "The Scavenger."
On November 17, the Facebook page for "Kick a Ginger Day" was taken down, according to a transcript released by the San Jose Mercury News. Also see, "Practical information about Facebook at Facebook Advertise." Also see the site, "SurfWax: News, Reviews and Articles On Tolerance."
On the site, you can read the article, "An 11-Year-Old Girl Recalls her Abuse during "Kick a Ginger Day." See Posts relating to "kick a ginger day news article sacramento bee". See "California Politics and People | TotalCapitol."
Want to know why hate crimes happen or how many occur annually? See "FBI Releases 2008 Hate Crime Statistics."
Hate Crime StatisticsStatistics, 2008, includes the following information:
- An analysis of the 7,780 single-bias incidents revealed that 51.3 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 19.5 percent were motivated by a religious bias, 16.7 percent were motivated by a sexual orientation bias, and 11.5 percent were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias. One percent involved a bias against a disability.
- There were 5,542 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2008. Intimidation accounted for 48.8 percent of crimes against persons, simple assaults for 32.1 percent, and aggravated assaults for 18.5 percent. Seven murders were reported as hate crimes.
- There were 3,608 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property; the majority (82.3 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. The remaining 17.7 percent of crimes against property consisted of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses.
- Of the 6,927 known offenders, 61.1 percent were white and 20.2 percent were black. The race was unknown for 11.0 percent, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders
- The largest percentage (31.9 percent) of hate crime incidents occurred in or near homes; followed by 17.4 percent on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 11.7 percent at schools or colleges; 6.1 percent in parking lots or garages; and 4.2 percent in churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 28.8 percent of hate crime incidents took place at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/unknown locations.
To view the full report, visit the FBI site. Or sign up for FBI e-mail alerts at by clicking on the red envelopes. Follow the FBI on Twitter @ FBIPressOffice
Think the Kick a Ginger Day that might have started from a silly South Park cartoon? That’s the excuse kids gave. Imagine, a cartoon teaching hate without realizing it instead of teaching kids to help one another and do good deeds to make the world a better, greener place. If that’s so, and no one really knows where the idea came from, it doesn’t stop there.
A few days after Kick a Ginger Day fizzled out with complaints of attacks on red-haired kids, it escalated. This time, it wasn’t red hair or fair skin and freckles that got kids beaten and possibly injured for life, either emotionally or physically, which was not in news articles, but might stay in the kids’ minds or fuel the fears of their parents…..It escalated.
Behold a week later, kids singled out school children who they thought might be Jewish and started Kick a Jew Day. See how hate is escalating among children and teenagers instead of helping others and being friendly?
Students have been punished for creating Kick a Jew Day. The idea never occurred until news reports of Kick a Ginger Day emerged. Can this idea be blamed on a silly cartoon? Of course not. This is how the holocaust began with persons being singled out because others think they may be of a specific religion.
The scary part is that although the students didn’t look any different in dress, features, language, or coloring, it’s uncanny how other children singled out, thought they knew, or decided just which students were Jews based on stereotypes, even though many never told other students their religion, whether they were observant, or what the ethnicity of their name was.
The 10 students that participated were suspended. But where did they learn this attitude towards other religions–at home? Middle school kids aren’t deep thinkers. Didn’t they know hate expressions always end in getting suspended from school?
Or would they go to any extreme to get attention? What situations in their home life allowed crowd or mob behavior? Wasn’t anything else going in in their lives?
Didn’t they find a purpose? Adults might blame it on the fact that people under age 18 don’t have a part of their brain fully developed yet. It’s the cerebral cortex. But that doesn’t explain the same behavior in intelligent adults during World War Two that started with the same volume of person-to-person explosions of hatred and blame.
No one stopped to think you’re under your parent’s guidance as a minor. How are you going to express your creativity by caring and repairing or hating and baiting?
It’s just too much seething hate how the students knew just which students were Jews and proceeded to beat them up by creating Kick a (insert the name of the ethnic group or hair color) Day. It’s a child-on-child hate crime. But what are the parents doing about it?
Media attention drew the parents and neighbors into the situation. Note the proliferation of media articles on the escalation from Kick a Ginger Day to Kick a Jew Day.
IDEO: 10 North Naples Middle students suspended for taking part … Nov 23, 2009 … The e-mail was circulated the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 18. It came to the attention of school officials later that week.
Students face punishment for ‘Hit a Jew Day‘ – 40 posts – 28 authors – Last post: Oct 24, 2008. Next there was "Hit a Tall Person Day" and, finally, "Hit a Jew Day." OH Great… then there was "Hit a small Puppy Day," etc.
Jewlicious » Kick a Jew Day at Florida Middle School – Nov 24, 2009 … Ten students are serving suspensions for their roles in what was called “Kick a Jew Day” at North Naples Middle. …
News results for kick a jew day . Florida students suspended over ‘Kick a Jew Day‘ | Raw Story – Nov 26, 2009 … Ten students at a Naples, Florida, middle school have been given one-day, in-school suspensions for participating in "Kick a Jew Day," See Rawstory.com.
The Reaction: Kick a Jew Day – Nov 27, 2009 … Kick a Jew Day. By Capt. Fogg I hesitate to make more of this than it really is. Middle School students aren’t deep thinkers, …
‘Kick a Jew day‘ ends in suspensions for 10 Florida students … – ‘Kick a Jew day‘ ends in suspensions for 10 Florida students-News and commentary relating to events in Israel, the occupied territories, and the world.
‘Kick a Jew Day‘ Hits Florida School – Jewish World – Israel News …
10 Florida students suspended over ‘Kick a Jew‘ day – Israel News … Nov 25, 2009 … News: Jewish student in North Naples Middle School reports being kicked by fellow pupils. School administration suspends 10 students; …
Naples, Fla “Kick a Jew Day” Jibes w/ FBI Hate Crimes Figures – Nov 25, 2009 … By Debbie Schlussel Yesterday, I gave you my exclusive analysis of just-released FBI hate crimes.
Students Punished For ‘Kick A Jew‘ Day – Orlando News Story – WESH … – Nov 24, 2009 … NAPLES, Fla. — Ten students at a Naples middle school are suspended after district officials say they participated in "kick a Jew day."
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