A ginger Job Centre boss who compared bullying over his hair colour to prejudice faced by black people was not being racist, an employment tribunal has ruled.

The ruling came in the case of a black Job Centre worker who lodged a claim for race discrimination and harassment and disability discrimination, after his ginger boss told him that he too had experienced bullying due to his hair colour.

Alex Ujah had accused manager Robert Rance of an ‘orchestrated succession of racist micro-aggressions’ against him and said he couldn’t believe he was trying to liken his experience as a ginger to ‘400 years of denigration and slavery’.

In the end, the judge ruled that Robert Rance was only trying to relate to his colleague by likening prejudice against gingers to prejudice against black people, and was thus being empathetic, rather than ‘microaggressive.’

The hearing in Southampton was told Alex Ujah began work as an administrative officer in Basingstoke, Hampshire, in August 2020, but there was a ‘clash of personalities’ with Robert Rance. The next month, Ujah accused Rance of creating an ‘environment of double standards and racist aggression.’

In response, Rance claimed he knew how Ujah’s ‘people’ felt ‘because he was ginger’ and got bullied as a child for it.

Ujah told the panel:

‘At this point I wished that the ground would open up and I would disappear. By ‘my people’ did he mean people of colour, a tribe, clansmen, what?’

Rance denied that he had referred to Mr Ujah’s ‘people’ – which the panel accepted – but admitted that he had referred to the fact he was ginger. He denied creating a hostile environment for people of colour in the workplace, and said he was passionate about fairness, having grown up on an estate ‘where I was persecuted and my nose was broken by people who didn’t like the colour of my hair.’

Well, it probably wasn’t a helpful analogy comparing being ginger to being black, but it’s good that the employment tribunal saw the complaint for what it was – a total waste of time. Although you could argue that there’s plenty of ginger folk out there who have it worse than people of colour, being as it is for some reason socially acceptable to mock and bully gingers whereas even a moderately insensitive comment about skin colour can end your career permanently.

At the end of the day though, trying to relate to relate to someone’s experiences, even if clumsy, is basic empathy. Trying to ruin a man’s livelihood for attempting to relate to you? Shame on you, Alex Ujah. Shame on you, indeed!

For the ginger dude who suffered third degree burns after spending too much time in the sun, click HERE.