Donegal over in Ireland was set to pay host to a ‘Shag A Ginger’ night yesterday, but the event was called off over claims that it was racist. Not sure who was more gutted – the gingers about getting laid or the rabid hordes of students hoping to get some ginger action?
The event was set to be DJ’d by DJ Ginger Nuts and Pulse nighclub in Letterkenny had even hired hairdressers to give wannabe gingers dye jobs if they fancied it. All gingers who turned up were going to get in free as well and be given a condom on the door, in an effort to promote safe sex. To be honest, it doesn’t really sound like that much of a bad night to me, but some of the people in Donegal were not happy when they saw the poster that you can see below.
One mother from the town named Donna had the following to say:
Redheads have been the butt of jokes for a long time. Many in my family have red hair and it’s really derogatory. You wouldn’t see a black or Asian night and this seems every bit as racist as that.
I suppose she’s right about that, but is stigmatising ginger hair really racist!? I suppose that’s a debate for another time.
Images VIA
The club bent to these opinions though when the local priest phoned up to complain and cancelled the event. They had the following to say:
Given recent controversy surrounding a promotional poster advertising the event, the management have removed it and wish to make it clear it was not their intention to cause insult or offence to anyone.
The promotion of such events on student nights are commonplace throughout the county and have occurred in the past without knowingly causing offence.
We will be calling future events ‘Kiss A Ginger’ nights instead.
To be honest I’m not really sure how much different that is to ‘Shag A Ginger’ but I suppose it’s slightly more PC. It’s kinda defeating the object of people being offended because it’s racist though as I’m not sure anyone complained about it promoting promiscuous behaviour (albeit safe). I suppose that’s why the priest’s phone call was the final straw and they decided to cancel it originally as that’s the kind of thing he would have been angry about, especially in Ireland.
Still, it’s a really stupid story – why would anyone get offended about a poster, especially one that’s probably ultimately going to benefit gingers? Get over it, I mean you can even get your own ginger discount card now if you play your cards right.
