Young Red Haired Girl Portrait

In November 2008 social networking website Facebook received criticism after a 'Kick a Ginger' group, which aimed to establish a "National Kick a Ginger Day" on November 20, acquired almost 5,000 members. A 14-year-old boy from Vancouver who ran the Facebook group was subjected to an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for possible hate crimes.
In December 2009 British supermarket chain Tesco was forced to withdraw a Christmas card which had the image of a child with red hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and the words: "Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones" after customers complained the card was too offensive.
In October 2010, Harriet Harman, the former Equality Minister in the British government under Labour, faced accusations of prejudice, after she described the red-haired Treasury secretary Danny Alexander as a "ginger rodent". Alexander responded to the insult by stating that he was "proud to be ginger". Harman was subsequently forced to apologise for the comment, after facing criticism for prejudice against a minority group.