almostaugust

This post has been a long time coming. All of my life really. And since this forum is a place that we can talk about tolerance and gettin on together, then now is a good time to raise these issues.
Like many of you out there, im in my twenties and grew up in an environment where overt racism is pretty taboo. In fact, if there was a black kid in the playground he/she would probably find popularity and acceptance a might easier than the average person (at least in my predominatley WASP area). If the word 'nigger' or 'gook' (or whatever) was uttered in the playground there was a collective intake breath from all quaters, and action was swiftly taken. People knew they had crossed the line. This never stopped whole troops of kid teasing the hell out of kids with red hair. In fact to most people its just funny to tease people with red hair.
I managed to be pretty popular in school and didnt cop it as much as alot of other kids, but always felt very defensive about the whole thing. The other day i was going for a run locally when this car slowed down near me and the occupants laughed and pointed at my hair calling me names etc. It was horrible. Then last night i was at work when these guys walked past and started loudly calling me names. And the thing is, if they were making fun of my skin colour or ethnicity, people would have been lining up to bash the shit out of them. I mean i dont even know these people, they just see my hair colour and think im fair game to them because i fit into some long standing category of acceptable abuse.
I mean honestly i dont care what people usually say, and i can take a joke aswell as the next guy. And, if it ever comes to a dusty i can handle myself quite well. But repeated incidents of lynch mob laughter is hard to fight on my own. I just dont think people have any idea the extent of this type of predjudice.