Jing Xiang Investigates Facebook Group over 'National Kick A Ginger Day'
They say blonds have more fun, but it was redheads who might have got a bigger kick on Thursday, dubbed by some as Kick a Ginger Day.
Across the country, school boards had to contend with a joke from an episode of the satirical animated show South Park that has spiralled into a day of promoting violence.
RCMP in B.C. are investigating the 14-year-old administrator of a Facebook group called "National Kick a Ginger Day, are you going to do it?"
The Vancouver Island boy said the group, which had nearly 5,000 members from across Canada and internationally, was only a joke and he is sorry.
The page, which urges members to "get them steel toes ready," had garnered hundreds of messages. Many were from people claiming to have already kicked redheads that day; others expressed outrage.
The page's teenage administrator said he didn't make the group, but inherited it after its original creator got in trouble.
"It was a joke," he said. "I'll message everybody and say I'm sorry that this offended people."
Comox Valley RCMP Const. Tammy Douglas said the group is being investigated and those involved could face charges.
"We do treat this sort of thing seriously," she said. "This is sort of inciting hate. It's a hate crime really."
Ironically, the day falls in the middle of the international Bullying Awareness Week.
In St. John's, N.L., schools warned students they'd be disciplined if they acted on the joke.
Tony Stack, principal of St. Peter's, a grades 7 to 9 school near St. John's, said they were told about the event by parents of red-headed kids.
In Flin Flon, Man., an elementary school sent a letter home to parents alerting them and their children to the possibility of disturbances.
And in Sylvan Lake, Alta., one red-haired student said she and her 13-year-old sister were punched and kicked by their peers when they got to school.
In the episode of South Park in question, Ginger Kids, one character -- Eric Cartman -- begins a campaign against red heads, calling them soulless and inherently evil.
Brenda Morrison, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said she was "shocked" to find out about the day.
Across the country, school boards had to contend with a joke from an episode of the satirical animated show South Park that has spiralled into a day of promoting violence.
RCMP in B.C. are investigating the 14-year-old administrator of a Facebook group called "National Kick a Ginger Day, are you going to do it?"
The Vancouver Island boy said the group, which had nearly 5,000 members from across Canada and internationally, was only a joke and he is sorry.
The page, which urges members to "get them steel toes ready," had garnered hundreds of messages. Many were from people claiming to have already kicked redheads that day; others expressed outrage.
The page's teenage administrator said he didn't make the group, but inherited it after its original creator got in trouble.
"It was a joke," he said. "I'll message everybody and say I'm sorry that this offended people."
Comox Valley RCMP Const. Tammy Douglas said the group is being investigated and those involved could face charges.
"We do treat this sort of thing seriously," she said. "This is sort of inciting hate. It's a hate crime really."
Ironically, the day falls in the middle of the international Bullying Awareness Week.
In St. John's, N.L., schools warned students they'd be disciplined if they acted on the joke.
Tony Stack, principal of St. Peter's, a grades 7 to 9 school near St. John's, said they were told about the event by parents of red-headed kids.
In Flin Flon, Man., an elementary school sent a letter home to parents alerting them and their children to the possibility of disturbances.
And in Sylvan Lake, Alta., one red-haired student said she and her 13-year-old sister were punched and kicked by their peers when they got to school.
In the episode of South Park in question, Ginger Kids, one character -- Eric Cartman -- begins a campaign against red heads, calling them soulless and inherently evil.
Brenda Morrison, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said she was "shocked" to find out about the day.
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