Before the joke, there was the omen. Before the omen, there was the god of chaos and a pharaoh whose youth happened to wear the same color. That collision should have been enough to end the “this started in the 1990s” theory.
Americans like a tidy origin story. The redhead slur, they insist, arrived fully formed from a cartoon and a playground. It is a convenient story. It is also incomplete. The hair had already been doing work in the human imagination for a very long time.
South Park didn't invent the ginger stereotype. It popularized one particular version of an idea that had already been circulating in Western culture for generations. 
Red hair occupies a peculiar position in the human imagination. It is uncommon enough to be immediately noticeable, yet familiar enough that virtually everyone recognizes it. Rarity creates a paradox. The less common a look becomes, the more it registers. The more it registers, the more some people want it gone from the frame.
Out now, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your weekend goes well.
Be well.  

There is a strange contradiction in contemporary discussions of women and responsibility. Women are rightly treated as capable adults when the subject is independence, equality, professional achievement, sexual autonomy, political participation, or personal freedom. Yet when circumstances become sufficiently tragic or disturbing, the language can change dramatically. Suddenly the emphasis shifts toward vulnerability, psychological forces, social circumstances, hormones, trauma, or victimhood.
Where exactly should that line be drawn?
 None of this requires pretending that mental illness isn't real. Severe psychiatric illness can dramatically affect human behavior, perception, and judgment. The difficult question is what follows from that fact. Does explaining why someone acted remove responsibility for what they did? Does compassion require us to minimize accountability? And why do these questions become particularly emotionally charged when the accused person is a woman and a mother? 
Out later today, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your weekend goes well. 

South Park could once end a teacher-student episode with the word “Nice.” The laugh only works if the audience already knows the old assumption. Most people under 25 have never lived inside that assumption. 
We live in the most sexualized environment in history and simultaneously treat a teenage boy’s desire as something that primarily needs protection rather than direction. 
Biology did not receive a software update in 2014. Culture did.
The “hot teacher” did not vanish. She became one of the largest categories in pornography while disappearing from acceptable comedy. 
Out later today, and as always, thanks so much for sticking with me. It is very much appreciated and I hope your week goes well.