Is red belt higher than black belt in karate?

[Christopher]

ive heard some people say that it is

[Manoffaith]

There are over fifty styles of Karate, and there is no unified belt system. In my old Kempo school, a red with white belt was higher than black.

[Tim]

In my style (which is Parker Kenpo by the way) red belt is the same as a 10th degree black belt but having 10 stripes on each end of the belt looks a bit excessive so they made a straight up red belt = 10th degree Black Belt ( which is considered Grand Master but nobody at my school is that high the highest rank in my school is 6th degree and he's been taking it for nearly 40 years so it's hard to get).