No Tolerance for Hate

Kia Ora all,

And welcome to your Autumn edition of NZTECHO.

All of the content for this issue was assembled and ready for layout on Friday, March 15th, when the dreadful news began to arrive from Christchurch.

There is so much to be said over the days and years to come about this country we have collectively made. But for now, with no time to really think or reflect, I can’t improve on a message from a colleague of ours I found online. Quentin, thank you for your words, edited below.

Graeme Tuckett.

Editor NZTECHO.

The perpetrator of this abhorrent act did not live in a vacuum. He did not sit alone with his ideas. People of all stripes said nothing when he formed his hate-filled ideas, said nothing when he made his off-color jokes and turned away when he spouted his hate-filled rhetoric.

No more!

From now on there will be no tolerance, by silence or accent, for bigotry, racism, or sexism on set. Something I have been guilty of in the past.

If you say something on set along these lines I will call you out on it in front of your peers, even if it costs me. The cost of action is less than the results of inaction.

If you post, share, like or comment on online posts that are bigoted, racist, or sexist I will call you out and make sure your colleagues see what you are sharing.

If you say that in front of me I will call you out and I encourage every person in our film community to act in the same way.

Hatred doesn’t live in a vacuum and their ideologies don’t survive the scrutiny of the light of day. Let us not be the ones that provide the shadows they hide in.

As I write this I am shedding tears for the victims, their families, their loved ones, and anyone that will be afraid because of what has happened.

Arohanui

As-salamu alaykum