Culture

Your Boyfriend Taika Waititi Wants You To Give (Nothing) To Racism

"Racism needs your help to survive."

by Chris Woods  15 June 2017

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Beautiful prince, actor, cult filmmaker, and 2017’s New Zealander of the Year Taika Waititi wants to raise awareness for racism.

He knows only you, dear reader, can keep the dream alive, through not just explicit racism but casual acceptance thereof. Only YOU can contribute in ways that, however small or invisible, created a culture that’s led to one-in-three complaints to New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission concerning racial discrimination.

In fact, in a striking video released today and marketed to Kiwis (but suuuuper relevant to Aussies), the director of Boy, What We Do In The Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok calls on you to give precisely nothing to racism.

Launched as part of NZ Human Rights Commission’s ‘Give Nothing’ campaign, Waititi’s video comes after a year of Kiwis sharing their personal stories of prejudice. The campaign seeks to address the smaller, more complex examples of casual racism — those that don’t always stem from hatred but hurt all the same, and implore members of the public to cut it off at its root.

Multiple other NZ talents have released similar videos juxtaposing the outward ease of laughing off racism to the reality that you can, very literally, just give it nothing.

Finally, the commission has also released advice for witnesses of racial attacks, urging viewers to support the victim, record the incident on their phones, and report it to police.