The AM Show sportsreader Mark Richardson says people need to be more resilient after reports a controversial nicknaming ceremony at the University of Otago's Selwyn College was shut down.
The ceremony gave students nicknames such as Black Rabbit, Dark Fox and Animal Channel which meant Best Rack, Drug F**ked and Awkward Chat.
- Otago University apologises, shuts down Selwyn College's obscene voting ceremony
- Otago University student's obscene voting topics exposed
- Dunedin's Selwyn College celebrates 125th jubilee
Richardson and newsreader Amanda Gillies disagreed on the nicknames, which Gillies said would obviously be hurtful to people.
Richardson said people needed to "harden up" and the nicknames given to the students didn't seem mean to him.
"They've found one, the story's had one lady, went through the list of nicknames which didn't seem very hurtful or spiteful or actually that nasty," he said.
"For you!" Gillies retorted.
Richardson replied: "They found a lady who it has affected, all right, its affected her and I'm sorry about that, but I'm sorry this world, it simply, we have to start to harden up, we are not teaching our kids resilience at all."
The debate continued across the show and host Duncan Garner and social media presenter Aziz Al-Sa'afin became involved.
Al-Sa'afin said he was called "disease" and "wog" when he was at school and while some people are able to take it others are not.
"You know what, I do get what you're saying Mark in some sense," Al-Sa'afin said.
"The unfortunate thing is though is that there are people out there that aren't actually equipped to deal with this stuff... and there are people out there that are."
Richardson replied: "Yeah and my argument is that I don't want to walk around on eggshells for the rest of my life."
Garner admitted when he was younger he was called 'Chunkster' and it did not bother him.
He said after reading feedback he was concerned about the lack of resilience children were being raised with and said he thought his generation was tougher.
Newshub.
