The Power99 controversy elicited several comments on our website that seemed (to me at least) to partially condone the Shock Jocks behavior because they were receiving “poor service.” The customer service representative, Tina, said “ma’am” instead of sir for example. Many Americans also seem to resent the fact that the Indian call center operators are being taught English in order to supposedly “fool” them into thinking they are talking to a representative in the U.S. The Tampa Tribune reported last week that the imperfection of these learned accents may cost some call centers their jobs:

When Sykes Enterprises began considering India for its customer service call centers a few years ago, it saw a country with many bright, hardworking and English- speaking citizens. What it didn’t anticipate was how much the Indian accent would perplex some American consumers.

On Thursday, Tampa-based Sykes said it would cut the volume of work at its Bangalore, India, facility by half. The call center, which in the past has provided customer service functions for Delta Air Lines and the Internet Service Provider MSN, generates about $4 million a year in revenue. About $2 million of that business will be shifted to Sykes call centers in other Asian countries. Sykes did not name these other countries.

Just because Indian accents aren’t good enough doesn’t mean the jobs will be returning to America. I guess the trick is to better fool American ears. Apparently perception is more important than reality. But where will they be moved?

Formerly controlled by the United States, the Philippines offers a more “Americanized” culture and employees with lighter accents. Also, there is less employee turnover than in India.

So let me get this straight. Slightly imperfect accent -> verbal abuse -> high turnover -> outsource the outsourced work to another country. I guess that would be considered market driven but the fact that its based more on perception than on reality makes it seem kind of silly to me. Then again, I guess everything in the business world is based upon perception. Continue reading →

Sepia Mutiny Tipsters have been buzzing all week about another racist, ignorant and insensitive incident from the hip-hop airwaves. In this case, Radio Jockey’s (RJ’s) from The Miss Jones in the Morning Show, on New Yorks popular Hip Hop Station, Hot 97, recorded and played on air, the “Tsunami Song,” seriously mocking the hundreds of thousands of those who perished in the devastating tsunami this past December. Miss Info, an Asian-American co-host of the show did not participate, because, duh, she found the song to be extremely offensive. If you click here, you can here a verbal spat (that might give some insight into the intentions of the hosts that did participate) that Miss Info had with Miss Jones over the airing of the highly racist and insensitive song.

If you thought the Star and Buc Wild dialogue was offensive, you might want to skip the next paragraph. From the clip, it seems that the two other co-hosts Miss Jones, and Todd Lynn, recorded the song, with some of the lyrics as follows

..All at once you could hear the screaming ch*nks and no one was safe from the wave there were africans drowning, little chinamen swept away you could hear god laughing, “swim you b*tches swim” So now you’re screwed, it’s the Tsunami you better run or kiss your ass away, go find your mommy I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head and now the children will be sold to child slavery…

If you listen to the clip above you hear Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn launching into an abusive tirade against Miss Info for isolating herself and not participating. When Info voices her objection to the clip, Miss Jones tells Info she’s only complaining because “you feel superior, probably because you’re Asian.” Then, at minute 3:37 on the mp3 file, you hear Todd Lynn say, “I’m gonna start shooting Asians.”

Is there any humor in that?

Thus far outrage against the station and the show is muted, although there has been some press, and even a Hot 97/Miss Jones diss track by Asian MC Jin. To me, any reaction other than the firing of Miss Jones and Todd Lynn, is muted. Hot 97 issued a weak apology here, and according to the statement, Miss Jones in the Morning, along with her entire staff, have agreed to contribute one week’s pay to Tsunami Relief efforts.

To stay updated and to find out what you can do, go to hiphopmusic.com, where there is a list of emails for the show, the hosts, and advertisers. And as always, don’t forget to include th FCC on your email list.

Some addresses for Hot 97’s parent company, Emmis Broadcasting are below. The first is their head honcho Jeff Smulyan:

hiphopmusic.com suggests you not use the word “tsunami” in your email as it will probably get filtered jsmulyan@emmis.com ir@emmis.com rcummings@emmis.com jsteele@emmis.com khealey@emmis.com

Don’t forget to ask Hot 97 and its advertisers, how dare you compare a life to a weeks pay?

Links to radio clips taken from 3030radio.com where there is a screen shot of the Hot 97 website featuring the now-removed tsunami song link. Click here for a story on this from the New York Post, here for the asiansinmediawatch website, and here for the story from the Billboard radio monitor. The asiansinmedia website has a form letter/email that you can send. Continue reading →