San
Jose Mercury News
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Racism
is no answer to outsourcing
Mercury News
Yes, it was just another stupid stunt by a ratings-hungry shock jock. But this one got to Amlan Chatterjee.
And it got to me, too, once the San Jose software engineer pointed me to blogs that had turned the Philadelphia DJ's prank into the call heard around the world.
It all started in mid-December when Troi Torain, known as Star on WUSL-FM, played a recording of a two-minute call to the 800 number for a company that sells hair beads. Once Torain confirmed he'd reached an Indian call center, he unleashed a verbal attack.
``Listen to me, you dirty rat-eater,'' he says. ``I'll come out there and choke the eff out of you.''
Torain rants while the woman on the other end tries to politely deflect his hate.
``Don't get slick with the mouth,'' Torain shouts, adding a vulgarity. ``How dare you outsource my call?''
That Torain, who is black, posed as a father whose white daughter wants hair beads ``like Serena and Venus Williams'' is proof he doesn't just play the race card. He plays the whole deck.
The broadcast itself brought few complaints. But WUSL posted the call on its Web site. Bloggers blogged. E-mail flew. The Philadelphia Inquirer picked up the story.
Blogs like www.turbanhead.com, which has posted the sound clip, became salons for the outraged.
The station ultimately apologized. It removed the clip from its Web site. Torain and his morning sidekick -- Timothy Joseph, a.k.a. Buc Wild -- were suspended for a day.
But I wonder if there isn't more to be learned.
``Any civilized person, any person who had a normal upbringing and had loving parents, a loving family, would be hurt by what they were doing,'' Chatterjee, 35, said when we spoke.
Maybe we can write this off as the antics of an immature shock jock. But what's scary about Torain's call is that it's an extreme example of a sentiment that could grow, given the threat of offshoring and the rancor around it.
When times are tough, there is a danger of tolerant people turning on each other.
For years, Silicon Valley has been losing jobs. Some have been lost to cheaper labor markets, such as India and China. Economists say increasingly complicated and well-paying jobs will move or be created in those markets rather than here.
Already there are Web-based campaigns to harass call center workers. The Times of India reports a sharp increase in abusive and racist calls to Indian call centers in recent months.
One message-board poster urges people to spend 10 minutes a day phoning call centers and harassing Indian workers.
Chatterjee says he understands the frustration, but not the reaction.
``That person just came to do their job,'' he says.
Hate isn't the answer. Whether you like offshoring or not, it isn't going to stop. The United States needs to become better at educating the next generation of technologists. Companies and government need to provide training and short-term financial support for U.S. workers who lose their jobs to offshoring.
Silicon Valley has earned a reputation as a region that tolerates differences. That tolerance will continue to be tested by global changes and local economic stresses.
We can enhance the valley's reputation by finding innovative ways to take advantage of a world where work easily migrates across borders. We can create new partnerships. Silicon Valley companies can train workers here for cutting-edge pursuits that will lead to more jobs here and abroad.
Or we can choose to fail and take up with the shock jocks and anonymous Internet ranters.