CLIFF HICKS is a junior
new 8-editorial and
English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
(Author’s Note: This column
does not necessarily reflect the
author’s opinion of all telemarketers
-just his roommate.)
“How can you stand living with
the Antichrist,” she asked the young
man in the leather jacket.
“Well, it’s not the Antichrist,” he
said to the young woman he was hav
ing lunch with. “More of an
Antichrist. He’s really not all that
bad once you get to know him.”
“Still, he’s one of them,” she
hissed.
“Them?”
“You know,” she said, her voice
dropping into a conspiratorial tone,
“telemarketers.” The word came
from her lips like a vulgarity, almost
spat out, as if it were too vile for her
lips to bear.
“You make it sound like a crime
to be one,” he commented.
“It should be,” she said as she
took a sip from her pop.
“Why?” he asked, “TheyTe just
trying to make a living, same as any
one.
“How can anyone do it? That’s
what I want to know.”
“He actually loves his job.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yep.”
“In God’s name, why?”
“To quote him, ‘I get paid bun
dles of money to call up people I’m
never going to meet and harass them.
What could be better than that? It’s
the ultimate punk job.’”
“So he enjoys calling people up
and annoying the piss out of them??
“Not per se, but the end point
really is die money.”
“How much do they get paid any
way?”
“An obscene amount.”
Just makin’ a buck
Telemarketers not spawned from hell
«
You have to understand that this is these
peoples job. They get paid for it. They get
paid for not taking (no 'for an answer....”
“How much?”
“Nearly $10 an hour in some
instances, I believe.”
“You’re right,” she said, “that is
obscene.”
“The scary part is that there’s a
reason for that.”
“What reason? What possible
reason could there be for these peo
ple to get paid obscene amounts of
money for doing something despica
ble?”
“Because it’s profitable,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m serious.”
“Who the hell buys anything
from a telemarketer?”
“Thinking, rational people.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Why would a company pay
obscene amounts of money out for
something that didn’t work?”
“Well....”
“The business has to be prof
itable. Otherwise, these telemarket
ing outfits would close up shop due
to bankruptcy.”
“I guess, but....”
“There are people out there who
actually pay for the things telemar
keters are selling.”
“Come on, are you telling me
people actually stop and listen to
those idiots?”
“Not just listen to,” the young
man in the leather jacket said. “Buy
from.”
“Intelligent people?’’ • ?
“Yep, as smart as you or me.”
“That’s not saying much.”
“Seriously. Normal people buy
from them.”
“Why?”
-
“Because they’re interested in
what they’re selling. Because good
telemarketers are persuasive.
Because sometimes they really are
offering good deals.”
“My ears must be deceiving me.”
“My roommate tells me that
there are lots of people who buy
from them. They’re just the ones who
stop and listen to what’s being
offered.”
“So what about those of us who
don’t buy things over the phone?”
“You have to understand that this
is these people’s job. They get paid
for it. They get paid for not taking
‘no’ for an answer, because people
have this instinctive urge just to say
‘no’ without even listening to what
they’re being offered. So telemar
keters have to go one step beyond
mat. iney nave to Keep asKing, until
they’re fully convinced that you’ve
considered what they’ve offered you
and reached the conclusion that you i
really aren’t interested - or until you
hang up on them.”
“It isn’t rude to hang up them?”
“If you’re not
going to listen, no,”
the young man said.
“Why waste your
time and theirs?”
“I suppose I just
consider it an inva
sion of privacy.”
“Then haftg up.
You tosSjtiiik mild if
the trash.”
“But these are people.”
“That’s what they’re counting on,
that you’ll listen and consider it.”
“I still think it’s an evil way to
make a living.”
The young man sighed. “We each
have to somehow. They’re just peo
ple.”
“So he’s not the Antichrist?”
He just laughed. “No, he’s as reg
ular as you and me. He eate
and sleeps.”
“Fancy that.”
/
Aaron Steckelberg/DN
Guest
VIEW
Thank you, but •••
Americans have much to be grateful for, but plenty of problems
TIMOTHY P. MCCARTHY
is a columnist for the
Columbia Daily Spectator
at Columbia University.
(U-WIRE) NEW YORK—The
Thanksgiving holiday is never an easy
time for me, for despite the prevailing
tendency to think that things are just
fine in America, I maintain that there is
still much to criticize and much work U
be done before unconditional thanks
are in order.
Recently, in the wake of debates
about everything from Ebonics to
desegregation in Little Rock, Ark., to
affirmative action, it seems like every
one is assessing the value of integration.
Civil rights organizations like the
NAACP are engaged in an internal
debate, one which has long raged withii
the rank-and-file of African-American
communities, about whether integrated
schools truly benefit black children.
Conservatives, whites as well as
some blacks, are arguing against affir
mative action on the grounds that it pro
motes a feeling of inferiority among
minorities, and, moreover, that it violate
America’s constitutional claim - never i
reality! - of color-blind individualism.
Whites think they’ve done enough
for civil rights; and blacks, having put
up with racism for a lot longer than
whites have been engaged in civil
rights struggles, are losing faith (and
ground) as they grow more and more
convinced that white power and black
power are mutually exclusive.
Bowing to the sympathies of
racists, nationalists and pessimists
alike, Americans seem to be abandon
ing hopes of a truly integrated society.
We cannot afford to lose this hope.
But neither can we afford to be blindly
optimistic about the commitment to
integration.
Historically, “integration” has
> meant using law and public policy to
grant black people, especially, admis
sion to institutions previously the
exclusive provinces of white people.
The Emancipation Proclamation,
Reconstruction Amendments, Brown
vs. Board of Education, the Civil
Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 were all
“top-down” policies that opened up
portions of white society to blacks,
i Underlying this national movement
towards integration was the belief that
any form of segregation or discrimina
tion was unjust, that for a society to be
truly democratic, every one of its institu
tions must be available to all its citizens
Also present, however, was a more
subtle contention that “white society”
s would be “good for” black people. It
i would help them to get up to speed, th(
argument goes. Or, to use an earlier
language, it would help “civilize” then
How might we maintain our com
mitment to a society in which discrimi
nation, in all its forms, is resisted, a
society in which integration means
more than allowing blacks access to
whites? First of all, we must reject the
u-—
... Americans seem to be abandoning hopes of
a truly integrated society
notion that “whiteness” is the superior
standard against which everything else
should be judged. “White society” is a
historical construction whose very
existence relies upon a consolidation of
economic and political power with
notions of supremacy.
For integration to work, “white
society” must cease to exist through a
combination of radical economic and
political redistribution, full cultural and
educational exchange, and a bold will
ingness to grapple with the “ordeal” of
integration in boh public and private
spaces. If there is anything the last 30
years taught us, it is that integration
. cannot work if power remains concen
trated in the hands of a few white men,
if private and public spheres are subject
to different sets of rules.
Finally, we must realize that a full
engagement with people from different
backgrounds is, however difficult to
i. sustain, absolutely essential for its suc
cess. We can take pride in norms and
- customs we call “our own” without
granting fear and anger and hate the
dignity they do not deserve by refusing
to share the best of ourselves, humbly,
with those around us.
Over the break, I was fortunate to
experience the “ordeal” of integration
at its best, when I got together to play
pick-up basketball with friends from
back home. Black and white, middle
and working class, we are now teachers
and lawyers, factory workers and stu
dents; some of us are preparing for
marriage and for fatherhood.
Despite our many differences, we
still talk a “big game,” even if that
game has changed since we played
together back in the 1980s. After the
game, four of us - two black, two white
- went back to my house for lunch. As
we fought for the turkey and shared the
potato salad, we slipped back into the
“slang” of our childhood days, crack
ing jokes about past girlfriends, remi
niscing about the games won and lost,
dreams attained and deferred.
For over an hour, we laughed so
hard we almost cried, remembering as
well the times we had cried with one
another - and for one another - when
trouble with school, the law, or relation
ships left us deeply uncertain about the
future.
In the midst of it all, I recalled a com
ment made by another friend of ours
some time ago: that we were an “unlike
ly” group of friends, divided as we were
along lines of color, class, and creed.
And yet, as “unlikely” as we might seem,
we had, together, helped each other to
figure out things like color, class and
creed for nearly a generation. It wasn’t
always pretty, and it sure as hell wasn’t
easy, but it was everlastingly worth it
And so last weekend, away from
policy and ideology and inequality, I
rediscovered my space for hope, a place
in which integration and affirmative
action take the forms of endless personal
jokes, moves to the hoop that embarrass
the guy who’s trying to guard you, and
an unshakable faith that where - and
whom - you come from stills matters.
As Baldwin says: “If the word
‘integration’ means anything, this is
what it means: that we, with love, shall
force our brothers to see themselves as
they are, to cease fleeing from reality
and begin to change it”
For this version of integration - and
for those childhood friendships that
remain “unlikely” even as they give us
strength and hope in these troubled times
-I do give thanks. And yet I wonder if
our children will be able to do the same.
