Cingular pulls “La Migra” ringtone

Cingular pulls “La Migra” ringtone

Cell phone company reacts quickly to complaints

BY CHRIS MAHON

The Brownsville Herald - May 10, 06 | 9:53 am


Cingular Wireless LLC has removed its “La Migra Alert” ringtone from the company’s Web site and apologized for its “offensive” na-ture.

The ringer paints this scene: Anytown, USA. An undocumented Hispanic immigrant selling oranges on the street. Then, sirens wail and a man with a mild Southern accent begins to speak.

“Calmate, calmate, this is la migra. Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I’m deporting you back home-o.”

The ringer that reads like a page from an off-color comedy script had been for sale on cingular.com for about two months at $2.49.

It was one of thousands available for download from the company’s Web site but the only one pulled from the site at about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Activists from Brownsville to Washington, D.C., were outraged to learn that Cingular was selling what they considered a racist product.

The Rev. Michael Seifert, a local community activist and priest at San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church in Cameron Park was stunned.

“I don’t even know how to respond,” said Seifert, an organizer for the May 1 immigrant rights protest. “It’s hateful. It’s just a hateful thing. If I had Cingular, I’d cancel them in a second.”

Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, called the ringer “horribly offensive and a disgusting thing.”

Wilkes said he called AT&T, named “America’s Most Admired Telecommunications Company” by Fortune magazine in February, demanding it be removed from the ringtone lineup.

Walt Sharp, a spokesman for AT&T Inc., part owner of Cingular, did not immediately comment after listening to the ringer.

“Let me do some inquiring,” he said.

Later, Sharp offered an apology on behalf of AT&T for anyone who may have been offended by the ringer.

Cingular officials seemed caught off-guard by their own Web site’s content.

“Oh my goodness” was the initial reaction from company spokesman Mark Siegel after listening to the ringtone during a tele-phone interview.

Like AT&T’s Sharp, Siegel said he needed to do some research before offering comments.

In a later interview, Siegel said, “We’re in the process of pulling the ringtone, and needless to say, we deeply regret and apologize for it ever being there in the first place.

“The ringtone is blatantly offensive.”

Siegel said the company is reviewing its process of screening ringtones, which are created by “a combination of companies that we work with and in-house (staff), but ultimately, Cingular is accountable for it.”

While most ringtones offer a popular song, comedy item or phrase, the “La Migra” ringer was among a handful that made light of such things as minorities, homosexuals or speech impediments.

Other Cingular ringtones include “Benji’s Queer” about a homosexual dog and “Stuttering Gangster.”

While Siegel offered an apology for the “Migra” ringtone, he said of the others, “People can choose if they like something or not.”

He added that there is a parental control option on the site so parents can choose what options are available for their children.

Siegel did not explain the distinction between a ringtone offensive to Hispanics and those that poke fun at other groups.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said, adding Cingular’s ringtones were no different than its competitors’.

A search of other cell phone company Web sites did not turn up the “Migra” ringtone, however Verizon Wireless does offer “Benji’s Queer.”

The “La Migra” item had been downloaded eight times from the Cingular Web site, the spokesman said.

LULAC’s Brent Wilkes was pleased with the company’s apology and that it no longer offers the item, but he said there were still larger issues.

“I don’t think (bigotry) is an official corporate policy, but there’s a legitimate question about corporate America crossing the line.”

Wilkes thought it was “hypocritical” for Cingular to have a Hispanic public relations department and boast of treating customers with respect, while at the same time selling a ringtone that instructs immigrants to “put down the oranges.”


LINKY: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/ts_more.php?id=70690_0_10_0_M36




Cingular Claims "Offensive" Ringtone Was Satire

May 12, 2006 2:19 p.m. EST

Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer

Brownsville, Texas (AHN)—The company that developed the controversial lyrics for a ringtone about deportation apologized Thursday after Cingular Wireless LLC pulled it for being offensive.

Barrio Mobile says the ringtone "La Migra"—a slang term for Border Patrol agent—was satire and shouldn't be taken seriously.

According to the AP report, Mexican-American comic Paul Saucido wrote the ringtone that features a male voice, acting as a Border Patrol agent with a Southern drawl, saying, "I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I'm deporting you back home-o."

Jonathan Dworkin, a vice president of Cellfish Media, which distributed the ringtone. Says Saucido’s "position is that people of Hispanic background need to maintain a sense of humor about the immigration situation."


LINKY: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7003538017



Exclusive: Interview With Cingular "Migra" Ringtone Creator

Paul Saucido has made his career with edgy, ethnic comedy celebrating his Mexican-American heritage. So he was pretty amazed when a ringtone he developed for Barrio Mobile was called racist and yanked from Cingular's deck earlier this week.

The ringtone, "La Migra Alert," is Saucido pretending to be an immigration official with a really bad fake Southern accent, saying, "I'm deporting you back home-o." (Barrio Mobile sent me the ringtone, but said I couldn't publish it.)

The character came from a brainstorming session between him and a few other Latino comedians, Saucido said, citing Dave Chapelle and Carlos Mencia among his comedic influences.

"It was inspired by other comedians who riff on the same stereotype of the immigration officer ... you know how people try to phonetically speak when they talk down to you, like, 'where is the bathroom-o?'" he said.

The ringtone came as part of a package of comic ringtone characters developed by Saucido, including a hovering, novela-obsessed Mexican mom, a Mexican dad, and a "barrio kid" who would say "I can't make it to the phone right now, I'm busy rotating the tires on my low-rider." All of Saucido's ringtones have been removed by Cingular, he says.

"I think because of the times, right now people are a little extra sensitive [about immigration issues,]" he said. "I'm sensitive to this issue! But people obviously leave their senses of humor behind when they get so much fever in them. I thought the Migra character was the last character that would get that kind of reaction."

Saucido says there's "absolutely" room for edgy comedy in the ringtone world.

"I've played it for all my friends and they love them - they're waiting for them to be sold, and they're like, where can we buy them?" he said. "These companies have got to have some backbone to say we bought this content, we believe in it, and we're not going to get rid of it just because the first advocacy group calls racism. Dude, everyone that produced them and worked for them - we're all Mexican!"


LINKY: http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/05/11/11497.aspx

 

And here is the famous ringtone:

http://www.vaciloneros.com/sounds/ringtones/laMigra.mp3

 

nop....it's all over the net!