The benefits of an Anglo name

A SUDANESE man who has applied unsuccessfully for more than 1000 jobs has resorted to using a fake Anglo name on his resume in a desperate attempt to get work.
Former refugee Agnok Lueth, 23, who fled war-torn Sudan for Melbourne in 2004, created the resume alias "Daniel McClean" because he believed Australian employers were unwilling to give him a fair go under his real name.
Mr Lueth sent out hundreds of resumes for jobs he was qualified for, but only received callbacks on applications with the fake names.
Of the six applications with the fake name, he got five callbacks.
The Swinburne University biomedicine and commerce double degree student can speak three languages, has a favourable work history and volunteered for three years for an Australian aid organisation.
Despite meeting the job criteria for positions as a waiter, shop assistant, call centre worker and bank teller, Mr Lueth told mX he felt overlooked by employers.
"I did a test to see if it was an experience problem or something more," he said.
"I sent six resumes with my qualifications but used a different name, and I was surprised at how quickly I heard back from five of the companies for interview requests."
(Read more...)

Perhaps there is more to this story, but taken at face value it is troubling yet not surprising. Recent studies in Australia, the US and Canada showed that having an Anglo-sounding name is a massive advantage in the job hunt. You can read about that in my previous post here.
New migrants are usually going to have some obstacles in a job interview, simply due to challenges of communication and culture which may result in a slight disadvantage compared to locally-raised folks. But from the looks of things, even getting a job interview is challenge enough.

The Birth of a Nation

On July 9th, South Sudan officially became the world's 193rd sovereign nation.
It is an understandably joyous occasion for a region that has rebelled against the oppressive government of Sudan, and endured a bloody civil war in which an estimated 2 million people have been killed and 4 million displaced.
There is some cause for optimism for the long-term future of South Sudan as it is rich in oil, and has agricultural land that has led some to predict it will become the breadbasket of East Africa.
But for the time being, the new nation remains mired in dire conditions, after decades of neglect by their former rulers. Illiteracy is around 85%, and 90% of its 8 million citizens live on less than US$1 a day. North Sudan still claims some oil-rich territory along the border, which remains a cause of dispute. Infrastructure is woefully underdeveloped. And the country is home to 200 different ethnic groups who will have to learn to get along in this new political environment.
But long-awaited stability in South Sudan will hopefully mean greater stability in the nations that border it, and an easing of the massive refugee crisis caused by the war.

Bangs gets his own car ad

Some of you might have come across rapper Bangs due to his song Take U To Da Movies, which became a worldwide sensation on Youtube, where it has so far garnered more than 3 million hits. It's popularity was not due to the song's quality, however; Take U To Da Movies is one of the most woeful examples of hip-hop you'll ever come across, to the point where it becomes unintentionally hilarious. I have great trouble watching it - I feel embarassed for the guy - but if you haven't heard it, here it is:



Ugh. Bangs, or "ya boy Bangs" as he refers to himself, is in some ways the canary in the mine of what rap music has become. Too many artists thinks rap is all about the posture, the look and the bling, forgetting that skills on the mic are the foundation of rap; Bangs takes this to its most ridiculous conclusion. A Sudanese refugee who now lives in Melbourne, Bangs has acquired a bizarre level of fame, due largely to his attempts to rap in rudimentary and heavily-accented English.

Well now ya boy Bangs has turned up in the new series of ads for the Honda Jazz. To emphasise how roomy this small car is, Honda have launched a marketing campaign in which members of various subcultural
groups fit themselves inside. It's a clever concept - apart from the rap one featuring Bangs, there is also one asking "How much hipster can you pack into a Jazz?", plus another one featuring bodybuilders and one with ninjas. They are all quite funny - except it is worth noting that everybody seems in on the joke. Except for Bangs, that is, who busts out a verse in his ad that is worse than what a grade 1 kid could write. Check it:



Oh man.

This is the hipster one:


You can check out the others here.

I actually like the quirky humour to the ads. Except I feel bad for Bangs. He's famous around the world, yet he doesn't seem to know it's for the wrong reasons. And Honda are capitalising on that.

Does it matter? Maybe not. Maybe he's "living the dream" and getting paid.

Maybe what bothers me is the fact that so many people are laughing at an immigrant's poor English skills; it plays into some of the more unpleasant stereotypes some people have about migrants.

At least William Hung knew he was terrible. I think.

I'm really hoping Bangs will one day collaborate with Namata.

(Btw, while doing my background research for this post I discovered that googling "bangs movies" gets you a lot more than you bargained for)

RIP Manute Bol: basketballer, humanitarian and originator of the phrase "My bad"

Former NBA star Manute Bol passed away this week, aged 47, after suffering acute kidney failure and complications from a rare skin condition (Stevens-Johnson Syndrome). Despite barely averaging more than 2 points a game, Bol cut a distinctive figure in the basketball world; he was the equal tallest man (at 7 feet 7 inches) to ever play in that league, and still holds the league record for the most blocked shots per minutes played. But his life story was fascinating in far more than basketball terms.

A Dinka herdsman from South Sudan, Bol only started playing basketball at age 15 after moving to the capital Khartoum. Eventually he made it to the NBA where he enjoyed a 9 year career. Outside of basketball he was very committed to the struggle of the South Sudanese against the country's brutal military, making many visits to refugee camps where he was hailed as a hero. After his attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between the warring sides, he was once offered the post of Sports Minister, but refused because the government insisted it was conditional on him converting to Islam. Of the around $6 million he earned over the course of his career, he donated around $3.5 million to a Dinka rebel group, but some bad business investments eventually left him penniless. He ended up returning to the US as a political refugee. He survived a car accident in 2004 which left him with a broken neck. Nonetheless through all these trials and tribulations, he devoted much of his later life to raising money for Sudanese refugees.



No one who was following basketball in the 80s or 90s will easily forget Bol's distinctive frame and shot-blocking ability. Perhaps his most famous moment was a game against Orlando in which he blocks 4 shots in about 5 seconds, as players foolishly kept coming back for more and he just kept rejecting them; you can watch it in the video below. He also became fond of shooting 3-pointers later in his career, not something you expect from such a tall player.



One thing basketball fans may not know, however, is that Bol is generally regarded to be the inventor of the now-popular phrase "My bad." In his early days in the US, when he spoke little English, Bol would apologise to teammates for his on-court mistakes by saying "my bad" instead of "my fault". The phrase became popular in the NBA and filtered down to street-ball levels, and then into mainstream popular culture.

(I've heard it claimed that others were using this term in the 70s and thus Bol didn't invent it; however it is still probable that Bol invented it independently and its popularisation started with him.)

I have two other favourite stories about Bol. One is that he is surely the only NBA player to have killed a lion in the wild with a spear (from his younger days herding cattle). His team-mate Charles Barkley, noting Bol's famously good-natured persona, quipped that if Manute could kill a lion, it must have been sleeping.

The other is about another aspect of Bol's acclimatisation to the NBA environment; despite not speaking a word of English until he was 20, he did learn the art of talking trash, in his thick Sudanese accent. After blocking an opponent's shot, he would quip, "Don't you have cable? Didn't the other guys tell you? Nobody dunks on Manute B-O-L!"

More about Manute Bol's life here.