Comment by hn_throwaway_99

To be fair, I don't think that's what's going on here. I think every American is familiar with the "Indian call center accent". That is, it's a unique accent specifically because it is "people with an Indian accent trying to speak with an 'Americanish/Canadianish' accent". It's kind of like the famous "mid Atlantic dialect". Nobody actually speaks it naturally; they are trained to do so.

Point being, this Indian call center accent, while unmistakable, IMO is also extremely easy to understand. I find call center workers speak more slowly and with more "rounded" vowels to try to mimic an American accent. So lack of intelligibility isn't the reason to try to hide this.

But I think trying to hide even this accent isn't so much about racism, it's about trying to fool customers into thinking their support request hasn't been outsourced to the lowest bidder. I'll admit, when I know a call is being handled from India, I immediately think that if my problem isn't a common one that can be handled by a script, that I'll be disappointed.