"refugee" a bad word

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 14:01:17 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 13:13:36 -0400, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>
>>Isn't the real issue the connotation of the word: "refugee" connotes
>>a person in a desperate plight in a situation where order has broken
>>down and government is unable to fix things, or where governmental
>>oppression drives people to flee.  Naturally Republicans don't want the
>>word being used about Americans, despite its obvious relevance to what
>>is happening in New Orleans and perhaps what lies in the future where
>>other environmental disasters and infrastructural breakdowns may await
>>us.
>
>No doubt true, but note that the member of Congress who spoke on CNN is a
>Democrat -- Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of the Congressional Black Caucus.
>
>-----
>http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/lt.01.html
>
>REP. CAROLYN CHEEKS KILPATRICK (D), MICHIGAN: I'm Congresswoman Carolyn
>Cheeks Kilpatrick from Detroit, Michigan.
>
>I'd like to add my support to both of my colleagues who have spoken
>before us. And in the absence of our chairman, Mel Watt, who has to be
>in North Carolina, just returned to the country, we come to you this
>morning as a sense of urgency.
>
>First of all, the people are not refugees. There are American citizens.
>They pay taxes. They raise their families. They help American grow, and I
>wish the media would call them American citizens and not refugees, which
>relegates them to another whole status.
>-----
>
>So clearly there are multiple motivations for avoiding the term "refugee".

Another member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Elijah Cummings
(D-Md.) was just on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, reiterating
this point...

-----
CUMMINGS: I'm tired of the news media calling folk refugees. These are
Americans. They pay taxes just like you and me, just like the President
does. So we need to stop calling them refugees, because I think that when
we begin to call them refugees, we begin to treat them like refugees, as
if they are not a part of this country. This is America.
BLITZER: They are evacuees, they have to be evacuated from their homes.
CUMMINGS: That's exactly right.
-----


--Ben Zimmer