refugee, IDP, evacuee

[Chris Waigl]

It looks like the rejection of "refugee" wasn't a one-off occurrence,
but is being deliberately used to make a point.

I caught an interview with Jesse Jackson on last night's BBC Five Live
"Up All Night" program, where he made the following statement (the
quality of the phone line was bad, so I'm not 100% sure I am getting
everything right, just about 98%):

----
BBC host: Are you saying that proper plans weren't made because uh the
overwhelming majority of the population is black?
Jackson: Well, it appears to be some of that but not just that.  Uh it
could be a combination of racial insensitivity,  ineptitude and
indifference.  All three are unacceptable.  Uh American has watched for
a week now for the most part black people suffering and the abuse of
language, like  the media refers to blacks taking food as looting,
whites taking food as finding food. I recall a lot of racial language
even in the description how people are handling uh their crisis.  The
media refers to blacks as refugees - we are *not* refugees, we are
citizens, but not from another country in search of - uh running from
persecution. We are American citizens, but we're not getting treated
that way.
----


And in today's Guardian:

----

Just the term "evacuees" carries with it, like those fleeing the
wastelands, a certain amount of baggage. When some news reports started
referring to refugees, there was strong condemnation from civil rights
groups.

"I think it's an offensive term," Bruce Gordon, the president of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the oldest
civil rights organisation in the country, told the Guardian.

He was in Baton Rouge as part of a large NAACP contingent that has
arrived to assist with relief efforts. "These people are fellow
Americans. Using the word refugees makes it sound like they are not of us."

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1562770,00.html>
----

Dave Wilton wrote:

> Alice Faber:
>> Or sensitive to some connotations of the word that have nothing to
>> do with its etymological history. I've seen enough statements now
>> from people who think that use of the word "refugee" connotes
>> "not-American", and I think that it's disrespectful, given how
>> marginalized many of the folks who were most affected by the storm
>> already feel.
>
>
> And objectionable to those who don't want to face the fact that many
> of the policies of the US government since the 1980s have created a
> class of people in the US who are living in Third World conditions.
>
> "Somewhere, somehow somebody Must have kicked you around some Tell me
> why you wanna lay there And revel in your abandon Listen it don't
> make no difference to me baby Everybody's had to fight to be free You
> see you don't have to live like a refugee"

To me it looks like a mixture of a) insisting on having the same rights
as all US citizens and b) and "us" vs "them" issue: "refugees" = "they".
If "we" help them it is an act of generosity, and "we" should receive
credit and gratitude for it. (If "we" don't, it's at worst callousness,
but hey, you can't help everybody.) But the (black) evacuees and in
general people in mortal danger because of the hurricane and the flood
are not "they", they are "us", too, and have the right to assistance.
Conclusion: they can't be refugees.

Ben Zimmer put b) more eloquently in the other "refugee" thread.

Chris Waigl
who thinks that b) is problematic, because it leaves the door open to
arguing that it would be (or have been) perfectly all right to leave
escapees who don't happen to be US citizens endure those atrocious
conditions.