refugee, IDP, evacuee

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

I just did a "Fresh Air" piece on these words, which will air
tomorrow (a version will run in the San Jose Mercury and some other
Knight Ridder papers on Sunday). One relevant point is that the press
seems to be using 'refugee' more often in reference to black and poor
people.

In Nexis wire service articles mentioning Katrina over the past week,
records containing 'evacuee' outnumber those containing 'refugee' by
56% to 44% (n=1522). But in contexts in which the words appear within
10 words of 'poor' or 'black', 'refugee' is favored by 68% to 32%
(n=85). In contexts in which the words appear within ten words of
'Astrodome', 'refugee' is favored by 63% to 37% (n=461). There are no
doubt various reasons for these disparities, but there's clearly a
basis for the impression that the words are being used in a selective
way.

Geoff

>Apparently the tide of current opinion is that "we" (whoever that
>is)  need to *narrow* the definition. "Americans," some say, "are
>too good to be called refugees, unless perhaps they've been kicked
>out of the U.S.A. to seek refuge in another country."
>
>The objectors, who are now on their way to sweeping all before them,
>assert quite vocally that "refugee" means, meant, and always must
>mean one single thing--even if it has demonstrably not meant that
>"one single thing" in over two and a half centuries.  The
>essentialist fallacy with a vengeance.
>
>This is what happens to people who don't know a thing about how
>languages work, and we've see it again and again.
>
>But here comes the unconscious racist twist, which betrays an utter
>disregard for nonlinguistic history as well, the fantastic notion
>that the imaginary essential meaning of "refugee" must be "a
>*dark-skinned* person from one country seeking refuge in another,
>esp. the United States."
>
>And the added, even more racist fantasy that, by said imaginary
>essential definition, such persons are somehow inferior,
>contemptible, etc., by nature.
>
>Just how tangled this chain of casuistry is is shown by the fact
>that those who espouse it think they're *opposing* racism. They seem
>to be getting their inspired information on usage from one of the
>Muses, undoubtedly transmitting from a mental hospital on Mt. Ida.
>
>Their strident objections both demonstrate and encourage ignorance
>of how American policy has accepted foreign refugees since before
>the end of World War II.  That's why they keep coming.  It is deeply
>troubling to me as an educator to see political figures of various
>stripes willfully disregarding well known history and trying, from
>afflatus alone, to convince the public that journalists and most
>everybody else use the word "refugee" in a way appropriate only to
>the most bigoted idiots among us.
>
>The entire uproar will fade away, but at least one principle of
>Newspeak will have scored a memorable victory.
>
>JL
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
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