I feel that discussing the problems with the response to Katrina is important, but who really cares what the fuck we call people who are displaced by Katrina?

What possible consequence can there be if we call them "refugees?"

Some guy on CNN the other day was really pissed that the media called them refugees. The guy said "these are American's not refugees!"

I found 3 entries for refugee on dictionary.com, and i feel all could be applied to the current situation.

ref·u·gee
n.
One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution.

Main Entry: ref·u·gee
Pronunciation: "re-fyu-'jE
Function: noun
: an individual seeking refuge or asylum; especially : an individual who has left his or her native country and is unwilling or unable to return to it because of persecution or fear of persecution (as because of race, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion)

refugee
n : an exile who flees for safety

and this one from my home dictionary:

refugee
one who flees for safety, esp. from political or religious persecution, to a foreign land

I understand the connotations that it carries, but none of those are stong enough to make me think that air time needs to be used for the issue.

Frankly i don't care what the media calls them, i was just pointing out that the term refugee is probably a fair term in this case. But you are right, there is a certain imagery that accompanies the thought of a refugee, and it's not something i would associate with displaced storm victims.

NEW YORK - What do you call people who have been driven from their homes with only the clothes on their backs, unsure if they will ever be able to return, and forced to build a new life in a strange place?

ADVERTISEMENT

News organizations are struggling for the right word.

Many, including The Associated Press, have used "refugee" to describe those displaced by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.

But the choice has stirred anger among some readers and other critics, particularly in the black community. They have argued that "refugee" somehow implies that the displaced storm victims, many of whom are black, are second-class citizens — or not even Americans.

"It is racist to call American citizens refugees," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, visiting the Houston Astrodome on Monday. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed similar sentiments.

Others have countered that the terms "evacuees" or even "displaced" are too clinical and not sufficiently dramatic to convey the dire situation that confronts many of Katrina's survivors.

President Bush, who has spent days trying to deflect criticism that he responded sluggishly to the disaster, weighed in on Tuesday. "The people we're talking about are not refugees," he said. "They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."

The 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention describes a refugee as someone who has fled across an international border to escape violence or persecution. But the Webster's New World Dictionary defines it more broadly as "a person who flees from home or country to seek refuge elsewhere, as in a time of war or of political or religious persecution."

The criticism has led several news organizations to ban the word in their Katrina coverage. Among them are The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and The Boston Globe.

"A number of people — from officials speaking publicly to colleagues here — said the term `refugees' appeared to imply that people displaced from New Orleans ... were other than Americans," Leonard Downie Jr., the Post's executive editor, wrote in an e-mail to his staff.

At the Herald, said executive editor Tom Fiedler, "it began to feel odd, describing people huddled in New Orleans' convention center as refugees. It felt inadequate to the situation. ... It wasn't as precise as `evacuees.'"

And CNN has advised producers that "evacuee" is a better word, said spokeswoman Christa Robinson.

The AP and The New York Times are among those continuing to use the word where it is deemed appropriate.

"The AP is using the term `refugee' where appropriate to capture the sweep and scope of the effects of this historic natural disaster on a vast number of our citizens," said Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. "Several hundred thousand people have been uprooted from their homes and communities and forced to seek refuge in more than 30 different states across America. Until such time as they are able to take up new lives in their new communities or return to their former homes, they will be refugees."

The Times was adhering to a similar policy.

"We have not banned the word `refugee,'" said spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. "We have used it along with `evacuee,' `survivor,' `displaced' and various other terms that fit what our reporters are seeing on the ground. Webster's defines a refugee as a person fleeing `home or country' in search of refuge, and it certainly does justice to the suffering legions driven from their homes by Katrina."

Columnist William Safire, who writes the weekly "On Language" column for The New York Times Magazine, said he did not see how the term "refugee" had any racial implications.

"A refugee can be a person of any race at all," he said. "A refugee is a person who seeks refuge."

He first suggested using the term "hurricane refugees." After thinking it over, though, he said he would probably simply use "flood victims," to avoid any political connotations that the word "refugee" may have taken on in the current debate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050906/ap_ ... ugees__hk4

It's just another stupid fucking thing that people can disagree and argue over on TV.

This is amusing.

Refugee- someone seeking refuge. Oh dear, that just won't work!

Why wouldn't you want to be "survivor" instead of "victim"??

Because of the pop-culture connotations. People might start thinking its cool and we'll have a Survivor: New Orleans coming out this fall.

I read somewhere that a person has been seen in NO wearing a shirt that says "I survived Hurricane Katrina and all I looted was this lousy T-shirt"

Those are gonna sell like hotcakes.

I would imagine too that most of the people that were affected by all of this have much bigger things to worry about than what people are referring to them as.

I shouldn't laugh, but that is funny

I'd imagine that those making a fuss out of it aren't the people directly affected by all of this.

Everyone, especially the press and politicians these days wants to be politically correct and not offend some victim. I guess to some or probably alot of people maybe would find being called a refugee offensive.

Not that I really give a shit about what word is used, but only one of the four definitions you posted would apply to this situation, and that one only loosely. The other three specifically said that the people had to leave their country, and the people from New Orleans, while fitting the rest of the defintion, have not had to seek "refuge" or "asylum" in another country.

"It is racist to call American citizens refugees," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, visiting the Houston Astrodome on Monday.


excuse me, but what? a refugee is someone seeking refuge from a situation by leaving. it doesn't imply a lower class. it doesn't imply race. it implies that something horrible has happened, and people are forced to abandon their homes and seek out a new place to live. it implies a time frame for these actions too. refugees are displaced for long periods of time.

we should also note the fact that it is not just blacks who were affected by this. white people live in the south too. i'm sure there were hispanics and other groups of people that were affected too. it is not racist to label a group of mixed race people refugees. i suppose it could be racist if ONLY blacks were referred to as refugees and whites (and everyone else) as displaced citizens, but i haven't seen one instance of that occurring. but surely, now that i've said it, someone will link a piece showing it.

evacuee, then, suggests a very temporary condition. an evacuee would be someone who evacuated their home because of the storm, and had to wait until the flood waters receeded before going back home. an evacuee has a place to go back to. it's a temporary and transient thing.

all of the victims of the storm are just that. victims. rather their homes and lives were completely or slightly destroyed, they have been the victim of a horrible natural disaster. if they're alive, they're survivors, too. if they're not currently at home, they're displaced.

*technically A & C don't specify leaving a country, but the word is really a grey area when it come to meaning. It can be applied to many situations. I was just trying to illustrate it still might be accurate in this one.
Keep in mind that while all those definitions make reference to religious or political persecution, they are used as examples and not as the actual definition.
Anyways i agree that all 4 of those definitions can only be loosly applied, but even the definition of refugee seems to vary greatly from every source i look at. The point is that the word isn't that far off the mark, and that people are getting up in arms about it is rediculous.

It's been a long time since I've read such an in-depth critique of something Jesse Jackson said.

This whole debate is such a joke.

The are far more glaring race issues, rescue issues, accountablity issues, blame issues, clear up issues ...................

Rather than wasting time on the connotations of certain words.

Whatever you call these people it is a travesty it happened and an injustice that the majority of people in the shit are black.

Any way you slice it, these are "Internally Displaced Refugees"