09.12.05
Posted in culture at 5:14 pm by
I’m sure this has been driven into the ground already in other places over the blogosphere–but, if it has, I haven’t seen it. Here’s my thing:
All over the news, you name it, FOX “News”, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the Katrina victims being shipped around the US are being referred to as ‘refugees.’ Government officials calling these folks refugees, even God fearing church-goers (imagine that.) These people are NOT refugees. They ARE evacuees. They’ve been evacuated from their homes.
Refugees are people from another country. They’re not our own. To call the folks who’re evacuees ‘refugees’ is yet another in a long line of slaps to their face. They are us. They haven’t sought refuge from a foreign dictator, or a foreign war. They are us. We are them. They’ve been evacuated. To call them a refugee disowns them. It works, rhetorically, to make them less than American.
I know, you didn’t know the difference between ‘refugee’ and ‘evacuee’. And, you know what, neither did I until it was pointed out to me. Not knowing you’re a racist, or not knowing you’re participating in racist proceedures is not a defense of behaving in that way. These kinds of things root their way into all of our lives. It’s how we deal with the very real problem of racism in our lives that defines us.
Go ahead, accuse me of over-reacting, of making a mountain out of a molehill just like I did with ‘the blockbuster thing‘. Maybe it is just a molehill. (Though, I suspect not.) But, either way you slice it, enough molehills add up to one hell of a mountain.
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Posted in culture at 5:14 pm by
I’m sure this has been driven into the ground already in other places over the blogosphere–but, if it has, I haven’t seen it. Here’s my thing:
All over the news, you name it, FOX “News”, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, the Katrina victims being shipped around the US are being referred to as ‘refugees.’ Government officials calling these folks refugees, even God fearing church-goers (imagine that.) These people are NOT refugees. They ARE evacuees. They’ve been evacuated from their homes.
Refugees are people from another country. They’re not our own. To call the folks who’re evacuees ‘refugees’ is yet another in a long line of slaps to their face. They are us. They haven’t sought refuge from a foreign dictator, or a foreign war. They are us. We are them. They’ve been evacuated. To call them a refugee disowns them. It works, rhetorically, to make them less than American.
I know, you didn’t know the difference between ‘refugee’ and ‘evacuee’. And, you know what, neither did I until it was pointed out to me. Not knowing you’re a racist, or not knowing you’re participating in racist proceedures is not a defense of behaving in that way. These kinds of things root their way into all of our lives. It’s how we deal with the very real problem of racism in our lives that defines us.
Go ahead, accuse me of over-reacting, of making a mountain out of a molehill just like I did with ‘the blockbuster thing‘. Maybe it is just a molehill. (Though, I suspect not.) But, either way you slice it, enough molehills add up to one hell of a mountain.
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zalm said,
September 12, 2005 at 8:31 pm
I can only speak for myself here. I’ll confess that I used the word “refugee” once or twice very early on after Katrina hit.
Honestly, I was so shellshocked by it all, I was grasping at words to explain how I felt. And “evacuee” just wasn’t in my vocabulary. “Refugee” was the only analagous word I could think of.
Was my usage racist? I don’t know. I don’t doubt that I’m a racist in ways I don’t even notice. But I don’t think I used the term at the time to describe people with a particular skin color.
Is a limited vocabulary inherently racist? Possibly. At the very least, it’s ignorant. And I will certainly admit to using the term ignorantly.
Are you making a mountain out of a molehill? Probably not. I think you’re right to say that it’s an inappropriate term in this instance. And I do think it’s important to be careful about what our words mean.
But in this instance, I think racism is a subset of ignorance. And I think it was possible to use the word, particularly early on, out of ignorance, but not out of racism.
Just my initial thoughts…
Jim said,
September 12, 2005 at 9:46 pm
Greetings Brandon. I’ve been avoiding the term refugee because of it’s racist overtones. And as I was reading this post earlier, I was high fiving the air (since no one was in the room to high five with), thinking “Right on! Sock it to ‘em!”
But then I read this piece by an evacuee who uses the term “refugee” at least three times to describe himself, his family, and others. It may be possible to use the term “refugee” not out of ignorance or racism but out of a lack of better terms. These are people who searched (and in the case of the author of the linked article, found) refuge from the destruction. If you view Katrina as an oppressive, invading force then the term does have some salience, I guess. I probably won’t use that term myself, I prefer evacuee, but if the evacuees themselves want to use it, I’ll not fault them for it.
But good on you for pointing out the racist tendencies present in each of us and which we must fight. Awareness is half the battle.
Brandon said,
September 12, 2005 at 9:57 pm
You’re both right, of course.
And, in truth, I should be socking it to myself just as much as anyone else. I hope that came across in the post, too.
While some evacuees will comfortably refer to themselves as ‘refugees’ I think that there’s probably an effect of race on the overall reticence to apply the term to one’s self. I know lots of people in the black community around here have been offended by the term–though, most of the white folks I know haven’t really batted an eyelash at it…largely, as Zalm asserts, out of ignorance rather than bigotry.
In a very real and unfortunate sense, though, the term ‘refugee’ might, in fact, be more accurate to describe some of these folks. In many ways, lots of them were treated as if they WEREN’T our own–as if they’re less than American. They were neglected by their government.
I’m not saying that’s right, of course. But the use of the term–properly couched–could be an effective truth telling device.
Yet, I think it important that we Americans resoundingly echo that these folks are ours. That they’re just as important to us as anyone else in this great country.
Eric W said,
September 13, 2005 at 9:44 am
To me, and most of the people I’ve talked to about this, “refugee” means simply someone seeking refuge.
Under international law it’s defined as someone from who is ouside their country seeking refuge.
Either way you look at it, I have a hard time seeing anything racist about the word. No one has seperated racial groups and called one “refugees” and the other “evacuees.”
With all the work that needs to be done for this “group of Americans negatively affected by hurricane Katrina”, I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone - you or Jesse Jackson - to nitpick - yes, nitpick - about what descriptive word would be politcally correct to use.
After all, we should be the refuge from the storm, not add to the misery.
Brandon said,
September 13, 2005 at 10:59 am
I’m not sure I like your insinuation, Eric.
How, exactly, is it that by using correct, less ignorant terminology that I’m adding to the misery?
I’m sorry if it doesn’t feel good to you that I make note of little bits of ignorance. It doesn’t feel particularly good to me, either. I don’t like being ignorant, but I am from time to time. Just because it doesn’t feel good to me to identify my shortcomings, doesn’t mean I should stop.
You want to think what I’m doing is nitpicking, fine. But I’d be very careful about calling what I’m doing ‘adding to the misery.’ Cause’ frankly, there are a whole host of people who’d say the same thing about not being critical of the words which we use, ignorantly or not.
Josh Fuller said,
September 13, 2005 at 1:07 pm
I see the distinction between the two words very clearly, but I’m afraid I’m completely missing where racism comes into it. Like evacuees, refugees can be any color. Calling evacuees refugees is a misnomer, yes, but I don’t see why you think it a disparaging one. Just a simple mistake, confusing two groups of people who have a lot in common, I would say.
Brandon said,
September 13, 2005 at 1:13 pm
I guess, Josh, it’s the particular case that is where racism comes into it. The vast majority of these folks being black, etc.
My assertion of this being racism is largely driven by concerns that have been raised about it in the african american community.
Kent said,
September 14, 2005 at 3:27 pm
I think the racism goes a lot deeper than you suspect. The need to find a different term to define OUR refugees, in order to set them apart from the great third world OTHER, is in itself racist. A refugee is a refugee. If we can’t see victims of the tsunami the or of the genocide in The Sudan as just as much US, we are very much missing out on the gospel. Nationalism, tribalism, groupism, racism, whatever you want to call it, it’s all US versus THEM. While I applaud the desire to recognize that blacks in America are after all US, I think it’s just a small step towards where God wants us to go.
I find it kind of enlightening to recognize that we Americans are no better than anyone else, we can have refugees HERE too!
Kent
ninjanun said,
September 14, 2005 at 6:25 pm
By definition, a refugee is someone who must flee their country. An evacuee is someone who has to flee a certain area, but still remains within their own country. During the London air raids, many children were evacuated to stay with households in outlying areas (C.S. Lewis took some in) and they were definitely called “evacuees,” not “refugees.”
Kent said,
September 14, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Ninjanun,
Thanks for the clarification, and I’ll take it as a correction.
However, the point of this discussion is that to be a refugee is to be somehow morally inferior or of less value than to be an evacuee. Otherwise, why would it be an insult to have this semantic error used to describe you?
Brandon said,
September 14, 2005 at 8:36 pm
I think that what I take to be morally demeaning is to detract value from a certain type of individual. To me, to refer to a fellow citizen as less than a citizen, that’s a form of derogation.
Your previous point, Kent, is well taken, though. Indeed, we should have as much compassion for folks who aren’t US citizens, as we have for those who are. Their lives are of no less value.
Kent said,
September 15, 2005 at 7:01 pm
I’m convinced! “Evacuees” it IS.
sarah said,
September 22, 2005 at 1:36 am
I realize I’m coming into this discussion a bit late, but– thanks for your thoughts on this. As someone who has worked with refugees (A refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…” The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, unchr.org) I have been miffed by the media’s use of the term ‘refugee’ to describe those fleeing the horrors in New Orleans.
Very technically speaking, the Katrina evacuees would be called IDPs– Internally Displaced People. (”Internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.” –Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, OCHA, 1998 idpproject.org)
Speaking as someone who has worked with international refugees, I do not see the term ‘refugee’ as a derogatory or negative one– but I think that is a personal perspective, and I can very much understand the negative connotations that the word carries. To me, refugees are amazing, resilient people who work hard to start new lives– and I when I think of the Katrina evacuees in that light, I feel hope.
Oh, and one last thought– when we say evacuee or refugee, are we referring to those people we’ve seen on the news in the past few weeks– or are we referring to everyone that fled New Orleans– be it before or after Katrina hit? IDP, I think, accounts for the circumstances of all of those who left their homes. Just a thought.