Apparently, it's not proper to refer to the victims of Katrina -- the ones seeking refuge in Houston and around the country -- as refugees. So says the Rev. Jesse Jackson (a Greenville, SC native, as the Greenville News is always quick to point out).
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.
Even President Bush has said that the refugees are not refugees, according to the AP story.
Turning from the views of activists and the politically correct, the story then examines the word and how news organizations are handling it.
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.
Just when it seems the article takes the logical ground of letting the word define itself, it compromises. Columnist William Safire writes a weekly column about language, and the article closes with him as an authority of semantics.
"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.
Meanwhile, astute bloggers wonder when the MSM will prohibit the use of the name Rev. Jesse Jackson in news stories--especially when there is real news to report (such as this)--because that term connotes a pathetic attention-hungry opportunist.
Posted by JRC at September 6, 2005 11:32 PM | TrackBack