I am sure that you have been watching the hurricane recovery effort in New Orleans. It is a slow, painstaking process that can be excruciatingly hard to watch. At times it seems so surreal...is this happening in the United States? Yes it is. Before I comment further the people who are attempting to leave New Orleans are American citizens. They are evacuees, not refugees. I realize that the news media likes to pick up on popular, "for the moment" terms to describe events as they unfold. Still, like wildfire, the wrong terms are given and repeated over and over again until they become the most commonly used and accepted phrases. Might I say that the description of many of our fellow Americans as refugees is repugnant? When the term is used in its proper sense, refugee means the following as per the Merriam-Webster Legal Dictionary of 1996: A refugee is 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) Um, excuse me...there is no persecution going on in New Orleans. There was a hurricane, the levees were breached, and the city was flooded. Yes, there is lawlessness going on but the people are leaving because their homes were destroyed. The lawlessness is a side issue; if there was law and order New Orleans residents would still be leaving. The evacuees are leaving one city or state for another. They are not leaving the United States!I like to give people the benefit of the doubt when terms are used erroneously, but part of me wonders if the term "refugee" would have been used if the evacuees were white. I certainly hope that I am wrong, but it is a thought that has crossed my mind. |
