Christopher over at Afro-Netizen cites, in frustration, the media’s somewhat annoying characterization of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina being “refugees“, which in a way gives off this impression that they are people from an entirely different country. How can you be a refugee in your own country? Well, if the media labels you as such then I guess so. Sigh…..
Hurricane Katrina victims are not “refugees”
Hurricane Katrina victims are Americans!
If Mississipians fled to Jamaica, then they would be refugees.
I don’t recall the media referring to Hurricane Andrew victims in ’92 as refugees. Do you?[…]
Like the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said this morning at their press conference (that both CNN & MSNBC cut away from for dubious reasons), we need to not only demand that the Bush Administration intensify its relief efforts for Katrina victims, we need to pressure our major corporations who have not already stepped up to do so on a major scale.
We have the largest economy in the world and have a fairly decent track record of innovation in this country.
Let’s hope that these two facts will override our very rich nation’s equally robust insitutional racism and indifference to the poor.
In the interim, kindly support the NAACP’s hurricane relief efforts by clicking here. (Other links to other support organizations are forthcoming.)
P.S. Incidentally, I’d “steal” food and clothing and “trespass” to survive and sustain my loved ones.
But if you were White and upper-middle-class or wealthier, you would be appear to be more sympathetic to the media apparently. Another sigh. Oh, guess who got the contract to “re-build,” not the city of New Orleans, but naval facilities in Mississippi (then mabye naval facilities in New Orleans too)? Halliburton. As if they were the only company available for the job. Also see the “compassion” of this Christian Pastor here, who obviously thinks he speaks for all Christians, and knows exactly why his and the Christian deity “allowed” this tragedy and natural disaster to happen.
[…]Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God’s mercy in the aftermath of Katrina — but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.
The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as “Southern Decadence” — an annual six-day “gay pride” event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week — God’s judgment would be felt.
“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it’s free of all of those things now,” Shanks says. “God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we’re going to start over again.”
The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. “It’s time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won’t have to deal with that wickedness,” he says.[…]
Shit on a shingle–natural disasters and massive loss of life just bring out the worse in these batshit-crazy and hateful wingnuts who just can’t wait to show off their vitriol and contempt for other human beings and cultures. Oh Christ, what the hell is wrong with some of your followers (or those that claim to follow your teachings anyway)? Once again if you can, please donate to legit organizations who are working in the relief effort to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina–who are *Americans* by the way (unless if they were some of the foreign tourists who were caught up in the storm, obviously, but they too should be helped in the relief effort).
In your first sentence, you refer to them as “survivors” instead of AMERICANS. What’s wrong with you?
I typed “hurricane andrew refugees” into Google, and I opened the first link that displayed. That news story refers to the survivors of Hurricane Andrew as “refugees”.
“Refugee” is a simple descriptive term that describes anyone who has been driven from their home. In legal usage, it does have a connotation (though not a requirement) of extraterritoriality, but nobody is using the word in a legal context.
Halliburton won, through competitive bidding, a maintenance contract to conduct contingent repairs on certain naval facilities in 2001. They had the contract renewed in 2004. They are not “rebuilding New Orleans”, nor is their contract unreasonable, nor was it arrived at through suspect means, nor would it be intelligent to, in the middle of a natural disaster, decide to throw out the contract and open the job for a new round of bidding (which takes months) just so that moonbats who froth at the mouth every time the H-word is mentioned will have one less thing to go bozo on.
Tensions are high and people are emotionally wrung out by the carnage and the destruction and the death that is going on. Maybe you should conduct a little bit of fact checking before you contribute more to the hysteria, or start talking about people being batshit-crazy.
And how about you spend your time doing something else, for once, instead of doing your usual bullshit attempt to run me off of this blog. It’s adorable that you even believe that I give two-shits about what some spoiled, overly indulged asshole like you has to say anyway.
Calling me names is by you an argument?
I’m sorry that you feel I’m trying to run you off your blog. I lack that power, nor would I exercise it if I had it.
It isn’t material to me whether you care about what I have to say, as it seems futile to attempt to persuade you of anything.
However, people who have not yet realized that you make counterfactual statements in pursuit of your various agendas might gain some utility from seeing your erroneous statements checked by a third party.
P-A, if you have the power to bar him from your threads, just do it. Believe me, nobody mistakes Robert for anything close to a benign and/or disinterested “third party.” Nobody with sense, at any rate.
I’ve had a hard time with this particular point being focused on. I never had associated it strictly with international travel, and if you look it up as a general on google, you’ll get both an international version, as well as:
one who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, environmental destruction, or religious persecution.
A person who flees for safety or refuge, especially to a foreign country.
.. anyways, you get more than just the international, and I was calling them refugee’s up until I heard that there was some racial connotation that people were attempting to associate with it. Given the definitions, I think it’s an appropriate one, but on the same token, I’d just as soon not contribute to something that people are attempting to make controversial, and continue to focus on the crisis itself.
How can you be a refugee in your own country?
I have been using Refugees to describe the survivors in New Orleans. I had no idea the term is upsetting folks. A little church I pass on the way to work has a sign out front about supporting the refugees and asking folks to donate what they can. I have seen the term on more than one donation jar for the Red Cross at the cash registers in stores and gas stations. I don’t think any of the folks trying to raise money to help are trying to “label” people in some negative way.
The following is a pdf file and I don’t know how to cut and paste from it.
USDA National Refugee Policy . Basically, it says that due to the unprecedented damage from Katrina, evacuees are not just residents of temporary shelters, they are, in fact, refugees.
Refugees ÂPeople who leave their homes Âand often their countries Âbecause of war, famine, or natural disasters (e.g., flood, hurricane, drought). Many live for a long time in makeshift communities that lack basic sanitation, such as running water and toilets.
I agree that the word “refugee” does not necessarily mean anything more than “a person who has been driven from their home,” and I usually agree with Amp’s politics.
Anyway, I was much more disturbed by the quote from the crazy preacher. Want to talk about sin? What about the sin of leaving poor people to die, with no way out of the city? What about widespread murder, rape, and (to a lesser extent) theft? This guy is talking about the Gay Pride Parade, Mardi Gras, and abortion as SINS when the poor were left to rot and rapes and murders are occurring right and left? I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess that the morally detestable actions that are taking place around this hurricane are not being perpetrated by mainly by women, gays, and Mardi Gras partiers.
God, PA just run him off. He’s tedious in the extreme, and he has absolutely nothing to offer.
Why he’s tolerated here I have no idea. He whines about agendas and never once acknowledges his own.
Funny how the “this is God’s way of punishing the wicked” crowd can make a statement like the one above while completely ignoring the fact that this storm hit bible belt towns like Pascagoula, Mobile, and Gulfport even harder than it hit New Orleans. If God is mad at New Orleans, is he even more angry at those other places?
Of Rev. Shanks; “Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
As far as I know, I’m the only person to have brought this up, but it seems to me that racial animosity toward blacks is precisely why New Orleans will likely be rebuilt, and quickly, too.
I think that there a lot of people who don’t have any sympathy for the New Orleansians displaced by Katrina who, nonetheless, would be very willing to have the government spend tax money to rebuild New Orleans in order to make certain that the poor, mostly black residents go back there. I seriously doubt that many people want to resettle them in their towns, at least not in the numbers that would be required if New Orleans is not rebuilt.
This is not necessarily a good thing for the residents of New Orleans, however. While a lot of them probably wish to see their city rebuilt, and don’t really care what the motivations of the people rebuilding it are, it is also true that people who rebuild the city because they want to get rid of the displaced New Orleansianare probably less likely to demand quality in the reconstruction, becassue they don’t care how well rebuilt the city is as long as it is good enough to get the people to leave.
‘Refugees’ shouldn’t be a politically loaded term, and it isn’t, really; but PA’s right that it does seem to be being used to distance the victims of the tragedy from the rest of society. But there’s really not another term for ‘person fleeing from disaster’ that is appropriate, is there? Calling them ‘evacuees’ diminishes the scope of the tragedy; there’s nothing to go back to.
Halliburton isn’t rebuilding all of New Orleans; a contract that was awarded in 2000 or 2001 by the DoD was to rebuild some naval constructions. Now, I am totally willing to believe that strings were pulled to get them that contract, but it’s just not the case that Katrina hit and a call went out to Halliburton.
These preachers are retarded and need to read their own Bible again. I suggest the book of Job, and maybe the part where Christ heals the blind man, and the Pharisees ask whether the man was blind due to his own sin or his parents’, and Christ points out that they’re missing the point. God doesn’t work like that. God doesn’t kill thousands of people because New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras. These alleged Christians need to re-read the Bible again.
I think “refugee” has a good rhetorical point that draws attention to the gravity of the situation for the survivors of this hurricane, especially in NOLA. Refugee, in my mind, has always indicated a greater sense of danger and displacement than the other terms bandied about, and in this case I think the displacement is something that should be emphasized, with NOLA in particular.
Refugee seems perfectly reasonable to me, as the victims of the hurricane are people who need *refuge.* They’ve been displaced from their homes making them refugees. They are victims, they are refugees, *and* they are americans. I don’t see why this is offensive. Refugee doesn’t always mean foreign, and in this case we all know that they aren’t foreign. I think there’s a lot of racism on display during this tragedy, but the use of this word isn’t part of it.
I think people in this kind of situation are often referred to as “internally displaced persons.” But that’s clunky, ugly beaurocracy-speak, and it’s hard to fit in a headline.
Pingback: the Disillusioned kid
I too was a bit disturbed/puzzled by the use of the word ‘refugee’ when I’ve never heard it before used in the U.S. for disasters. My first thought was race. But the more I thought about it, the more I don’t think there was anything racial about it.
And in some ways was glad it was being used. Refugees has such a strong connotation, much stronger than ‘evacuee’. At least it signifies the gravity of the situtation.
Kevin Boykin chimed in on this and said he doesn’t think it’s racial since the term seems to be used across the board for white and black citizens from NO to Alabama (it would be racial if ‘refugee’ was used for the mainly black residents of NO but ‘evacuee’ was used for the mainly white residents of Mississippi.)
So, after reading that and thinking, I don’t think there is anything racial here… but then…
It could be all about class.
Wow, I used to frequent this blog when I had more time on my hands because I thought Ampersand (and other contributors) were extremely intelligent, articulate bloggers that I sometimes respectfully disagreed with. This is the first time I’ve visited in 8-10 months and I must say, I’m saddened by this current entry. Pseudo-Adrienne, you do not seem to be the same calibre. If you are going to make claims on a popular blog, you should be prepared to have the facts checked and if you would like respect, you should concede whenever you are clearly shown to be off-base.
The preacher’s comments are no different than things said in much of the bible. Anyone who believes the bible is true, believes things like this. It’s batshit, but not surprising.
Bye, Jen. Have a great time (anywhere but here).
Referring to these hurricane/flood/federal negligence victims as refugees helps reinforce Bush’s efforts to distance himself from the problem. I heard him actually refer to the stricken region as another part of the “world” instead of another part of this country.
Good point. I think the opposite could occur as well, that when NO is rebuilt, it might try to make it difficult for poor residents to return. No homes, no jobs.
Often when cities revitalize(abeit not from complete destruction FTMP) they take steps to either reduce their population of poor people, especially people of color, restrict their places to live or to “encourage” the populations to migrate out by increasing cost of housing and resources. It just happens over and over.
The longer it takes to rebuild, the harder it will be for them to return to NO. To survive, they will have to try to go elsewhere.
Mad Kane: “ I heard him actually refer to the stricken region as another part of the “world” instead of another part of this country.
Prometheus 6’s take (http://www.prometheus6.org/node/10827):
.
In fact, this is exactly how I (a foreigner with no American experience) interpreted the use of the word “refugees”, which surprised me when I first saw it: a way to indicate that “these people” do not belong exactly to the American society. Therefore, I was somehow expecting a reaction like Cristopher’s and Pseudo-Adrienne’s.
(Sorry, I forgot about the required space after the blockquote to avoid bolding. As an aside, the “link” tag seems to mess up the preview: I had hyperlinked P6 at first, but a large part of the comment was not visible in the preview, which is why I pasted the rough link. All right, it shoud work now.)
Oh, merde. What “facts” are in dispute here ? Neither P-A nor Christopher (unless I missed something) said that Katrina marked the first time that Americans were referred to as “refugees” by their fellow citizens. Is this some stupid Right-wing game of “Gotcha ‘cuz you didn’t complain before” ? Please. What difference does it make if none of us happened to be discussing this in the wake of Andrew. The fact that it’s happened before doesn’t suddenly make it an irrelevant topic of discussion.
What other “facts” are in dispute here ? That the preacher said what he said, and that he’s a hateful piece of garbage ? The fitness of Haliburton ? [snort] Again, the fact that lots and lots of people have expressed misgivings about Haliburton in years past doesn’t mean that P-A’s a crackpot for bringing it up again. Give me a break.
http://democracyrising.us/content/view/27/74/
…Halliburton has been involved in a growing list of contracts that total more than $11 billion, leading to multiple criminal investigations into overcharging and kickbacks. In nine different reports, government auditors have found “widespread, systemic problems with almost every aspect of Halliburton’s work in Iraq, from cost estimation and billing systems to cost control and subcontract management.” Six former employees of Vice President Cheney’s old company have come forward, corroborating the auditors’ concerns. Just prior to the 2004 election a top contracting official responsible for ensuring that the Army Corps of Engineers follows competitive contracting rules accused top Pentagon officials of improperly favoring Halliburton in an early-contract before the occupation. Bunnatine Greenhouse, an Army procurement officer, says that when the Pentagon awarded the company a 5-year oil-related contract worth up to $7 billion, it pressured her to withdraw her objections, actions that she said were unprecedented in her experience. Pentagon officials referred the matter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, a move that critics say effectively buried the issue.
Source: The Center for Corporate Policy’s Ten Worst War Profiteers of 2004, Center for Corporate Policy, http://www.corporatepolicy.org/topics/topten2004list.htm For everything you want to know about Halliburton and more visit Halliburton Watch, http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/. For more on whistleblower Bunnatine Greenhouse visit: http://www.whistleblowers.org/html/greenhouse.htm.
I suppose that next, some Rightie will burst in here to breathlessly announce that all of these sources are also mere crackpots jealous because they can’t get big contracts themselves, or that there’s no reason to believe that Haliburton will fuck over the citizens of New Orleans just because they’ve been fucking over people elsewhere in the world. Please.
I use the word because I don’t want for one fucking second for people to forget that in *America* we now have refugees. We fucked the fuck up.
I really have no opinion on the refugees part of it, but as a Christian I’ll comment on the preacher. He needs to re read his bible, because God doesn’t work that way. And actually, if you read the book of Genesis, it specifically mentions that God will NEVER use another flood to punish people, so there goes that theory right out the window. I knew, as soon as I heard about the disaster, I knew some so-called Christian was going to get on his high horse and start “proclaiming” that it was the work of God. And it makes me cry, it makes me want to shake my head and it embarrasses me to be associated with these tyoes of people.
Alsis wrote:
With all due respect, I think you missed something. In the bit P-A quoted, Christopher wrote:
Literally speaking, Christopher didn’t actually say that Hurricane Andrew’s victims weren’t called “refugees” in the media; but he certainly implied it.
I’m with many other people on this thread; I think the word “refugees” is probably appropriate, in this situation (although I’m open to having my mind changed on that), and I also think Rev. Shanks deserves to have his teeth slowly drilled with a rusty saw.
alsis39: “P-A, if you have the power to bar him from your threads, just do it.”
ginmar: “God, PA just run him off.”
Very well then. Done. He’s banned from my threads–past and future.
I thought “internally displaced persons’ could be called “refugees” without crossing borders, and that if they arei n need of a refuge they are in fact refugees. But there is a lot of tone and stuff I am missing reading about this tragedy here in Egypt. As I usually think Pseudo Adrienne is mad for a reason no doubt there is a pattern that is getting to her. Sometimes terminology can be used inappropriately for a political reason and whether or not they fit the dictionary definition it may be that people are using the term to make the New Orleans victims sound less “of us” and more “other” – although really, if Americans think this, they must be really unbelievably silly and easily manipulated to the point that even I would have trouble believing. I am really sad for New Orleans and appalled at the level of disaster it has gotten to.
Yesterday I met a Sudanese refugee from a region near Darfour who is waiting to hear from a church in the US which is going to offer her a new home. She’s been in Egypt for four years having her papers processed.
Amp:
I still have to come down on his side, however, because I don’t remember hearing them called “refugees,” either. Possibly it’s being more widely used now ? How do you go about comparing the frequency of the term’s usage several years ago vs. its frequency now ? (The media has used questionable language on all manner of subjects for years;Is it wrong to complain if you’re only now putting your finger on the questionable nature of one them at this particular moment ?)
Also, just googling both hurricanes wouldn’t really count as a scientific sample, would it, because there would be other sorts of media not accesable by Google. If Christopher was too careless for your taste, okay. I stand by my opinion that the usage of the term in earlier years in no way negates the legitimacy of it as a subject now. What would really be interesting to know is just how many of Andrew’s victims were poor and/or Black, compared to Katrina’s.
I also have to admit that upon reflection, “refugees” does make me somewhat queasy. Regardless of its legal meaning, I have always taken it to mean “foreigner” when it’s used in everyday news coverage. Whether conscious or not, it strikes me as a distancing technique;A way to make it seem like the survivors’ plight is something happening outside the American sphere, and thus not the obligation of other Americans as far as repair goes. I’m glad to see that most Americans aren’t treating it as such, and I hope that will still be the case in a month or two, when the media has moved on to its next sensationalistic missing White woman case, or whatever.
I find the (American?) obsession with finding denigrating nuances of words very tiresome. Now we have to find a more empowering word to describe the homeless, possesionless, bedraggled survivors of a horrible storm. Being a refugee is a pitiful thing to be, maybe that’s what is bothering people.
Does anyone know if New Orleans or Mississippi had (international) refugee re-settlement programs? I’ve thought about how awful it must be for a foreign refugee resettled to that area to find herself a refugee once more in what is supposed to be a stable place.
By the way- for immigration visas, being called a refugee is desirable, since they are afforded all sorts of help, such as foodstamps, that regular legal immigrants are not.
As an American living in Canada I haven’t had access to all the TV coverage, but, since I do have many friends in New Orleans, I’ve been fairly glued to CNN. I cannot speak to the use of the word “refugee” on other channels, but on CNN I got the distinct feeling that the use of the word started when the reporters started to get really frustrasted with the lack of aid. Although no one came right out and got mad, reporters at least, you could see it in their faces, and the start of the word refugee coincided. Maybe I’m crazy, but from a distance, it seemed that starting to use “refugee” as a much stronger way of referring to the victims of Katrina worked quite well as things started to get moving a bit faster, and allowed some people, such as the mayor, to start using that language without ridicule. Hence, I think it was appropriate, and likely even made a difference on the national level.
Racism, or classism have both been evident in many aspects of this tragedy. In fact, I think this will be the second great tragedy that we will remember aside from the human loss — that the whole world has seen the underpinnings of our under the table racist ways exposed. The use of the word “refugee” though has nothing to do with it.
So why is Robert banned? I’ve rarely agreed with him, but he is thought provoking and usually the only dissenter around. Without him its nothing but congratulatory back-slapping.
Anyone who has to walk miles to refuge in their bare feet is a refugee. Anyone who has to take a shit in a once public sports arena, on the floor, next to dead bodies, is a refugee.
Don’t get all PC when folks have been displaced.
Your assumptions about the differences between “1st” and “3rd” world countries have been rendered nil by a hurricane. You’re the one who has always associated “race” with “refugee”.
Elena wrote:
Then go fix yourself a cup of coffee or lie down for a nap, instead of poo-poohing those who refuse to put their skepticism about the media, who owns it, and who the owners see as being most like them, on hold during a disaster. Not to mention the implication that the skeptics are in no way sincere, but are merely trying to ruin your day.
Or maybe they think that it would just be better to call the American survivors “survivors” or “Americans.” They in no way inhibit your ability to write what you want and help in any way you deem appropriate. The last thing we need in this era of destructive and unthinking hyper-patriotism, however, is more variations of “just shut up” when it comes to how these efforts are pitched, and just who is doing the pitching.
This is about far more than language. You might want to go re-read radfem’s comments in #22. Surely it’s easier to play the games described there with the downtrodden when the shapers of public opinion aren’t being closely scrutinized;When they can set the stage for permanent exile of the poor disguised as economic recovery by repeatedly referring to the citizens in a community in terms that are customarily used in this country to describe citizens of foreign lands.
[shrug] I don’t think there’s ever a wrong time to be skeptical about the media, Q. It’s a long weekend. If I spend an hour on this thread and then go write a check to the Red Cross, the check doesn’t arrive any slower for my having spent an hour here.
Eh ? I thought that race differences in the U.S. already feed the notion that some citizens are more “American” than others. I thought the complaint was that the use of the term aggrivated that tendency among the people who both peddle and shape public opinion.
Ted wrote:
Well, A) I don’t find the terms “baiting” and “thought-provoking” synomynous and B) I just disagreed with several people I’m often in agreement with, including the host. I hope that I haven’t ruined it for you.
Honestly, I hope you’re right, but I’m too cynical about human nature to be completely confident that you are.
Quibilling over whether to call American refugees refugees may be someone’s idea of a worthwhile way to criticize the media, but it’s not mine. I used to work for Refugee and Immigration Services and I’m wondering if my colleauges and friends who came here as displaced persons would feel offended that some people find the word refugee insulting, because it associates them with foreigners. Talk about denigrating nuances!
Not all survivors are displaced, and not all Americans are survivors, so we need better options. Is Displaced Persons ok, or does that have the taint of being foreign on it as well?
Gotta love it, the batshit preacher type, thankfully proclaiming that New Orleans is free of this, free of that. I hope, but doubt, someone pointed out to him that New Orleans is New Orleans-free right now!
What Brad wrote, ++.
Radfem said: “The longer it takes to rebuild, the harder it will be for them to return to NO. To survive, they will have to try to go elsewhere.” I don’t know what your expectations are with regard to the recovery – nor others’ for that matter – but hear this: these poor displaced from NO, and surrounding areas, are elsewhere. They are not going back for at least months.
First (debatable) claim: NO will not be in a state to bring back working poor for at least months. NO will be under water for weeks. NO, as the nation knew it, is gone. A city just doesn’t bounce back from being flooded over 80% and a state-enforced evacuation of the city’s entire population.
Second (debatable) claim: the displaced poor, previously poor and now basically destitute, are going to settle wherever the randomly-aimed busses take them. Those in the Houston Astrodome, unless they have family elsewhere, will look for jobs in Houston. If there is work and housing, they will stay. If a city like Houston can’t support a sudden rise in population of 20,000, I can see them appealing to the Fed-Gov for some kind of relief to build new housing and/or for moving people where there are jobs; or maybe the Fed-Gov will be more proactive on that front. But mark my words, for most of these people, this is now how it will be.
IANAExpert by the way. I make these predictions based on my opinion (belief?) that without money, an individual’s options are extremely limited; and on the facts that the Lousiana government was not prepared for this, and the Fed-Gov was not prepared for this, as evidenced by the several days required to get basic food and water to starving people at the NO convention center. If I’d been dictator, I would have had miltary helicopters ready to bring the necessities into NO as soon as the storm had passed. But it appears they didn’t start getting the relief mobilized until after the storm had passed.
Elena, please. I’m not trying to denigrate anyone, and you know it. Foreign nationals in the U.S. have fewer rights –even in good times– than do American-born citizens or naturalized citizens. Saying that is not the same as saying “foreign nationals in the U.S. deserve fewer rights –even in good times– than do American-born citizens or naturlized citizens.” The fear is that those who do believe the latter are trying to create a different notion of who deserves what, where there should be no differences at al. :(
Are you honestly implying that by “quibbling” about the term, the “quibblers,” are endorsing xenophobia ? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Call people whatever you like. Whose stopping you ?
Xenophobia? No. Do you honestly think that people calling the storm evacuees refugees are racist? Seems like you’re giving a very convoluted explanation of why “refugee” is bad, besides the obvious fact that no one wants to be one.
Racism isn’t always conscious or deliberate, any more than other “isms” are. Trust me, I’ve said and done all kinds of dumb racist things, not out of conscious malice but because my brain was one step behind my mouth.
What’s convoluted about my explanation ? It’s a term some POC find offensive, because it implies to them that Black Americans are more “foreign” than White American victims of natural disasters. Perhaps some other term would be better all around. I won’t be using “refugee” because I see the logic of people like P-A and Christopher disliking it. You don’t agree, so you’ll use it, along with whatever other terms strike your fancy. End of story.
A person who takes refuge is a refugee. I consider myself a refugee. It’s just my own personal mission, but I prefer taking words back and claiming them rather than letting be stolen by an igorant public and then our having to deny them.
Provoking, not particularly thoughtful. And hardly the only dissenter, on these threads.
As for congratulatory backslapping, I’m not that type, and I don’t see much of that here.
———————————————
My mom and I were discussing this yesterday, and she brought it up, in that way, which shouldn’t surprise me because she’s tutored kids, pregnant teens, young mothers(through a program that offers these services to young unwed mothers) and she’s seen the neglect of communities exacts a price every day that’s just a less extreme example of some of what happened in NO, during Hurricane Katrina. NO faced that for years before the hurricane that took it off the map.
I don’t know about the use of refugee, evacuee, survivor, etc. All of those terms are loaded in varying ways, and they may all impact people positively, or negatively based on life expriences, cultures, belief systems, personal Katrina experiences and those should be respected, which makes coming up with one acceptable label, more difficult.
With all the racism and classism seen so far, it puts everything under the microscope and maybe for good reason. Racism with “loot” vs “find”, racism with criminalizing large groups of Black people. Racism, ableism, and classism with the access to evacuating safetly. The conditions in NO, that have been there for years, which contributed to what happened after Katrina. What was past becomes prologue.
this is one vivid description of a refugee that has been given, but it also applies to many people in our nation who aren’t directly impacted by Hurricane Katrina, including those who lived in NO and in the South before the disaster.
Anyone who walks for miles in bare feet could be a homeless person, or family doing that, day after day, after day till there’s no break btwn where the calluses begin and the softer skin ends. We’ve all seen them, and smelled them, especially when they’ve been unable to bathe for a long time. Anyone urinating or defecating on what is, or once was a vibrant business, or a family’s house, goes on every day in many cities. At least where I live. Just last week, I walked down one of our streets and there was a flow of liquid coming towards my shoes and it was from a homeless guy lying in a doorway, who was going to the bathroom.
In downtown L.A., you have to hold your breath for about a minute each time you walk past an alley or a fire escape, because that’s where the “public” bathrooms are. Then people get arrested for urinating in public by police.
If these people from the hurricane are refugees in our society under some of these definitions, then they are not the only ones, just the most visible ones for the moment., until the media moves elsewhere. And some of them, might join the homeless in our country, because they lack the resources for a variety of reasons, or because they were homeless before.
I’m not trying to downplay the disaster, or make comparisons, but people in this country live in deplorable conditions on a daily basis. And while watching the coverage at New Orleans and other places, I was kind of reminded of that and that was one of many reasons why at the same time I felt compelled to watch the news coverage, it also made me want to turn away. Kind of like when I ran into the guy who was lying under the blanket under the doorway at City Hall, on the way to the office.
This disaster presented what can happen in a split second, to a large group of people all at once, rather than piecemeal and it stuck it in our faces, because while the media has no interest in the plight of the most poor people in our society, it’s always been fascinated by massive tragedy, death and damage. But the reality is, you can lose everything in a hurricane, or you can lose it when you live check to check and get sick, without health insurance. Women who are very poor and/or homeless are very vulnerable to rape as well in their lives as were the women and children in NO.
Long-term impact?
Oooh, I spoke too soon. I was out on my way to find a open place to get some lunch and ran into one homeless man, I’ve seen before, push another one off his bike in the middle of traffic and then start kicking him and stomping him on the head. I ran over, and people started getting out of their cars. One guy, grabbed the assailant but was having a hard time, so I yelled at some of the five men standing around to help, so they did the bearhug/circle thing. Some women got out of their cars, and I went around and asked for water and anything to help the man wipe his wounds, mostly on his head. I
9-11 was the worse. It took a minute to remember that since everyone calling was on a cellular that their calls would be routed to another city’s state police station(which would then call the local agency) so after talking to the guy to see how lucid he was(at least that part wasn’t bad) I was with one lady who called and was getting some heat from the operator.
I ran to the pizza place around the corner to make the call from a local line. The security guy met up with me, and told me he’d made the call. The EMT’s finally showed up, and they treated him and put him in the ambulance and then one of them sat on the assailant(who since he had tried to get loose several times, we stood around him in a circle) to disarm him, and he had a switchblade, so they took that out.
Once the local call went through, and when the EMTs arrived, we asked them to call through as well, one police officer and a car accident investigator(civilian employee) arrived and the officer cuffed him and put him in the car. The officer said he was taking him to jail, but wasn’t interested in eye witness accounts in what will ultimately be a he-said, he-said, unfiled case. Because the victim is just homeless, after all.
They fought over food, it turned out. One guy was trying to steal it from another, and it wound up in one guy assaulting the other.
Sorry if this is a re-post – I forgot about the new 5-letter word.
Barbara Bush: “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality,” she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program “Marketplace.” “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
(I can’t provide the link – my network is acting funny today – but it was on CNN.com.)
Ummm, I thought George 41 was the one who was born with the silver foot in his mouth.
Here are some links about Barbara’s um, commentary on Katrina:
Barbara Bush’s compassionate conservatism
Barbara “scared” by influx of refugees in Texas
The second link I posted, was http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719
It included this comment, in addition to some of her others: