{"id":1830,"date":"2005-09-05T20:21:37","date_gmt":"2005-09-06T03:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/09\/05\/they-are-not-the-only-refugees-just-the-most-visible-ones-for-the-moment\/"},"modified":"2005-09-05T20:21:37","modified_gmt":"2005-09-06T03:21:37","slug":"they-are-not-the-only-refugees-just-the-most-visible-ones-for-the-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1830","title":{"rendered":"They are not the only refugees, just the most visible ones for the moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This is a comment that Radfem <\/a>left in an earlier thread<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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”\u009d though has nothing to do with it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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 New Orleans, during Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans faced that for years before the hurricane that took it off the map.<\/p>\n

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 experiences, cultures, belief systems, personal Katrina experiences and those should be respected, which makes coming up with one acceptable label, more difficult.<\/p>\n

With all the racism and classism seen so far, it puts everything under the microscope and maybe for good reason. Racism with “loot”\u009d vs “find”\u009d, racism with criminalizing large groups of Black people. Racism, ableism, and classism with the access to evacuating safely. The conditions in NO, that have been there for years, which contributed to what happened after Katrina. What was past becomes prologue.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 between 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.<\/p>\n

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”\u009d bathrooms are. Then people get arrested for urinating in public by police.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 New Orleans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This is a comment that Radfem left in an earlier thread). 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-katrina","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}