Article published September 08, 2005
Defining survivors raises racial overtones
So who are all these bone-and-soul weary, homeless people on our TV screens, anyway?
Refugees or evacuees?
This is the question throughout American newsrooms at the moment. On the surface, maybe it seems like simple semantics. But this debate only highlights the divisions of race and class that Hurricane Katrina's aftermath already so painfully highlighted.
Call it Highlighting Squared.
As the catastrophic abandonment of Gulf Coast residents began, nobody paid much attention to how best to describe the massive numbers of people fleeing that region - because massive numbers of people weren't.
Stranded without the most basic necessities to sustain life, images of Katrina's survivors - most poor, most black - flickered across television sets to the horror of nearly all Americans watching (the federal government, apparently, not among them).When finally - finally! - rescuers began moving survivors to higher, more sanitary ground, it surprised me to hear objections to the term "refugee." That word struck me as just the right one to describe something of such epic, catastrophic proportion. Besides, how could we call the people left behind in those poisonous waters "evacuees"? They hadn't evacuated at all, whether by inability (more common) or choice (less so).
Nevertheless, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to the word. And on the Electronic Urban Report Web site, a headline read: "Refugee," America's New N-Word? Why is a term inherently absent of race suddenly so inflammatory?"
Wrestling with its own question, eurweb.com concluded that the offense taken by so many blacks "seems less about the definition of the word itself, and more about the word coming from the mouths and pages of white media organizations."
A word without race-related definition, "refugee" only sprouted a racist undertone when used to describe the predominantly black and poor evacuees.
George Bush, by the way, also took umbrage: "The people we're talking about are not refugees. They are Americans."
"Refugee" most strictly applies to people beyond our borders. The U.N. Refugee Convention defines it as someone who crosses international borders while fleeing from violence or persecution. Dictionaries commonly give a broader definition, much like what's found in Webster's New World Dictionary: "A person who flees from home or country to seek refuge elsewhere, as in time of war or political or religious persecution."
Most news organizations seem to have settled on "evacuee," although the New York Times and the Associated Press will use "refugee" where they find it appropriate.
Personally, I think "evacuee" is too dispassionate, too clinical. But then, there is seldom good reason not to call people by whatever they prefer. That's just common courtesy.
Besides, right now - when too many Gulf Coast residents already feel like foreigners in their own country - is no time to make anyone feel worse.
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