What's in a word....

Refugee:
one that flees; especially: a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution

Why is it that during any other disaster in U.S. history, the victims have been called just that, victims? During a mass exodus they are oft times called evacuees. But not until 2/3 of them are African American does the term refugee come into play.

The devastation of New Orleans and surrounding areas brings to light an interesting topic of how far we've come.

The news outlets have shown images of looters and lawlessness. It's true that there were people taking advantage, but there were far more that are hungry, hurt and trying to survive.
Was it the images that were seen that made people think of the word refugee? Yes these people were fleeing, but from a storm, not a country. While it may have been technically accurate, the word had never been used that way before... Was it the images of minorities walking through a devastated wasteland? If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck then it, must me a duck? If so, then everyone needs to take a good hard look at themselves.

If it looks like a bigot and sounds like a bigot... Well, how fair is that?

It doesn't matter how innocent the faux pas was originally and how many people thought it was acceptable to jump in and use the word. The problem is that it took the people that were offended, primarily the African American community, to point out why it was offensive and ask for it to be stopped.

There are so many words that have hurt. One group hasn't cornered the market. Weather to describe a minority, a lifestyle, a belief, a look, a size, or a gender, words that defame and breed ill will are wrong and poisonous to our society.

There have been words stricken from most everyone's vocabulary as "derogatory" but any word can be derogatory with the proper intent.

I am bi-racial, and as a child I referred to myself by a common term.

If you don't know the term, I'm not gonna teach it to you. Count yourself uber cool to not have that information in your mental rolodex.

Anyway, I used this term with pride what I was when they asked “what are you?” (oh, and that question is fodder for another post - I'm big on fodder you'l come to learn). It was until my teen years that I discovered the term I had been using was derogatory. Much like a term given to African Americans… which I had also been called, fortunately I knew THAT one was a bad so I didn't ever use it to describe myself.

Can you imagine a child calling themselves by a derogatory term because that's all they new? And even better, that's all anyone knew? For me, no other word existed and since everyone used it I assumed that it was the right word.

The message is simple, choose your words, think before you speak. Hell, think before you think. Words can hurt and do irreparable damage. It doesn't matter if its a question of race, class, religion sexuality or gender, everyone has biases... its how you process them that's important. If you recognize it and squash it before it does any damage then you're doing your part. No one can really ask for more.

The response to the crisis in New Orleans spoke volumes, it was a comment on class as well as race. The government has responded that there was a breakdown in communication at one point even saying that New Orleans didn't ask for assistance right away. Um - I think they were a bit busy and didn't realize they needed to make that call.

There have been many devastating events natural and otherwise in America in our recent history.

Devastation, caused by earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, mudslides, fires and much more. These events effected primarily affluent and Caucasian populations and the response time was never at question.

Today, September 11th, marks an incredibly devastating event... The destruction of the twin towers. The images of people walking through the rubble in New York caked in white ash were burned in the hearts and souls of all Americans. There has never been anything that looked more like war and people walking from the city tired, hurt and dirty could have brought to mind similar descriptions as it did for New Orleans, but it didn't.

Victims, evacuees... they somehow those words give more respect to their subject. The most amazing part of all of this is that if the people in New Orleans had actually been refugees, they may have gotten more of a response from our government.

sigh.