Not to beat a dead horse, but this was in my morning's mail as part of the WorldWideWords newsletter from Michael Quinion, British linguist:
Topical Words:
Refugee
There's been much controversy in the USA over what to call people
forced out of New Orleans, Mississippi and neighbouring areas as a
result of the recent disaster (Even in the midst of what the head
of Homeland Security called an ultra-catastrophe, there's still
time for linguistic analysis.)
Most early news reports called them refugees ("Astrodome to become
new home for storm refugees", USA Today, 1 Sep; "Bus refugees
overcome bureaucracy", the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 2 Sep;
"The refugee emergency is beginning to affect neighboring states,
Texas most of all", New York Times, 4 Sep - just three of many
hundreds of examples). This brought an angry response on CNN from
Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick that no US
citizen could be a refugee in his own country, a view supported by
a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Elijah Cummings. It was
echoed by Bruce Gordon, the president of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, in an interview for the
Guardian: "I think it's an offensive term. These people are fellow
Americans. Using the word refugees makes it sound like they are not
of us." The Reverend Jesse Jackson called it "racist"; he and other
African-American leaders have even argued the word has criminal
connotations. President Bush also opposed the usage: "The people
we're talking about are not refugees. They are Americans."
The definitions in many dictionaries are along the lines of "a
person who has been forced to leave their country in order to
escape war, persecution, or natural disaster". So, the objectors
seem to be arguing (I must confess to some difficulty working this
out), if the escaping victims of the disaster are refugees, and
they are within the USA, then that implies they aren't American
citizens. And since the great majority of those left in New Orleans
when the hurricane struck are black, that implies that reporters
who are using "refugee" are racist, denigrating black people as
lower than second-class citizens. This is a convoluted argument
based on either ignorance or selective reading of reference books
and isn't supported by usage. And where criminality might come in
baffles me completely.
Many people will be surprised to hear that "refugee" necessarily
implies a move to another country. Not all dictionaries take this
view: the Random House Webster's Dictionary defines it as "a person
who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country",
which leaves open the possibility that it might be a flight within
one country, and the American Heritage Dictionary says simply "One
who flees in search of refuge", without reference to a destination.
However, the Oxford English Dictionary - followed by other Oxford
dictionaries and echoing the definition in the 1951 United Nations
refugees convention - firmly says that travel across a national
border is implicit. The OED's entry shows that the first use of
"refugee" was in reference to the French Huguenots who came to
England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The
term is itself French, and comes from "réfugier", to seek refuge.
The link with "refuge" is a strong influence on sense; both words
derive from Latin "refugium", a place of refuge, in which the core
is "fugere", to flee.
But what is a national border? A large proportion of those who have
moved away from the disaster areas have gone to Texas, but others
have fled to cities like Memphis, Atlanta, Miami, even Chicago and
Detroit. All have crossed state lines. With the federal structure
of the USA, foreign observers may well feel that they have crossed
borders of a very real kind. To those states trying to cope with
the financial and social implications of a sudden huge involuntary
influx, it has seemed to commentators very like the refugee crises
we see reported from other parts of the world, accentuated by the
USA now accepting help, such as medicines and food, from other
countries. A great many of these people plan to settle permanently
in their new homes and never go back, which reinforces the idea of
their being refugees.
Others called them what seemed like a more neutral term, "displaced
persons" (including George Bush, in remarks made after a meeting on
1 September: "Government agencies are working with faith-based and
community groups to find shelters for thousands of displaced
persons"). For older people this brought unpleasant memories of the
foreign men and women compelled to work in Germany in the 1939-45
war, and afterwards made homeless. However, it's enshrined in the
formal international definitions, which contrast "refugee" with
"internally displaced person" or IDP, a person who is forced out of
their home but who remains in their own country. It's a dreadful
bit of bureaucratic jargon (only George Bush, with his tin ear for
language, would have used it in a public speech). But it's a useful
distinction for the aid agencies - refugees move to another country
and often become the responsibility of the international community,
IDPs probably not.
Still other reporters have tried "evacuee" ("Many evacuees were
seeking to get jobs and enroll their children in school in the
communities where they are currently sheltered", Washington Times,
2 Sep.), some newspapers have mandated this term, and because of
the dispute it is becoming common. It might seem correct for those
who left New Orleans before the hurricane struck, except that they
left through their own efforts and no official aid was given (as
one dictionary puts it, "a person moved from a place of danger to
somewhere safer"; note the passive - evacuation is something that
happens to you, not something you do). For British people of my age
and older it brought to mind people, especially children, who were
taken out of the big cities by a planned relocation effort during
the early part of World War Two to avoid the bombing. It might be
correct for those bussed out of New Orleans later in the week, and
those now being forcibly removed, but not the rest.
"Evacuee" implies an orderly and organised process. "Refugee"
implies a desperate, involuntary and unplanned move. The former
doesn't have the emotive implications or emotional force of the
latter. Whatever its dictionary sense, or the definitions of the
international aid organisations, or the plaints of politicians, or
the lexical views of dictionaries and pedants, for most people
"refugee" sums up the situation of the sufferers more accurately
than any other.
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. Anyway, g'day all 
.
