Is “Refugee” A Bad Word?

One of my co-workers was telling me that another co-worker (the one who is all into the conspiracy of black box voting fraud) had a complete meltdown Wednesday night when the first co-worker called the Katrina Victims “Refugees”. The second co-worker said that it is equivalent to calling a person “nigger”.

This is the first I’d heard of this particular comparrison. Is “refugee” a bad word?

Well, I knew that some people objected to using “refugee” to describe Katrina Victims because normally when you think of refugees, they are people in or from other countries, usually third world countries and certainly not super-power countries.

So, I looked it up and according to dictionary.com:

refugee

One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution.

an individual seeking refuge or asylum; especially : an individual who has left his or her native country and is unwilling or unable to return to it because of persecution or fear of persecution (as because of race, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion)

an exile who flees for safety

So, “refugee” isn’t actually the appropriate word for this situation, I think. No one was at war on the Gulf Coast, there’s no political oppression (wheren’t they red states?), and no religious persecution. While they fled to safety, they were not actually exiles. So it’s technically better to use “victim” which to me sounds worse.

Meanwhile, a google search revealed no connection between “refugee” and “nigger” or other nasty words. I don’t know where he got that.

tags: Hurricane Katrina, stupidity

4 comments

1. on September 9, 2005 at 9:21 am

   Tamara said:

   How about “evacuees”?

   I agree that “refugee” isn’t exactly right, based on the dictionary definition, but I don’t quite understand the uproar. I have heard that Jesse Jackson is having a fit about the use of the term, as well. I guess emotions are flaring and it’s hard for us to always understand the way something might sound to others.

2. on September 9, 2005 at 1:49 pm

   Big Dog said:

   One seeking refuge AS in times of….

   As in denotes a comparison but is not all inclusive. A person seeking refuge from a storm or refuge from the aftermath of the storm. I think the word is OK to use in this instance but we could certainly call them displaced.

3. on September 9, 2005 at 4:20 pm

   n. mallory said:

   Hmmm…I liked both of those terms…though I’m slightly biased about the word “displaced” as I consider myself permanently displaced and many of those evacuees are hopefully temporarily displaced.

4. on September 24, 2005 at 11:31 pm

   Yodabean Jr said:

   When negroes learn to accept responsibility for their problems and quit assigning blame outside of themselves, the word “nigger” will no longer be considered racist.

   I will continue to use the words nigger and refugee to offend, not the black people, but the politically correct asshats that plague the internet and other public places. It’s really the politically correct fools who make certain phrases hundreds of times more offensive than they really are.

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