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Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Refugees'

By Jeralyn, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Tue Sep 06, 2005 at 11:57:13 AM EST
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The AP reports that President Bush, like Jesse Jackson, opposes the term "refugees" in referring to Katrina victims.

The president tells reporters, "The people we're talking about are not refugees, they are Americans." And he adds, "They need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."

His words appear to put him on the same side as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has declared it's "racist" to call U.S. citizens refugees. Jackson and other black leaders say the word has a criminal connotation -- and prefer the more neutral term "evacuees."

[Hat tip Patriot Daily]

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    Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Refugees' | 31 comments (31 topical)
    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#1)
    by wishful on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    Maybe NOW Bushco realizes that they are refu... American evacuees because NOW the taxpayers are going to throw tons of money at the area. The money's trustee is a friendly GOP official, NOT from LA. Haliburton already got the contract to rebuild some sort of military bases. Who knew those looting, gun-toting Negro thugs "...need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    refugee n : an exile who flees for safety Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University According to this definition, they are refugees.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    Yeah? Well, we all know what Bush calls them when the camera's not on--expendable.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    rington, NOT according to that definition, because 'exiles' is the sticking point. Supposedly the term refugees refers to people driven from their country, not just their land/homes. But the whole thing is just spin-doctoring, as Bush has now proven, happy to attack those who scurrilously used the evil, hated term 'refugees,' as as good a way to get out from under as any. What far too many are is DEAD. They didn't get refuge, they didn't get succor, they didn't get aid -- they got left to starve and die of dehydration, while Bush finished his vacation, and his lackeys failed at their jobs, through sheer inexperience. JJ Jr. has inadvertently served Bush's need for political cover from a tragedy entirely of his own making.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    gently - Hmmmm, actually, no. We don't "all" know that. et al - Never knew that refugee was thought to be vaguely "criminal." To me it brings back pictures of people had no homes, and were fleeing from first the Germans, and then th Soviets.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#6)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    rington is right, the definition of refugee applies. What's the hub-bub about? Has refugee become a dirty word? It's not offensive to me in any way. We have real problems, we don't have time to quibble over definitions and synonyms. Call the people suffering "widgets" for all I care, just help them.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#7)
    by wishful on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    kdog, widgets... That is the most accurate label yet for what they have become in our Bushco capitalist, corporate regime. It is how Haliburton, KBR, lending agencies, real estate folks, etc. are looking at them. Not as human beings in dire circumstances needing our help.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#8)
    by Al on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    Will somebody please explain to me how there are certain words in the English language that do not apply to Americans? Are there any other examples of this? Like, "war criminal"? Or "torturer"?

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#9)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    You gotta point there, wishful. I just get annoyed at the quibbling over nonsense while people are hungry and thirsty. I think Jesse is losing it. What is rascist about "refugee"? It does not imply a aparticular race to me, it merely describes all the people who were forced to flee their homes and have nowhere to go. Quibbling over words isn't helping your people Jesse. I'm sure you've got a big residence Rev., take in a refugee or two. Do something productive.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:20 PM EST
    What's the hub-bub about? Denial. Katarina delivered quite a blow to the American sense of exceptionalism and entitlement, and immediately triggered certain profoundly American reactions. "Refugees" simply aren't allowed to exist in planet America, and if they do, pretend they don't and call them something else. Jim - Spot on. I, too, find it quite offensive to call refugees "criminal".

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    geopoltically, the term refugee is usually used to refer to people who are fleeing one country for another. refugees are then foreigners in the country they are fleeing to. Now, I don't think there is anything wrong with not being american, but I think the objection to the use of the word makes sense--not because it is racist to use the word, but because it is an incorrect use of the word as it is usually used and brings with it certain connotations. There is a stigma of some sort that goes along with that word--not in the circles I run in, of course, but I am sure that in many parts of the country, a refugee would be seen as someone very different from a "regular" person. These folks ARE americans, and I can see the danger in using a term to describe them that makes them seem like outsiders instead of regular old americans like you and me except that they have recently been put through hell first by losing everything in the hurricane and second by being abandoned for several days by their our government. Using "refugee" to describe them might make it seem like it is an option for states to take them in--like some states are saysing they will take x number of refugees--other states are remaining silent when, actually, the Katrina/Bush victims are free to go and stay whereever they can find help and that should be in any state in the nation. Calling them refugees makes them seem something other than american--which in and of itself is not bad, but the fact is they are americans moving to higher ground in their own country.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    Jim, who you applaud, mar, famously said that this hurricane "purifies the gene pool". Jackson is saying that the term 'refugees' reduces the citizenship of these suffering people. While that isn't wrong in a technical sense, it plays into Bush's hands. Quibbles, and these are quibbles, help obscure MAJOR GLARING FACTS about Bush's negligent nomination of unqualified persons for jobs where only loyalty is valued. Roberts, for instance, has TWO YEARS on the job as judge. That has to rate as the most limited experience of any would-be Chief Justice in history.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#13)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    PIL - "Famously?" Well, it is nice to be recognized. Do you think Larry King will have me on his show?

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    Look, I can see where evacuee might be seen as more descriptive than refugee, since the latter often implies fleeing a government and leaving the country. But how is it racist? Does Jesse Jackson even know what a dictionary is?

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#15)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    But how is it racist?
    Did you ever hear white folks driven from their homes called refugees? Then again, white people don't loot, either...they just "find things". smmfh

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#16)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    One more question...why were the black people living in the lowest/most flood prone part of town? Hmmmm.....

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    yo, peeps, didn't you see my man's speech on saturday: "We have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters all along the Gulf Coast,"

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    LOL, the term evacuee implies that these people were evacuted. After 5 days of living in the foulest most dangerous conditions imaginable, I think I'll call them refugees, thank you very much.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    Ernie writes:
    Did you ever hear white folks driven from their homes called refugees?
    Not over say, 500 times. Ernie writes:
    One more question...why were the black people living in the lowest/most flood prone part of town?
    Because that is where the lowest priced property was located. And that assumes that the majority of the poor in NO was black. But not exclusively so. Those blacks who could afford better homes undoubtedly purchased them.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#20)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:21 PM EST
    Jesse is not happy with calling a spade a spade. The racist term is metonymic,
    Metonymic \Met`o*nym"ic\, Metonymical \Met`o*nym"ic*al\, a. [See Metonymy.] Used by way of metonymy; using the name of one thing for that of another with which it is closely associated. -- Met`o*nym"ic*al*ly, adv. [1913 Webster]
    Spade here, is used to refer to a slave, or lowest paid worker. Refugees on the other hand are lower than slaves. It connotes only the the poorest people who lose their homes en masse and generally speaking, no one wants them. That sounds like how the NO victims of Katrina were treated to me. It is embarrassing for such a rich country like the USA (the only superpower) to abandon its poor so readily. Jackson rightly feels that the term is undignified and so it should not be used. Bush would like the term to go away as well, but for different reasons. What would the insurgents think if we had refugees? They would think that we are doing the same thing to our people as we are doing to those in Iraq and Palestine, that's what they would think and it would make them fight harder. Bush and Jackson both have a goood point, they are refugees.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#21)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:22 PM EST
    Squeaky writes:
    Refugees on the other hand are lower than slaves.
    Really? You should ask a slave which be would rather be.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#22)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:22 PM EST
    PPJ- Possible answer for your inchoate question. Got any in the closet, maybe you could hold a seance?
    Really? You should ask a slave which be would rather be.
    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:22 PM EST
    "Did you ever hear white folks driven from their homes called refugees?" Umm yeah - describing a lot of the homeless people (of all races and ethnicities) from New Orleans. Some of us don't actually think about race much at all.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:23 PM EST
    Posted by Jim: "Famously?" Well, it is nice to be recognized. Do you think Larry King will have me on his show?" No, I think you're evil dirt. James "High-Collar" Robertson: "Some of us don't actually think about race much at all." Nah, hardly at all, except when you are defining 1.7 BILLION PEOPLE as far targets for your rage over the actions of 17 people. Except when you support KILLING 130,000 people in a disarmed country -- then racism helps bridge the 'Provocation Gap.' Otherwise, you don't think about race at all. Now where did that n*gger get off to with my paih?

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#25)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:23 PM EST
    far targets = fair targets.
    'In 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north." Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed."
    Civic leaders who, when asked by Northerners from the N*ggerlovin' Press, said, 'Hell, no, we ain't racists. We loves our N*ggers. Here comes one right now. Hand me down my coon gun, would ya James? You're a good ole boy, thank yeh.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#26)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:23 PM EST
    Claiming that "refugees" are associated with crime of some sort is spectacularly irresponsible and an insult to all the millions and millions of people that have been driven from their homes throughout the world now and in the past. Can you see it? "Refugees (read criminals) in Darfour can blame themselves and rot in their misery...Good old Jessy says they are evil! We dont need to help that scum." But coming from an US politician, this is of course completely in character, one has to wonder what is the average IQ for people in that line of work. But really... For Bush not wanting to call the people fleeing the Katarina disaster "refugees" is a desperate attempt to downplay the seriousness of the situation. As soon as you dont call things the right names, they loose their identity. It is the same naming game as is played in Guantanamo, insisting on calling the prisoners there detainees, or worse, refusing to call the war in Iraq a War. It is like the fat kid that gets mad when someone tries to talk about his situation, because his mother has always insisted on that he is just "big boned" or "husky" etc. The basis for a discussion that can lead to a solution to the actual problem is gone. The next thing one can expect from the US goverment is probably "No, we are not obese as a nation, we are just Americans!" And magically the basis for a discussion of the actual problem is gone. The bottom line is that the people fleeing the disaster area are Refugees, period. When that is established, one can do what needs to be done. We have had refugees in this world since the time of Hammurabi and everyone knows more or less what needs to be done to help them. And BTW, if there is any justice in the world, the mayor of New Orleans should get a cookie.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:24 PM EST
    What a load of utter crap. Let's all stand around and kvetch over the imagined insult of the terms we use to describe people who have been subjected to some very real suffering; then we won't have to deal with the real issues. No WONDER Bush has latched onto it. What a charming little diversion. I've generally been an admirer of Jesse Jackson, but this lapse in his judgement strikes me as another Hymie-Town moment.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#28)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:24 PM EST
    “Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has declared it's "racist" to call U.S. citizens refugees. Jackson and other black leaders say the word has a criminal connotation”
    If we have time for a conversation this inane the frontlines of racial injustice are a good sight quieter than I thought they were. So, keeping in the flavor of the thread (which I assume is ‘trivial and silly’) I propose we call them “Americans seeking refuge”. Now on to more important things; will the Fugees need to change their name as well?

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#29)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:25 PM EST
    Dear detached caucasians, Please read this.
    "People are afraid we'll be like the people on TV, they think everyone from New Orleans is a criminal. We're human beings." Jenkings said.
    "I just hope people don't label us before they get to know us," he said.
    Perception is important. It can mean a big difference in how people are treated, and when the people are in a situation as tenuous as this, it could be very debilitating, to say the least. That's why this debate is not "inane". I really don't think the term "looter" or "refugee" would have been applied nearly as much in the media, if at all, if the victims of this storm were predominantly white.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#30)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:26 PM EST
    Still, Ernesto, this is splitting the hair pretty fine. The term 'refugee' is not inappropriate to the situation, unless the term 'victim of disaster and criminal negligence by a racist executive' can be boiled down into an acronym. Too bad they couldn't 'loot' their family members from the path of the storm and the Wave of Negligence so obvious in Bush's malfeasance.

    Re: Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Re (none / 0) (#31)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:26 PM EST
    I really don't think the term "looter" or "refugee" would have been applied nearly as much in the media, if at all, if the victims of this storm were predominantly white.
    We would not be having this rediculous argument if this had happened anywhere outside the US. We had millions of white refugees all over europe throughout the Balcan wars and never did anyone, anywhere have any problms with the term "refugee" there. More or less the whole Palestinian nation has lived in refugee camps for the last sixty years, no one would think of calling them anything else than refugees. And we have millions and again millions of refugees escaping wars and natural disasters all over the world. And how about people like Albert Einstein... or Magdalene Albright (just to take someone you have probably heard about), they were at a certain point in their lives refugees and they were proud of it. The word "refugee" has nothing to do with crime and claiming that it does is not only ignorant, but it devaluates the desperate cause of people all over the globe that are fleeing their homes because of factors they can not control; wars and natural disasters.

    Bush Joins Jesse Jackson in Opposing Term 'Refugees' | 31 comments (31 topical)