The Winston-Salem Journal has an interesting discussion today about the controversy surrounding the use of the term ?refugee? to describe Katrine victims who have fled to other cities or states. Here?s a key passage:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said that the word showed bias.

“To see them as refugees is to see them as other than Americans,” he said in The Baltimore Sun, ?and that is inaccurate, unfair and racist.?

Ed McCarter, the owner of Special Occasions bookstore in Winston-Salem, protested the use of the word to a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. He said that it should apply only to people escaping from foreign countries with no intention of coming back.

?My English teacher would be very upset with me if I misused that word,? McCarter said.

The Journal has begun replacing refugee with such words as evacuee or storm victim.


Before reflexively lurching into an anti-political correctness spiel, it is worth considering the costs and benefits of adjusting one?s language in response to such concerns. What?s wrong with using the term ?evacuee??

At first, I was tempted to agree with another analyst quoted in the story:

Erika Lindemann, who heads the department of romance languages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says she has little patience with the debate. She has spent the last few days trying to find housing for a graduate student who will study at UNC because Tulane University in New Orleans is shut down.

Victims? Evacuees? Displaced persons? Refugees?

?I don’t have time to debate the merit of this word or that word,? she said. ?We need to be helping the people, not labeling them.?

That?s actually incorrect, I think. Part of leadership is rhetorical ? giving people a sense of confidence and hope, and framing problems in a way that encourages teamwork and solutions. At the very least, the Bush administration failed to do its job rhetorically in the first couple of days after the storm hit. That is, indeed, a failure.