Bush gets it wrong again...
When talking about the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina this month President Bush reportedly said "The people we're talking about are not refugees," he said. "They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."I see this as is an extremely bizarre (or maybe just mindless, stupid, damaging, typical) thing for him to say. It implies that the term refugee only applies to people from countries outside of America. If you are American, you cannot be a refugee? I would say a refugee is a person from any country who flees their home to seek refuge. Thousands of people from New Orleans have done just that. Rev. Jesse Jackson has gone even further, saying that the term 'refugee' is racist and implies the people termed in this way are second-class citizens, not American. Excuse me? No, really, what? All this demonstrates to me is the negative way in which refugees are portrayed has meant that the term (at least in the States) is not used in the way it should. These people are refugees, just as people fleeing other natural or man-made disasters are refugees. They deserve Bush's 'help, love and compassion' just as much as other refugees do.
posted by Becca @ 12:57 pm
1 Comments:
Absolutely right. Isn't the current American population largely made up of descendants of people, or people themselves, who fled something? GS.
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