Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!!!

Ray Buffington, editor-in-chief

What is truly “politically incorrect”?

If a group of people look down on a particular word as “socially unacceptable,” yet you use that word to describe something that fits the characteristics and definition of the word exactly, are you “politically incorrect” for using the seemingly distasteful word?

In most circumstances, I would agree with the “politically incorrect” side, scolding the naughty mouth for uttering such insults and breaking the comfortable norm of things. But in those circumstances, the “politically incorrect” person used the word incorrectly. His or her ignorance revealed their lack of knowledge, making him or her look like a fool for not knowing the definition or meaning of the word they so freely slung around.

Lately, I’ve been faced with a situation where I’ve been put into the shoes of the “politically incorrect” party for using a “socially unacceptable” term to describe or name a certain group of people. However, as “socially unacceptable” as it may seem to those ignorant stick-throwers, I am not being politically incorrect, but merely matching and using a word with the meaning that correctly defines this certain group of people.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated and destroyed a large part of Louisiana, the people who escaped with their lives were referred to as “refugees,”. Well…at first they were. It wasn’t too long until Oprah Winfrey grabbed her golden, diamond-encrusted soapbox to perch upon so she could put in her two cents. Or, in her case, 20 million cents.

She claimed that the survivors were not “refugees,” but that they were “evacuees.” Those who were still alive had been evacuated (keyword) from a life-threatening danger. The “incorrect” use of “refugee” needed to be stopped immediately, according to Oprah.

I could have understood where Oprah was coming from, and I usually do, being an avid watcher of her show. But it was hard this time, because she was wrong. Not completely wrong, but wrong for saying “refugee” was not the correct term to describe this devastated group of people.

As incorrect as her statement was, soon everyone and their dog went on a rampage to switch the then-currently-used word to the new one, believing that it had less menacing meaning for the survivors. I found myself being barked at every time I used the word “refugee” when referring to them.

It blew my mind how passionate people were about not using the word “refugee.” Everyone in the United States feels a sense of guardianship over the survivors, myself included. But why get upset over such a trivial thing, especially when the “naughty” word they hate so much is the correct one?

This debacle in priorities triggered a memory in my mind concerning a country that didn’t want to participate in a needless, fruitless war (France), and the renaming of a popular, tasty American fast food product (french fries) because of the “rogue” country’s decision.

I can’t put into words how livid I was over the immature, childish actions of Americans renaming french fries as “freedom” fries because of France’s desire to not participate in a war to search for weapons of mass destruction that would ultimately end up with the Americans standing in a pile of corpses, empty-handed.

Could Americans not see the big picture of what had been going on at the time? Who cares about what an unhealthy food item should be named when we were about to take over a country that we hadn’t exactly been great friends with through the years?

 I suppose those who were not being sent to a foreign country needed to draw blood somewhere, satisfying their needs by picking on a country like a playground bully would pick on a fellow student who wore glasses.

After countless hours of screaming, crying, clawing debates, I decided to do a little research to back up my view on the meaning and definition of the word “refugee.” With the guidance of the Internet and many, many dictionaries and encyclopedias, I found evidence that leads to a stalemate between the two views.

The “Online Plain Text English Dictionary” defines refugee as “One who flees to a shelter, or place of safety”.

This, I believe, is the most commonly held idea of what the word “refugee” represents, hence why everyone was using it at the beginning of the clean-up of the tragedy. The Lousiana-ites were escaping (fleeing) their state to other states (shelter, or place of safety), because to stay at their flooding homes would be risking their lives.

The “Compact Oxford English Dictionary” defines refugee as “ a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster”.

While it is definitely not war or persecution the refugees are escaping from, I’m pretty sure a hurricane can be classified as a “natural disaster”, just as Louisiana can be classified as their “country.”

Even though this piece is an editorial, giving me free reign to be as biased as I would like to be, I went ahead and checked out the definitions of “evacuee” to see what grounds the opposing party were standing on.

Www.dictionary.com defines evacuee as “a person who has been evacuated from a dangerous place”.

Interesting… Could it be possible that there are two words in the English language that could both be used to describe something, since they basically have the same meaning?

Another interesting fact I found is that when one enters “refugee” into the thesaurus page of www.dictionary.com, they are given a list of synonyms that could replace the word refugee. One of them happens to be “evacuee.” When “evacuee” was entered into the thesaurus word finder, “refugee” came up on its list of synonyms.

So what is the conclusion to the research I conducted?

Either word, “refugee” or “evacuee”, may be correctly used to describe the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They both have essentially the same meaning, and neither had been created with malicious intent, meaning not to offend anyone save the ignorant.

When tragedies occur in the United States, people get so caught up in the moment that they sometimes lose sight of the real issue. They want to help the cause so much and the patriotism that America is known for sometimes runs away on its own, mauling over the innocent, creating unneeded and, again, trivial issues that have no importance.

I can almost assure you that the refugees of Hurricane Katrina do not care what they are called. They are more concerned with things such as having a house, clothes, searching for missing loved ones, and finding out what to do with their lives now that most of what had been their lives has washed away.

Instead of arguing whether or not the Louisiana-ites are refugees, evacuees, survivors, victims, hurricane-ees, or Katrina-ees, let’s focus that hot, adrenaline-fueled energy on helping out those who suffer, giving that energy a more productive use to a more than needing cause.