More objections to the word "refugee"

[sacundim]

There's been a few more since I last wrote about it:

'Refugees' in their land (Boston Globe)
New race row rattles relief drive for hurricane victims

I'm starting to get a more nuanced understanding of the objection. The argument goes, more or less:

1. In the USA, "refugee" is a word that is commonly used to describe displaced people in third-world foreign countries.
   
2. Most of the people shown in the press as displaced by Hurricane Katrina are African-American.
   
3. Therefore, the use of the word "refugee" in this situation portrays African-Americans as foreigners in their own country.

I still can't help but read the insistence on not labeling Americans as "refugees" as carrying a xenophobic subtext. Step #1 above, the association between "refugee" and "third-world foreigners," is already xenophobic: it is deeply woven with a very American sense of exceptionalism, manifested in expressions whereby Americans, faced with events like 9/11, Abu Gharib, and Katrina, offer spontaneous reactions such as: "I can't believe somebody could hate the USA!"; "I can't believe Americans would do those horrible things!"; or, "I can't believe this is happening in the USA!"

The cognitive dissonance that the term "American refugee" poses for many Americans is the inability to envision themselves in the shoes of somebody from a foreign country. This is something that bothers me every bit as much as middle-class white American's inability to envision themselves in the shoes of ethnic minorities and disadvantaged people within the USA itself. And I would hope that Jesse Jackson and his supporters would understand this.

In other words, if somebody's putting you down by comparing you to foreigners, I would hope that part of your answer should be: "What's your problem with foreigners?"