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Oprah Winfrey closed her broadcast today with a plea for everybody to stop calling Katrina survivors "refugees." She reminded us, "They are Americans."
While this may be a bit of a technicality to many people, we get her drift. She's trying to humanize and personalize this disaster, so more people can relate. Looking at the photos, it seems like this is in a third world country. Sadly it's here. That's the point.
LAist shed a tear (or ten) during Oprah's show. For the first time in a week, we got an hour-long news package free of sound-bytes and photo ops. She showed the bad, the ugly and the unthinkable.
While we applaud Oprah's approach, we think it's a sad day, indeed, when a talk show hostess handles herself with more aplomb than the nightly news.
Here's hoping that the post-Labor Day news coverage improves, especially in LA. Perhaps everyone will forget about celebrity comings and goings for a week, and focus on a big domestic issue. We need to see all sides of the story, including the ugly bits. The only way to prevent this from happening again is to be [fully] accountable for our action (or lack thereof) and learn from our mistakes.
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One can be an American and a refugee at the same time.
Words mean things, and the common definition of "refugee" is "one who seeks refuge." How does this NOT apply to the evacuees from the Gulf Coast?
And the last person I need lecturing me on refugee status is zillionaire Oprah Winfrey.
Agreed. You can both be an American and a refugee. I think her argument was that it made them appear more disparate than necessary.
Regardless who's right here, semantics play an integral part in perception. The government's media advisors know this all too well. Take the Gulf War, for instance. "Soft" and "hard" targets were used to describe people and buildings. Missiles were "peace-keepers." In Bosnia, "ethnic-cleansing" was used to mask the ugly truth about genocide.
Oprah may be rich, but that does not negate her efforts or make her argument less true. It simply gives her a bigger platform from which to speak.
Yes, words and perception are an important part of the discussion, but we shouldn't let it get in the way, nor become the story itself. These people are refugees, ugly as it sounds. This does not (most emphatically) make them less American, or less deserving of attention.
I get this a lot with the "Handicapped" vs. "Disabled" debate. Many within the community reject the former label because it "sounds funny". But I reject the latter. I *am* handicapped, I am *not* disabled, as I am quite able in spite of my handicap.
It's the same with the refugees. Let us not seek to soften the impact by choosing a comfortable label.
Thanks for the reminder about the show. I caught the 1 am rerun. I thought Oprah and company did a good job, helping put things in context. At first I thought she was grandstanding a bit trying to get into the Superdome, but when she made her argument, "It's OK for thousands of people to stay in there for six days, but you're worried about me for five minutes?" I thought it was justified. What was good but horrifying was the extent to which her correspondents were able to help people they were interviewing, whether it was giving fluid to a dehydrated baby or taking care of a dog overnight. It really showed how many needs were going unmet for how long.
While I understand the message, I cannot stand Oprah's methods anymore. I am so tired of celebrities telling me what's important and how I should feel. I've cried, donated, made phone calls, sent emails and volunteered to the best of my ability. If Oprah's show helps these poor hurricane victims, great, but her self-aggrandizing displays of consumerism and pseudo-new agey religious pandering make my stomach turn. If you have to rely on someone like Oprah to tell you wants important, you have a big problem.
I'm happy this opened a dialogue. And I appreciate all the different points of view.
Snow, I agree, the correspondents brought the best moments to the show. I'll concede... Oprah can be over-the-top... But, per William's comment, I hope that [regardless of your p.o.v.] yesterday's show served as catalyst for [some] people to take action. Honestly, that's the only thing that matters right now.
While it's nice that Oprah's foundation is making a sizeable donation, I don't need her advice on how to feel. Why can't these people shut up and write checks?