I read one of the dumber quotes I’ve read in a while today. I’m as liberal as they come, but even I am utterly flabbergasted at Jesse Jackson saying “It is racist to call American Citizens refugees”.
Now, first off lets take a look at the more absurd portion of the quote. American is not a race. American is a nationality. It is not racist to call American citizens anything. Reverend Jackson is speaking about a large group of people made of up many different races.
Secondly, all a refugee is is someone who is seeking refuge. Last I checked there is an enormous number of American citizens who a used to live in New Orleans that are now seeking refuge in other places. It really is just that simple. Hurricane Katrina and a lack of foresight among a lot of people with money and power have created a situation where millions need refuge around the country. That is all there is to it. Its not a harsh label. Its not a racist label. It is the word in the English language that we use for people who seek refuge.
So why does Reverend Jackson think the word refugee is racist? Because Reverend Jackson is a nationalist. When Americans think of the word refugee they think of poor people in backwater countries who have become faceless masses looking for a home. Americans don’t like to think that we are just people like the rest of the world. Reverend Jackson deep down believes being American puts him above the kind of situation where one would become a refugee.
The deeper problem here is that an fairly significant portion of this country holds the same belief. We are raised to essentially believe that we are better than everyone else. We are bred with an arrogance that goes beyond the norm. Reverend Jackson doesn’t like using the term refugee for American citizens because it forces him and others to look hard at the fact that we do not have our shit together. Louisiana is one big reminder that America is not invisible. Bad things happen here too. The enormous Tsunami that laid waste to countries along the Indian Ocean earlier this year was scary. It created refugees. It created hundreds of thousands of displaced homeless people. But that was over there. That couldn’t happen here!
Well it did. And we have a lot more to worry about that calling people an appropriate term. There is nothing racist or even offensive about the word refugee. Get over it. We have bigger worries right now than calling a pot a pot.
But hey, at least the President is confident that Trent Lott’s house will be rebuilt.
I listen to music patterns. I will go through fairly lengthy periods of listening to predominately one or two albums or artists for a few months. A couple of artists have hit me hard enough that I never really put away their music. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and the Clash / Joe Strummer are the big two for me in my life. Technically I would say Joe Strummer because I love all of his bands, from the 101′ers down to the Mescaleros., and just about everything in between. The Bosstones are the band that really introduced me to, well, music. I have always loved music but the ‘Tones opened the door for me to the Clash, The Specials, The Beat…. really almost all of the music I have discovered and fell in love with the past 10 years.
Some of the bands I love I will listen to a lot of in a short period of time and burn out on them a bit. Every so often I will get the urge to pop one of their CD’s on and it will hit me all over again why I fell in love with them. I’m writing this while listening to the Jam “Sound of the Jam” a greatest hits collection. I haven’t listened to any of their stuff in a while and it is pouring over me again how much I just love their music. I won’t get into the specifics of it, because why I like certain bands is a whole other kettle of fish. What I am on about is that simple act of rediscovering music. It is such a good feeling. For me it is like the first day of spring every couple of weeks or months. A little distance really does help increase that joy of coming together again.
I realize this is all a bit over dramatic but music plays such a big part in my life that it really is a powerful moment when I hear a song I haven’t heard in ages and get to touch that feeling that a given song inspires in me all over again. Each song we love soundtracks a different story in our lives and reminds us of bits of our past, present and future.
For instance, the song currently playing is a song called “Thick as Thieves”. It is from the Jam’s album Setting Sons. It is about a group of three friends who spent all their time together as kids and then grew apart. To me it tells the story of my best friends in high school Matt and Leon. We have long since drifted apart, as friends are wont to do. But that song makes me smile because it touches me in that tender part of my soul that remembers how good it felt to be hanging out with a couple of mates that were in the same place I was at the same time. Its a good feeling. Listen to the song too much over the course of say, a month, and you begin to lose touch with that part of you that it touches. But it is a magical experience to hear it again after a while and have it bring back the stories of your life.