這是有關卡崔那颶風的兩篇報導，不同於先前的災難式報導，這兩篇是比較偏向人文啟思的，第一篇是摘自經濟學人網站，題目為"When government fails.–The pathetic official response to Katrina has shocked the world. How will it change America?"，另ㄧ篇為摘自台北時報，題目為"What do you call people who survive a cataclysm in the US?"，原文就不再重複，只是想分享這兩篇中的ㄧ些部份–有關一些name-calling的啟思。

 

在經濟學人的那篇報導中，裡面有一段這麼提到："Nonetheless, media coverage of Katrina drew furious allegations of subtle bias. Using the term “refugees” for those seeking refuge from the storm was racist, apparently, and Yahoo! News drew flak for picture captions describing a black man as “looting” and whites as “finding” goods. The agencies that supplied the pictures retorted that the captions reflected what their photographers had witnessed."，這是千真萬確的，那篇照片中是一個黑人右手抱著ㄧ根火腿的樣子，在水深及胸的「路」上走著，而"looting"就寫在圖片的正下方，而白人，則是ㄧ對夫婦，在(應該是自己的)洋房前走著，當然，雖然水深未及胸，但也至少及膝了，而下方則是"finding"。相同的災難，ㄧ樣的國家卻會出現這兩種詮釋，也難怪乎前文中會說"紐奧良有2/3是黑人，「這也意味著那邊的貧困」？"這關係很奇怪，對吧？也許，他們的有車率的確不及白人，因此無法在第一時間徹出紐奧良，但不代表他們就是該死的呀~ 何況，救人還分他們有車沒車嗎？

 

這中間需要一些思考…

 

不過，還是希望焦點可以擺在"refugees"這個字，因為，這個字就是台北時報的主要重點。

 

在北時的那篇文章中，列出許多refugees的定義："although a refugee can be defined as "a person who seeks refuge," it has carried the connotation since 1685 of "one who seeks refuge or asylum in a foreign country to escape religious or political persecution." Those swimming or walking to higher ground or sweltering in makeshift aid stations presented the appearance of refugees seen so often on television; this explained the initial use of the description, but appearance is not reality.","Roberta Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, defined refugees as "people who cross borders to escape violence, civil wars and human rights violations — because they do not have the protection of their own country. A natural disaster is not considered a cause of refugee status." 可以看出，refugees是相當負面的ㄧ個字–對自己的國民而言，但是，美聯社卻這麼稱呼受難的人民為(乞求庇護的)難民，這… … 也真的無言了說。(其實自己也是馬後炮，也沒想過這字的真正意涵…)

 

不過，裡面提出的其他稱呼語倒是不錯：displaced citizens、Katrina survivors、flood victims…，自己真的覺得反而比較親切。看來，有些字的使用真的要很小心，這也是name-calling的精髓吧！？

還是喜歡propaganda這個字…