"Wait a minute," she said, staring at the screen. "Something is wrong. Why are we calling them 'refugees'?"

For three days, she had watched the images of Hurricane Katrina. People stranded on rooftops screamed with outstretched arms. Thousands of ravaged adults and frightened children packed into the Louisiana Superdome, many of them so hungry and thirsty they were talking out of their heads.

White shook her own head in disbelief at the images of bloated bodies floating face-down in flooded streets. "I cried so hard my heart hurt," she said.

On the third night, the Warrensville Heights, Ohio, woman grew angry.

"It's 'refugee' this, and 'refugee' that. Those are poor people, poor people who are citizens of the United States. They aren't refugees, they aren't running from their government. They had no means to get out. No car. No money."

Her voice fell soft and sad. "I'm a black woman, but this isn't about race. This is about poverty. There are poor white people there, too. And it is not respectful to call any of them refugees in their own country. Not in a place like this. Not in America."

For some Americans, the word "refugee" is just that, a word, and a fitting one to describe the hundreds of thousands from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who were displaced.

Many Americans, though, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have denounced the depiction as racist.

The United Nations describes a refugee as someone who has fled across an international border to escape violence or persecution. Webster's New World College Dictionary defines it as "a person who flees from home or country to seek refuge elsewhere, as in a time of war or of political or religious persecution."

To understand why "refugee" is a loaded word, consider who was left behind in the hurricane. An Associated Press analysis showed that about 60 percent of the 700,000 in the three dozen neighborhoods hardest hit were minorities. Nearly 25 percent of them were below the poverty line, almost double the national average.

Consider, too, the appalling disconnect between the federal government and the people who desperately needed its help.

While the storm raged, the president attended a fundraiser and played golf. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went shoe shopping in New York.

Three-and-a-half days after Katrina hit the ground, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN that he didn't know until that very day that tens of thousands of New Orleans residents and tourists were holed up at the city's convention center.

Early last week, the president's mother, Barbara Bush, visited the Houston Astrodome, where tens of thousands of the poor who lost everything in the hurricane were waiting.

They're fine, she said. Just fine.

"So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them," she said.

Define "well."

"Refugee" no longer feels like a word, but a way to distance ourselves emotionally from what we can't quite believe is happening to citizens in our own country. To many, it sounds like an attempt to excuse the inexcusable.

The American Red Cross has instructed all its chapters not to use the word "refugee." Many newspapers also are not using it.

This may strike some as just too politically correct, but to others it's a small gesture with a huge embrace. In the weeks and months ahead, we will have plenty of chances to show support and concern for survivors we've never met but feel we know by now.

Let's not start by calling them refugees. They are Americans, and it's time we take care of our own.

© 2005 Star Tribune