That's interesting. I started noticing the use of "folks" mainly because I becoming concerned with the use of "refugees".
Our capacity to feel compassion is pretty limited. It lasts only as long as we can tell others what we have done to help, as long as we can have that moment of pride when others look at us and think "you're such a wonderful and generous person."
The word refugee has a ceratin conotation to it. It evokes images of huddled masses of people leaving a devestated homeland and showing up at our door step looking for shelter. It also evokes images of people who eventually put a strain on our economy, who take jobs away from us and who seek financial assistance from our government.
Already we've seen some people blaming the victims for the situation they are in, focuing on the looting and other criminal acts that occured in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and behaving toward these people as though they are an embarassment to our country. On this site, someone reposted a news article that basically wrote off these victims as welfare parasites.
Early this week I watched news coverage of a group of black New Orleans citazins being plunked down in the middle of Utah. The all white, mostly Mormon community welcomed them with open arms. I couldn't help wondering what happens when reality sets in and it becomes clear that these are not short term visitors. What happens when the culture of this town starts to change? Will racial tension start to fester? Will there be hatred?
The use of the word "folks" may be a ploy to get people to associate the down home values of small town America with these hurricane victims. Maybe it remind them that these are not third world people coming to the US looking for a "hand out." These are Amercian citizens who have been displaced from a city that is vital to the economy of the nation. When the compassion wanes, tensions build and the novelty of helping out the "poor refugess" wears off, we still need to get New Orleans rebuilt and reviatized. We need to get it repopulated for the sake of our economy. We can't look at these displaced people as homeless refugees.
The associations we have with words can be pretty powerful. I can easily imagine that the use of "folks" is a deliberate choice to stimulate certain associations for middle America, those folks in Utah and Texas and other states where the poeple of New Orleans are being sent and may decide to stay for good.
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