zlacker

FWIW, I think you're being needlessly antagonistic. I'm trying to help the misunderstanding between Europeans and Americans on this issue (and leveling criticism against people using the term in a certain way in the American context—ICE is an American government agency, after all). Different cultures use words to mean different things. And I can tell you that, in the American context, concentration camp = Nazis killing Jews and internment camp = Americans putting Japanese Americans in camps. However you think it should be, that's the way things are on the ground here.

As a result, calling whatever ICE is doing "concentration camps" doesn't make sense in the American context, unless maybe you're an academic or specialist speaking to there academics or specialists. And it's actually worse than "doesn't make sense in the American context", since it makes people who are only familiar with the American understanding of the term think that you are a deranged ideologue. And that's bad for discourse and finding a shared understanding, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

>>toaste+(OP)
But does the phrase internment camp actually bring to mind abuses such as denying children hygiene supplies such as toothbrushes or basic necessities like blankets in an American reader? The separation of families? The disappearance of children?

If internment camp does not convey that then I think using a technically correct term such as concentration camp to ensure that people pay attention to these abuses is not just technically correct it actually conveys that this is more than "just" an internment camp.

If Americans do generally associate internment camp with that then fair enough call them internment camps in general conversation.

>>toaste+(OP)
And I'm trying to explain to you that it's not a "misunderstanding" - the US is hardly unique in using euphemisms and indirect language to downplay/distance itself from its actions. The "internment camps" Japanese Americans were held in were concentration camps, and frankly it's absurd to expect anybody else to pander to one's euphemisms for human rights abuses - the right thing to do is to consistently call it out no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, "American context" be damned. After all, we don't (for example) have much concern for the "Turkish context" when talking about the Armenian genocide either.

>>filled+6a
FWIW, I am not arguing for using the term “internment camp”. But the term “concentration camp” to describe whatever is happening at ICE detention centers doesn’t make sense. People are not being starved or worked to death, they are not being gassed, and they are not being put into ovens. And those things are what “concentration camp” means in America.

>>greyco+e5
I’m not arguing for the use of the term “internment camp”. I am arguing against the use of the term “concentration camp”.