US WWII “internment” and “relocation” centers were actual concentration camps (“relocation center” was itself a euphemism, but “internment” referred to a formal legal distinction impacting treaty obligations.)
If someone says that something is "_literally_ a concentration camp" I think that most people will think of ovens and genocide.
Perhaps it's a regional thing, but that is how I interpreted it.
Though what they did certainly bore a strong resemblance to the Boer war concentration camps/manzanar,etc. whose purpose was to "concentrate" people into one place rather than industrially slaughter them.
Maybe it's just me, but I think it would have been more clear if you said internment camp if your intent was to refer to the broader context and not invoke a comparison to nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment
Where it also makes the point that the nazi camps were primarily extermination camps.
Maybe take it up with them and get back to me if you feel truly passionate about this issue.
>Maybe it's just me, but I think it would have been more clear
Gosh, it's awfully ironic that this sentence would happen in a thread about how language policing is used as a distraction from important issues.
Is it more important to you how people use the term concentration camp or the fact that ICE lock up children in internment/concentration/[ insert favorite word here ] camps?
Well, that escalated quickly.
I don't think I ever said anything for or against what ICE is doing, in fact I tried not to because the only thing I wanted to say was that when using the words "literally concentration camps" people might read that as "camps designed to kill people" since that is the way I've been taught it (in history classes) and heard it (in general use).
I don't even live in the US so I have no say in this in a democratic sense. If I did I'd be against the way migrants are treated and want more humane treatment, but I don't think that should be relevant to what I said.
Seems unlikely.
From my perspective this conversation is as if someone said "working for XCompany is actual slavery" and I said "Perhaps don't use 'actual slavery' as a term for something that isn't that?"
There is usually a political motive behind what controversial things are called. There was an active push from the oil lobby swap out the terms for the climate disaster from “global warming” to the more innocent sounding “climate change”. Then recently some media companies made the political decision to start using the term “climate disaster” or “climate crisis”.
> working for XCompany is actual slavery
I don’t think this is equivalent (even though it sounds like it to your ears). The ICE facilities can accurately be described as concentration camps. The victims are kept against their will—i.e. imprisoned—in camps in dedicated camps. This is an accurate term. Slavery only applies when you are forced to work for little or no salary. I.e. I often use the word actual slavery when referring to prison labor. This is a political decision on my part. And you are free to criticize this choice of word. And you would be right to say it diminishes the term when compared to the horrible cattle slavery in the Americas until the 19th century. But it is still an accurate term.
I'm not really sure what your motive for trying to police my language was. All I know is that the reasons you have given me all seem rather unlikely.
A camp like Ravensbrück was a concentration camp (for women) while Auschwitz-Birkenau was both a concentration and extermination camp.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/WW2_Holo...
