評論
打印
Death penalty in America is defined by error.
死刑在美國是常有差錯的。
For every nine people who have been executed, we've actually identified one innocent person who's been exonerated and released from death row.
每九個被判死刑的人，有一個后來會被證明無罪被免死刑。
A kind of astonishing error rate -- one out of nine people innocent. I mean, it's fascinating.
這種錯誤率，九分之一的人完全無辜。我得說，非常震撼。
In aviation, we would never let people fly on airplanes if for every nine planes that took off one would crash.
學航空的人知道，如果每九架飛機里會有一架出事故，我們肯定是不會讓這玩意兒載人飛的。
But somehow we can insulate ourselves from this problem.
但是莫名其妙地我們就能忽視死刑的問題。
It's not our problem. It's not our burden. It's not our struggle.
因為這不是我們自身的問題。這不是我們自身的麻煩。這不是我們自身的掙扎。
I talk a lot about these issues. I talk about race and this question of whether we deserve to kill.
我談了很多問題。種族，還有我們配不配執行死刑。
And it's interesting, when I teach my students about African-American history, I tell them about slavery.
這很發人深省，當我教美國黑人歷史的時候，我和學生講奴隸制。
I tell them about terrorism, the era that began at the end of reconstruction that went on to World War II.
和他們講恐怖主義，那個始于大復興晚期，一直到二戰時期的時代。
We don't really know very much about it. But for African-Americans in this country, that was an era defined by terror.
我們并不真的了解那段歷史。但是對于這個國家的黑人來說，那是個白色恐怖時代。
In many communities, people had to worry about being lynched. They had to worry about being bombed.
在很多社區，人們害怕隨時會被私刑處死。人們擔心隨時會被炸彈襲擊。
It was the threat of terror that shaped their lives.
那個白色恐怖時代，改變了他們的生活。
And these older people come up to me now and they say, "Mr. Stevenson, you give talks, you make speeches,
那時的人現在上了年紀，來和我說，“史蒂文森先生，你到處演講，
you tell people to stop saying we're dealing with terrorism for the first time in our nation's history after 9/11."
你得告訴大家，別說什么911以后是我們美國有史以來第一次對付恐怖主義。”
They tell me to say, "No, tell them that we grew up with that."
他們讓我說：“我們就是在恐怖里長大的。”
And that era of terrorism, of course, was followed by segregation and decades of racial subordination and apartheid.
那個恐怖主義的時代，當然了，最后演變成了無法逾越的鴻溝，數十年的種族歧視和種族隔離。
