評論
打印
When I saw the story on the burned car,
看到那篇關于汽車被燒的報道時，
I realized we were facing an opposition that went far beyond historic preservationists to a burning fringe of people bent on criminal behavior.
我意識到，我們面臨的對手比歷史上著名的保護主義者厲害多了的角色，這是一群已經到了熱衷于犯罪的邊緣的人。
AS TENSION BUILT, a thought kept gnawing at me of how badly we had been taught about the Civil War,
隨著局勢逐漸緊張，我腦子里一直有一個想法折磨著我，那就是我們接受的內戰教育是多么的糟糕，
how little about slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Crow.
我們接受的關于奴隸制以及重建，《吉姆·克勞法 》的教育是多么的匱乏，
Also how the ingrained racial attitudes I encountered in youth and through adulthood
還有在我青春期和整個成年歲月里，我在新奧爾良這座音樂、美食、舞會和游行折射出的人文精神完美融合的城市里，
in a city with such a wonderful mix of humanity reflected in the music and cuisine, the balls and parades,
遇到的根深蒂固的種族主義姿態
nevertheless had a cold, dark underside—and it’s not just New Orleans.
背后是如何冷漠，如何黑暗——而且，這不僅僅是新奧爾良的問題。
You can drive 50 miles from here and find people in rural towns
從新奧爾良開車前行50英里到鄉下的小鎮上，你就能找到
who feel emotionally invested in our Robert E. Lee statue as an idea of the Civil War—what the South was.
對羅伯特·愛德華·李雕像傾注了個人感情，將其視為內戰理念——南方究竟是怎樣的一個地方——代表的人。
Drive a few hundred more miles to the outer edges of the South
繼續開幾百英里到南方的邊緣地帶，
and you can find white people who think “the South” is misunderstood,
你還能找到認為“南方”被大家誤解了，
that the heritage of their ancestors, or the idea of an honorable war, as taught in schools and passed through family tradition, supersedes why that war was fought.
認為他們祖先的遺產，或者說內戰是一場光榮的戰爭的理念，學校里就是這么教的，他們的家庭傳統也是這么教的，已經取代了為什么要打這場戰爭的原因的白人。
How else do we explain the blanket of hostility toward black people that shrouds the voting patterns of the white South?
對黑人的濃濃敵意籠罩著白人南方的投票模式，對此，我們還要怎么解釋？
Think about the Southern strategy of the Republican Party as fomented by Nixon, carried on by Reagan and now re-enacted with President Donald Trump.
想想由尼克松煽動起來，之后由里根接手，如今在唐納德·特朗普治下又重新開始生效的南方戰略吧。
Even with large black populations,
即使黑人人口眾多，
no Southern state has a voting black majority,
也依然沒有哪一個南方州的黑人在投票中占了多數，
and every Southern state is schizophrenically split on voting lines of race, Louisiana high among them.
并且，每個南方州在選舉投票線上都像精神分裂了一樣存在嚴重的分歧，其中又數路易斯安那州最為明顯。
Race is the great dividing wedge used by what was once the party of Lincoln to attract workingclass whites and country-club conservatives
種族是林肯曾經領導的共和黨用來拉攏工人階級白人和鄉村俱樂部保守派，造成分裂的楔子，
who share few economic interests but are united against the interests of African Americans.
共和黨和那些人之間并沒有多少經濟利益交集，但在妨礙非裔美國人的利益上，他們可是一條心。
Here is what I have learned about race:
下面是我對種族的理解：
You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go around it. You have to go through it.
你沒有辦法從上面繞過它，也沒有辦法從下面或是旁邊繞過它，你只能正面面對。
When we testify in court, we swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
在法庭上作證時，我們會宣誓說出真相，說出全部的真相，并且只說真相。
This is important, because anything but the whole truth and nothing but the truth will lead us astray.
這很重要，因為說出全部的真相并且只說真相之外的任何做法都會讓我們誤入歧途。
Yet that is the story of American history that most of us know, particularly as it relates to race.
然而，這就是我們大多數人了解到的美國歷史的故事，尤其是有關種族的歷史的故事。
To move forward, we must commit to tell the whole truth about our past.
要向前發展，我們就必須承諾，說出關于我們歷史的全部真相。
To move forward, we must find that new space on race here,
要向前發展，我們就必須在這里找出新的種族空間，
a zone of belief that holds promise for a nation committed to justice for all of our people, making right what we have failed to do and insisting that we will do what it takes to reach the next threshold for humankind.
一個讓致力于為我們所有人伸張正義，完成我們未能做到的事情并堅信我們將盡一切努力突破人類下一個門檻的國家有望實現其理念的信仰空間。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
