評論
打印
Where the fault lies
問題出在哪里
It is unreasonable to keep expecting black voters to save our democracy
指望黑人選民來拯救我們的民主是不合理的
Since the 2000 election, the first in which I was old enough to vote, the Republican Party and the courts have worked together to disenfranchise voters on the left, who are disproportionately people of color. It is because of two sets of practices— voter suppression and the Electoral College, both rooted in American racism—that the 2020 presidential election is a nail-biter. It should not be.
自2000年大選以來，也是我第一次能夠投票之時，共和黨和法院已經聯手剝奪了左翼選民的選舉權，這些選民是不成比例的有色人種。正是那兩套植根于美國種族主義的做法——選民壓制和選舉團制度——使得2020年的總統選舉變得緊張不安。這是不應該的。
The Trump presidency has been a failure. He was impeached for inviting foreign interference into U.S. elections. He has separated breastfeeding babies from their mothers and locked kids in cages at our border. He has encouraged white supremacists, failed to pay his taxes and mismanaged a pandemic costing more than a quarter-million American lives. There is no set of standards—professional or moral—by which he could be deemed a success.
特朗普的總統任期是失敗的，他因邀請外國干涉美國選舉而被彈劾。在美國邊境，他把正在哺乳的嬰兒和他們的母親分開，把孩子鎖在籠子里。他鼓勵白人至上主義者，他不繳稅，他對導致25萬美國人喪生的新冠處理不當。我們無法通過任何一套標準——專業的或者道德上的——來認定他是成功的。
But he may still be re-elected.
但他仍有可能再次當選。
Like many Americans who love "liberty and justice for all," I hope that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail. But if they don't, it's certainly not Black people's fault. Let's be clear: Donald Trump is the fault of white people. His rise is a direct result of white people's collective rejection of the progress that the Obama era signaled. And it is time to point fingers. It is time for the Americans who elected him the first time, handing him the power of incumbency this time, to take responsibility. At some point, we must reckon as a country with the moral perversion of asking the people with the knee of the state on their necks to subdue their attackers. Yes, that is the African-American story—that we fled plantations and led slave revolts to demand our freedom. But that is not a reasonable expectation of citizens in a functioning democracy. The institution of slavery did not die until white Americans were willing to risk something to insist on a better way for the country.
像許多熱愛“人人享有自由和正義”的美國人一樣，我希望喬·拜登和卡瑪拉·哈里斯能夠獲勝。但如果他們沒有，這當然不是黑人的錯。我們來明確一點：唐納德·特朗普是白人的錯。他的崛起是白人集體拒絕奧巴馬時代所標志的進步的直接結果。現在是指責的時候了，是時候讓第一次選他上臺、這次又將總統權利交給他的美國人承擔責任了。在某種程度上我們必須認為，作為一個國家，要求那些被國家所壓迫的人民制服他們的攻擊者是一種道德上的扭曲。是的，這就是非洲裔美國人的故事——我們逃離種植園，領導奴隸起義，要求獲得自由。但在一個運轉正常的民主國家，這不是公民的合理期望。直到美國白人愿意冒著風險堅持為國家尋找更好的出路，奴隸制制度才會消亡。
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