評(píng)論
打印
Long road to a reckoning
漫長(zhǎng)的清算之路
The election revealed a stark divide in the fight for racial equality
這次選舉暴露了爭(zhēng)取種族平等的斗爭(zhēng)中存在的明顯分歧
In the weeks before the Nov. 3 election, as polling suggested that former Vice President Joe Biden might stand on the precipice of a landslide victory, many who had spent the past four years fighting President Donald Trump took solace in a silver lining: Trump, with his egregious behavior and his penchant for saying the quiet part out loud, had removed a bandage that in recent decades has hidden America's deepest defects on race. In doing so, many of his opponents believed, he had presented us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix them.
11月3日大選的前幾周，民調(diào)顯示前副總統(tǒng)拜登可能會(huì)獲得壓倒性勝利，這令過(guò)去四年里一直在和唐納德·特朗普抗?fàn)幍娜嗽谝痪€希望中得到了安慰：特朗普以其過(guò)分的行為和直白張揚(yáng)的嗜好揭開(kāi)了近幾十年來(lái)掩蓋著美國(guó)最深層次的種族缺陷的繃帶。他的許多反對(duì)者認(rèn)為他的這些行為給了我們一個(gè)千載難逢的機(jī)會(huì)來(lái)解決這些問(wèn)題。
But election night brought a shock, if not a surprise, for those eager for the country to turn over a new leaf. While Biden remains favored to collect enough electoral votes to win and become the next President, the striking reality of the small gap between the two contenders left many despondent and fearful. This was not the total repudiation of Trump and Trumpism that so many had hoped for. Instead, in some quarters, it amounted to an embrace, with Trump actually increasing the total number of votes he'd received in 2016. Trump removed the gauze, but rather than healing the wound, we may now be watching it fester.
但對(duì)于那些渴望國(guó)家能夠翻開(kāi)新的一頁(yè)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，選舉之夜帶來(lái)的是驚訝甚至震驚。拜登雖然仍有望獲得足夠多的選舉人票以贏得大選并成為下一任總統(tǒng)，但兩位候選人之間的差距太小，這一驚人現(xiàn)實(shí)讓許多人感到沮喪和恐懼。這并不是很多人曾希望的對(duì)特朗普和特朗普主義的全盤(pán)否定。相反，特朗普實(shí)際上獲得的選票比2016年增加了，從某些方面來(lái)說(shuō)這等于接受了特朗普。特朗普摘下紗布，但我們現(xiàn)在看到的可能不是傷口的愈合，而是傷口的潰爛。
It's no surprise that many Americans are only now catching on to this country's long history of systemic racism. In history class, most Americans learn of the past horrors of slavery and Jim Crow, but the line isn't always drawn to the present. When it is, it's often presented as a long arc of progress, one that "bends toward justice," as famously described by Martin Luther King Jr. and often repeated in political rhetoric, most famously by President Barack Obama. But the reality is that race—and racism—continues to profoundly shape American life.
許多美國(guó)人直到現(xiàn)在才意識(shí)到這個(gè)國(guó)家長(zhǎng)期存在的系統(tǒng)性種族主義，這并不奇怪。大多數(shù)美國(guó)人在歷史課上學(xué)習(xí)了過(guò)去奴隸制和種族歧視的恐怖，但這條線并不總會(huì)畫(huà)到現(xiàn)在。即使畫(huà)到了現(xiàn)在，它也經(jīng)常被描繪成一個(gè)漫長(zhǎng)的進(jìn)程，一個(gè)“向正義低頭”的過(guò)程，這是馬丁·路德·金的名言，多次出現(xiàn)在政治言論中，其中最著名的就是美國(guó)總統(tǒng)巴拉克·奧巴馬的言論。但現(xiàn)實(shí)是，種族以及種族主義將繼續(xù)深刻塑造著美國(guó)人的生活。
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