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One day, however, she had seen her mother in a line of black women waiting to be hired as maids. White people in cars drove slowly past, looking them over. America’s original sin of slavery seemed as sharp as ever. Even decades later racism still ran deep in the film and TV industries, despite the progress on the surface.
然而，有一天，她看到母親站在黑人女傭的隊伍里，等待被人雇傭。開著汽車的白人慢慢地從隊伍一側駛過，打量著女人們。美國奴隸制的原罪似乎一如既往地深重。即使幾十年后，種族主義觀念仍然在電影和電視行業根深蒂固，盡管表面上看有所進步。
In 1977 she appeared as the hero’s mother in “Roots”, a TV series that told the story of an African boy, Kunta Kinte, sold into slavery in the South. It made a huge splash for a time. But there were still few parts for black actors unless these were “written black”, shoehorned into some white cliché of what her people were.
1977年，她在電視劇《根》（Roots）中飾演男主角的母親，這部電視劇講述了一個非洲男孩昆塔·肯特被賣到南方當奴隸的故事。這部劇在一段時間內引起了巨大的轟動。但提供給黑人演員的角色仍然少得可憐，除非這些角色是“劇本寫明要求黑人演繹”，這些角色被硬塞進一些白人對黑人種族的偏見里。
And they were still not considered automatically as leads, capable of carrying a film, or as actors of classic parts. She would have loved, herself, to play Ophelia. The role seemed closed to her. But where did anyone say Ophelia was white?
外界仍然認為他們無法擔當主角，不具備能力出演電影，或者難以成就經典的角色。她自己也很想飾演奧菲莉亞。這個角色似乎跟她很貼近。但是誰說奧菲莉亞就是個白人呢？
In 2013, fulfilling a long-standing dream, she played an originally white role, Mrs Carrie Watts, in “The Trip to Bountiful” on Broadway. It won her a Tony award. The story was of an old woman who insisted on seeing her childhood home before she died.
2013年，她實現了自己一直以來的夢想，在百老匯的影片《邦蒂富爾之旅》中扮演了一個原本是白人的角色——卡里·瓦茨夫人。她憑借該影片獲得托尼獎。《邦蒂富爾之旅》講述的是一位老婦人堅持要在臨終前重返兒時故鄉的故事。
As usual she steeped herself in the character, even going to “Mrs Carrie’s” part of Texas to scratch up the earth and smell it. Being ancient herself now, it was not hard to get the moves right.
像往常一樣，她讓自己沉浸在角色中，甚至到得州“卡里夫人”的故居挖土，聞聞泥土的氣息。現在她也上了年紀，這些動作對她來說并不難。
And in any case, for all her care with nuances, her characters had one trait they shared. Whatever their age, they stood tall, squared their shoulders, pressed onward. They kept their chins high.
無論如何，盡管她很在意角色之間的細微差別，但她刻畫的角色都有一個共同點。不管角色的年齡多大，她們都會挺胸抬頭，奮力向前。她們絕對不會俯首低眉。
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