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When I saw the story on the burned car,
看到那篇关于汽车被烧的报道时，
I realized we were facing an opposition that went far beyond historic preservationists to a burning fringe of people bent on criminal behavior.
我意识到，我们面临的对手比历史上著名的保护主义者厉害多了的角色，这是一群已经到了热衷于犯罪的边缘的人。
AS TENSION BUILT, a thought kept gnawing at me of how badly we had been taught about the Civil War,
随着局势逐渐紧张，我脑子里一直有一个想法折磨着我，那就是我们接受的内战教育是多么的糟糕，
how little about slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Crow.
我们接受的关于奴隶制以及重建，《吉姆·克劳法 》的教育是多么的匮乏，
Also how the ingrained racial attitudes I encountered in youth and through adulthood
还有在我青春期和整个成年岁月里，我在新奥尔良这座音乐、美食、舞会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,
遇到的根深蒂固的种族主义姿态
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，这不仅仅是新奥尔良的问题。
You can drive 50 miles from here and find people in rural towns
从新奥尔良开车前行50英里到乡下的小镇上，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.
对罗伯特·爱德华·李雕像倾注了个人感情，将其视为内战理念——南方究竟是怎样的一个地方——代表的人。
Drive a few hundred more miles to the outer edges of the South
继续开几百英里到南方的边缘地带，
and you can find white people who think “the South” is misunderstood,
你还能找到认为“南方”被大家误解了，
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.
认为他们祖先的遗产，或者说内战是一场光荣的战争的理念，学校里就是这么教的，他们的家庭传统也是这么教的，已经取代了为什么要打这场战争的原因的白人。
How else do we explain the blanket of hostility toward black people that shrouds the voting patterns of the white South?
对黑人的浓浓敌意笼罩着白人南方的投票模式，对此，我们还要怎么解释？
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.
想想由尼克松煽动起来，之后由里根接手，如今在唐纳德·特朗普治下又重新开始生效的南方战略吧。
Even with large black populations,
即使黑人人口众多，
no Southern state has a voting black majority,
也依然没有哪一个南方州的黑人在投票中占了多数，
and every Southern state is schizophrenically split on voting lines of race, Louisiana high among them.
并且，每个南方州在选举投票线上都像精神分裂了一样存在严重的分歧，其中又数路易斯安那州最为明显。
Race is the great dividing wedge used by what was once the party of Lincoln to attract workingclass whites and country-club conservatives
种族是林肯曾经领导的共和党用来拉拢工人阶级白人和乡村俱乐部保守派，造成分裂的楔子，
who share few economic interests but are united against the interests of African Americans.
共和党和那些人之间并没有多少经济利益交集，但在妨碍非裔美国人的利益上，他们可是一条心。
Here is what I have learned about race:
下面是我对种族的理解：
You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go around it. You have to go through it.
你没有办法从上面绕过它，也没有办法从下面或是旁边绕过它，你只能正面面对。
When we testify in court, we swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
在法庭上作证时，我们会宣誓说出真相，说出全部的真相，并且只说真相。
This is important, because anything but the whole truth and nothing but the truth will lead us astray.
这很重要，因为说出全部的真相并且只说真相之外的任何做法都会让我们误入歧途。
Yet that is the story of American history that most of us know, particularly as it relates to race.
然而，这就是我们大多数人了解到的美国历史的故事，尤其是有关种族的历史的故事。
To move forward, we must commit to tell the whole truth about our past.
要向前发展，我们就必须承诺，说出关于我们历史的全部真相。
To move forward, we must find that new space on race here,
要向前发展，我们就必须在这里找出新的种族空间，
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.
一个让致力于为我们所有人伸张正义，完成我们未能做到的事情并坚信我们将尽一切努力突破人类下一个门槛的国家有望实现其理念的信仰空间。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
