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My name is Amy Padnani, and I'm an editor on the obituaries desk at the "New York Times."
我是艾米·帕纳尼，负责《纽约时报》讣文的编辑。
Or, as some friends call me, the angel of death.
或者，有些朋友会称我为死亡天使。
In fact, people will ask me, "Isn't it depressing, working on obituaries and thinking about death all the time?"
事实上，大家会问我：“做讣文的工作，时时刻刻想着死亡，不会很让人沮丧吗？”
But you know what I tell them?
猜猜我怎么回答他们？
Obits aren't about death, they're about life, they're interesting, they're relatable.
讣文的重点不是死，而是生，讣文是有趣的，让人能体会的。
Often about something you never knew.
通常会写一些你不知道的事。
Recently, for example, we had the obit for the inventor of the sock puppet.
比如，最近，我们为袜子玩偶的发明者写了讣文。
Everyone knows what a sock puppet is, but have you ever thought about who created it, or what their life was like?
大家都知道袜子玩偶，但你们曾经想过是谁发明的，他们的生活是什么样子的吗？
Obits are a signature form of journalism. An art form, if you will.
讣文是极具新闻报导特色的文体。也可说是种艺术形式。
It's an opportunity for a writer to weave the tale of a person's life into a beautiful narrative.
它让作者有机会将一个人的人生故事编织成美丽的描述。
Since 1851, the "New York Times" has published thousands of obituaries.
从1851年起，《纽约时报》已经刊出了数以千计的讣文。
For heads of state, famous celebrities, even the person who came up with the name on the Slinky.
对象包括元首、名人，甚至那位将螺旋弹簧玩具取名为Slinky的人。
There's just one problem. Only a small percentage of them chronicle the lives of women and people of color.
只有一个问题。只有一小部分的讣文是在记录女性和有色人种的人生。
That's the impetus behind a project I created called "Overlooked,"
出于这个动机，我创立了叫做“被忽略”的计划，
which tells the stories of marginalized groups of people who never got an obit.
目的是帮被边缘化的族群说故事，他们从来没有讣文。
It's a chance for the newspaper to revisit its 168-year existence
这是个机会，让报社能重温它168年的历史，
and fill in the gaps for people who were, for whatever reason, left out.
为那些不论因为什么理由而被排除的人，将间隙补起来。
It's a chance to right the wrongs of the past, and to refocus society's lens on who is considered important.
这是个可以修正过去的错误的机会，重新调整社会的焦点，重新思考谁是重要的。
I came up with the idea when I first joined Obituaries in 2017.
我是在2017年刚加入讣文团队时想出这个点子。
The Black Lives Matter movement was at a rolling boil,
当时“黑人的命也是命”活动正如火如荼展开，
and the conversation on gender inequality had just started bubbling up again.
关于性别不平等的谈话又开始冒出来。
And at the same time, I wondered, as a journalist and as a woman of color,
同时，我很纳闷，身为记者以及有色人种女性，
what could I do to help advance this conversation.
我要怎么做才能协助促进这种谈话？
People were coming out of the shadows to tell stories of injustices that they had faced, and I could feel their pain.
大家开始走出阴影，说出他们遭遇到不公的故事，我能感受到他们的痛苦。
So I noticed we would get these emails, sometimes, from readers, saying,
我注意到，有时我们会收到一些读者来信，说：
"Hey, why don't you have more women and people of color in your obituaries?"
“嘿，为什么你们不多刊载一些女性和有色人种的讣文？”
And I thought, "Yeah, why don't we?"
我心想：“是啊，为什么不？”
Since I was new to the team, I asked my colleagues, and they said,
因为我才刚进入团队，我跑去问同事这件事，而他们说：
"Well, the people who are dying today are from a generation when women and people of color weren't invited to the table to make a difference.
“现今过世的人，在他们生活的年代，女性和有色人种不会被邀请一起创造不同。
Perhaps in a generation or two, we'll start to see more women and people of color in our obituaries."
也许再过一、两个世代，我们就会有更多女性和有色人种的讣文。”
That answer just wasn't satisfying at all.
这答案一点也不让人满意。
I wanted to know: Where are all the dead women?
我想要知道：死掉的女性都到哪去了？
So I started thinking about how we hear about people who have died, right?
所以，我开始思考，我们如何得知人的死讯？
Number one way is through reader submissions.
排名第一的方式是由读者提交。
And so I thought, "Well, what if we were to look at international newspapers or scour social media?"
所以，我心想：“如果我们去看国际性的报纸或搜寻社交媒体呢？”
It was around this time when ...
大约在此时...
Everything was swirling in my mind, and I came across a website about Mary Outerbridge.
我脑中好多想法在转，我刚好看了一个关于玛丽·奥特布里奇的网站。
She was credited with introducing tennis to America in 1874.
1874年网球被引入美国是她的功劳。
And I thought, wow, one of the biggest sports in America was introduced by a woman?
我心想，哇，这是美国最盛行的运动之一，竟是由女性引入的？
Does anyone even know that? And did she get a New York Times obituary? Spoiler alert -- she did not.
有人知道这件事吗？《纽约时报》有刊她的讣文吗？警告，有雷--答案是没有。
So then I wondered who else we missed.
接着，我开始纳闷还漏了谁。
And it sent me on this deep dive through the archives.
为此，我埋首到档案数据库中。
There were some surprises. The pioneering journalist Ida B.Wells, who started the campaign against lynching.
我找到一些惊喜。先驱记者埃达·韦尔斯发起一个反私刑的活动。
The brilliant poet Sylvia Plath.
出色的诗人希薇亚·普拉斯。
Ada Lovelace, a mathematician now recognized as the first computer programmer.
数学家爱达·勒芙蕾丝如今被公认是首位计算机程序设计师。
So I went back to my team and I said, "What if we were to tell their stories now?"
我回去告诉我的团队：“如果我们现在来说她们的故事呢？”
It took a while to get buy-in.
花了一点时间大家才买账。
There was this concern that, you know, the newspaper might look bad because it didn't get it right the first time.
你们知道的，大家都会担心报社可能会难堪，因为它在第一次时没有做对。
It was also a little weird to sort of look back at the past, rather than cover news stories of our day.
而且这样做有点怪，因为我们回头看过去，而不是报导现今的新故事。
But I said, "Guys, I really think this is worthwhile."
但我说：“各位，我真的认为这很值得。”
And once my team saw the value in it, they were all in.
一旦我的团队看到了它的价值，他们全都加入了。
And so, with the help of a dozen writers and editors,
所以，在十多名作家和编辑的协助下，
we launched on March 8, 2018, with the stories of 15 remarkable women.
我们在2018年3月8日发表，推出十五位杰出女性的故事。
And while I knew that the work my team was doing was powerful, I didn't expect the response to be equally powerful.
虽然我知道我的团队所做的事很强大，但我并没有预期到得到的反应也会同等强大。
I had hundreds of emails. They were from people who said, "Thank you for finally giving these women a voice."
我收到数百封电子邮件。来信的人写说：“谢谢你们终于给了这些女性声音。”
They were from readers who said, "I cried on my way to work, reading these stories, because I felt seen for the first time."
来信的读者写说：“我去上班的路上边读这些故事边哭，因为这是我第一次感到被看见了。”
And they were from colleagues of mine, who said,
我的同事来信写道：
"I never thought a woman of color would be allowed to achieve something like this at the 'New York Times.'"
“我从没想过，有色人种女性会被允许在《纽约时报》达成这样子的成就。”
I also got about 4,000 reader submissions suggesting who else we might have overlooked.
我还收到来自读者的建议，总共有大约四千个我们可能忽略掉的人。
And some of those are my favorite stories in the project.
其中有一些是这个计划中我很喜欢的故事。
My all-time favorite is Grandma Gatewood.
我最爱的是盖特伍德祖母。
She survived 30 years of domestic violence at the hands of her husband.
她被丈夫家暴了三十年后幸存下来。
One day, he beat her so badly, beyond recognition, he even broke a broomstick over her head,
有一天，他把她打到不成人形，他甚至用帚柄打她的头，打到帚柄断掉，
and she threw flour in his face in response.
她的反应是朝他的脸丢面粉。
But when the police arrived, they arrested her, not him.
但警察抵达的时候，他们逮捕的是她，不是他。
The mayor saw her in jail and took her into his own home until she could get back on her feet.
市长到监狱去看她，把她带到他自己的家中，直到她能再站起来。
Then, one day, she read this article in "National Geographic"
接着，有一天，她读到《国家地理杂志》的一篇文章，
about how no woman had ever hiked the Appalachian Trail in its entirety alone.
提到没有任何女性曾经单独健行走完过阿帕拉契小径。
And she said, "You know what? I'm going to do it."
她说：“你知道吗？让我来吧！”
Reporters caught wind of the old grandma who is hiking through the woods.
记者听到风声，得知老祖母在健行穿越树林。
And at the finish, they asked her, "How did you survive so rough a place?"
在终点，他们问她：“你是怎么撑过这么困苦的地方？”
But they had no idea what she had survived before that.
但他们不知道她之前撑过怎样的情况。
So, "Overlooked" has become wildly successful.
所以，“被忽略”获得广大的成功。
It's becoming a TV show now, on Netflix.
它即将变成网飞上的电视节目。
I cannot wait to see this thing come to life.
我等不及看到它推出了。
Something like 25 different publishers have reached out to me with interest in turning "Overlooked" into a book.
大概有二十五家出版商来找过我，他们有兴趣将“被忽略”出版成书。
All of this clearly shows how timely and necessary this project is.
这一切都显示，这个计划推出得多是时候，且多么必要。
It's also a reminder of how newspapers document what's happening in our world every single day,
它也有提醒作用，报纸记录了我们的世界中每天所发生的事，
and we have to make sure not to leave out key people.
我们得要确保没有重要的人被遗漏。
That's why, even though it's been so meaningful to look back in the past, I'm plagued with the lingering question:
那就是何以回顾过去虽然有意义，但我仍然不断想着一个问题：
"What about the future of obituaries -- how do I diversify those?"
“讣文的未来是什么--我要如何做到多元化？”
That was my original problem, right?
那是我最原始的问题，对吧？
So to start answering this question, I wanted to gather some information.
所以，为了开始回答这个问题，我想要收集一些信息。
I went down to the sub-sub-basement level of the New York Times Building, to the archives. We call it the morgue.
我跑到纽约时报大楼地下室之下再下两层，去档案库。我们叫它停尸间。
And I asked for some guidance from our archivist there.
我向那里的文件管理器询求指引。
He pointed me to a book called "New York Times Obituaries Index."
他介绍我一本书，叫做《纽约时报讣文索引》。
So we handed it to the New York Genealogical Society, and they digitized it for us.
我们把书交给纽约宗谱协会，他们协助将书做数字化。
And then a programmer wrote up a program that scanned all those headlines
接着，一位程序设计师写了一个程序来扫过所有的标题，
for "Mr.," Mrs.," "Lady," "Sir," all the sort of gender-defining terms.
找出和性别相关的词，例如“先生”、“太太”、“女士”。
And what we found was that from 1851 to 2017, only about 15 to 20 percent of our obits were on women.
我们发现，从1851年到2017年，只有15%至20%的讣文是女性的讣文。
So next, I worked with a programmer to build this tool, called the diversity analysis tool.
接着，我和一名程序设计师合作，建造了一个多样性分析工具。
It's a very dry name, but bear with me, it's super helpful.
这个名字很枯燥，但忍耐一下，因为它很有帮助。
It breaks down the percentage of our obits month to month, women to men.
它能将讣文细分成每个月，女性和男性，并计算百分比。
OK, if that doesn't sound like much to you, this is how I used to calculate it before.
如果你觉得这听起来没什么，我以前的做法是这样。
So I asked this programmer to program in a goal, and that goal was 30 percent.
所以我请程序设计师把目标值写进程序，目标值是30%。
From the year of "Overlooked's" launch, March of 2018, to March of 2019,
从“被忽略”推出的那一年，2018年3月，到2019年3月，
I was hoping we could get to 30 percent of our obits on women.
我希望能达成30%的讣文是女性的讣文。
It was a number we hadn't achieved in a 168 years, and I'm happy to say we did it -- we got to 31 percent.
这是168年来我们都没有达到的数字，我很高兴告诉各位，我们做到了--达到31%。
It's awesome, but it's not enough.
那很棒，但还不够。
Next we're hoping to get to 35 percent, and then 40 percent, until we achieve parity.
接着，我们希望能达到35%，接着40%，直到和男性平等。
And then I'm hoping to partner with this programmer again,
接着，我希望能再和这位程序设计师合作，
to build a similar tool to measure people of color in our obits.
写一个类似的工具来测量有多少是有色人种的讣文。
That was something I wanted to do with "Overlooked" too, to include men of color,
我也想在“被忽略”计划里纳入有色人种男性，而这也终于成真了，
and I finally got to do it with a special section for Black History Month,
我们有个特殊区块“黑人历史月”，
where we told the stories of about a dozen black men and women.
在这里我们会诉说数十位黑人男性和女性的故事。
Again, it was a really powerful experience.
同样的，这也是很强大的体验。
Many of these people had been slaves or were a generation removed from slavery.
这些人当中有许多曾经是奴隶，或是到那个世代才脱离奴隶制度。
A lot of them had to make up stories about their past just to get ahead in life.
当中许多人得要捏造自己的过去，才能够在人生中向前行。
And there were these patterns of their struggles that came up again and again.
他们的挣扎有着相同的模式，一而再再而三地出现。
Elizabeth Jennings, for instance, had to fight for her right to ride on segregated street cars in New York City
比如，伊丽莎白·詹宁斯努力争取权力，想要在纽约市乘坐种族隔离的电车，
a hundred years before Rosa Parks did the exact same thing with buses.
一百年后，罗莎·帕克斯做了同样的事，只是换成公交车。
It was just a reminder of how far we've come, and how much more we still have left to do.
这只是在提醒我们现在有了多少进步，以及还有多少有待我们去做。
"Overlooked" is including other marginalized people as well.
“被忽略”还要纳入其他被边缘化的人。
Recently, we had the obit for the computer programmer Alan Turing.
我们最近为程序设计师艾伦·图灵写了讣文。
Believe it or not, this brilliant man never got an obituary,
信不信由你，这位才子从来没有被刊上讣文，
even though his work decoding German messages during World War II helps end the war.
即使他写的程序在二次世界大战中破解了德国的加密信息，协助终结战争。
Instead, he died a criminal for his sexual orientation, and he was forced to endure chemical castration.
他反而因为性向，以罪犯的身分死去，他还被迫忍受化学阉割。
Great things, like this obits project, do not come easily.
伟大的事，像这个讣文计划，都很不容易。
There were a lot of fits and starts as I worked hard to convince people it was worth getting it off the ground.
当我努力试图说服大家这个计划很值得推行时，也遇到很多波折。
There were moments when I faced great self-doubt.
有些时候，我也会强烈怀疑自己。
I wondered if I was crazy or if I was all alone, and if I should just give up.
我很纳闷我是否疯了或是否孤立无援，我该不该放弃？
When I've seen the reaction to this project, I know I'm not at all alone.
当我看到这个计划的反应，我知道我并不孤单。
There's so many people who feel the way I do.
有好多人跟我有一样的感受。
And so yeah, not many people think about obituaries.
没错，很少人会去思考讣文。
But when you do, you realize they're a testament to a human life.
但如果你去试着思考讣文，会发现它们是人生的证明。
They're the last chance to talk about somebody's contribution on the world.
它们是谈论一个人在世界上做了什么贡献的最后机会。
They were also an example of who society deemed important.
它们也是个例子，说明社会重视什么人。
A hundred years from now, somebody could be looking into the past to see what our time was like.
一百年后，会有人回顾过去，看看我们的时代是怎样的。
I'm lucky, as a journalist, to have been able to have used this form of storytelling to help shift a narrative.
我很幸运，身为记者，我能够使用这种说故事的形式来协助转变说故事的方式。
I was also able to get an established institution to question its own status quo.
我也让一间有信誉的机构能够去质疑它自己的现况。
Little by little, I'm hoping I can keep doing this work,
我希望我能一点一点继续进行这项工作，
and continue refocusing society's lens so that nobody else gets overlooked. Thank you.
继续改变社会的焦点，不要让任何人被忽略。谢谢。
