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The minute she said it, the temperature in my classroom dropped.
她一说出那个词，整个教室的空气凝固了。
My students are usually laser-focused on me, but they shifted in their seats and looked away.
我的学生通常会把注意力全都集中在我身上，但这一刻，他们转移视线，看向了别处。
I'm a black woman who teaches the histories of race and US slavery.
我是一名黑人女性，在学校教授种族和美国奴隶制历史。
I'm aware that my social identity is always on display. And my students are vulnerable too, so I'm careful.
我知道我的身份一直备受关注。我的学生们也很敏感，所以，我很谨慎。
I try to anticipate what part of my lesson might go wrong. But honestly, I didn't even see this one coming.
我尽量预估课程里哪一部分可能出错。但是，说实话，我完全没料到刚发生的这件事。
None of my years of graduate school prepared me for what to do when the N-word entered my classroom.
我读研的那些年里从没学过，当“N开头的词（黑鬼）”出现在我的课堂上时，该怎么办。
I was in my first year of teaching when the student said the N-word in my class.
那是我当老师的第一年，学生在我的课上说出了这个词。
She was not calling anyone a name. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
她并不是在骂谁。她目光清澈，扎着蓬松马尾。
She came to class with her readings done, she sat in the front row and she was always on my team.
她课前做好了预习，坐在前排，而且她一直是我最喜欢的学生之一。
When she said it, she was actually making a point about my lecture,
她说出这个词时，其实是在对我的课程内容提出观点，
by quoting a line from a 1970s movie, a comedy, that had two racist slurs.
她引用了70年代的一个喜剧电影里面的台词，其中有两个种族主义蔑称。
One for people of Chinese descent and the other the N-word.
一个是说中国人的，另一个就是“N开头的词”。
As soon as she said it, I held up my hands, said, "Whoa, whoa."
她话一出口，我马上举起双手说，“哇，等一下。”
But she assured me, "It's a joke from 'Blazing Saddles,'" and then she repeated it.
但她向我保证，“这是《燃烧的马鞍》里的一个笑话”，然后，她又说了一遍。
This all happened 10 years ago, and how I handled it haunted me for a long time.
这是10年前的事，我当时的处理方式，困扰了我很长时间。
It wasn't the first time I thought about the word in an academic setting.
那并不是我第一次在学术环境里思考这个词。
I'm a professor of US history, it's in a lot of the documents that I teach.
我是教美国历史的教授，在我讲授的很多文献里都有这个词。
So I had to make a choice. After consulting with someone I trusted, I decided to never say it.
所以，我必须要做出选择。在咨询了一个我完全信任的人之后，我决定永远不要说出这个词。
Not even to quote it. But instead to use the euphemistic phrase, "the N-word." Even this decision was complicated.
引用也不行，必要时用委婉说法：“N开头的词”。就连做出这个决定的过程也很复杂。
I didn't have tenure yet, and I worried that senior colleagues would think that by using the phrase I wasn't a serious scholar.
我当时还没转正，担心资深的同事们会觉得，用这个替代词，代表着我不是个严肃的学者。
But saying the actual word still felt worse.
但说出原词，还是更加不能接受。
The incident in my classroom forced me to publicly reckon with the word.
在我课堂上发生的这件事迫使我公开面对这个词。
The history, the violence, but also -- The history, the violence, but also any time it was hurled at me,
历史，暴力，还有--历史，暴力，还有每当有人对我说出来，
spoken casually in front of me, any time it rested on the tip of someone's tongue,
在我面前随口说说，它出现在某人嘴边时，
it all came flooding up in that moment, right in front of my students.
一切情绪都会在那一时刻泛滥起来，而我当时正站在我的学生面前。
And I had no idea what to do. So I've come to call stories like mine points of encounter.
完全不知道该怎么办。后来，我把像我这样的故事称为“遭遇点”。
A point of encounter describes the moment you came face-to-face with the N-word.
遭遇点就是你与“N开头的词”面对面的时刻。
If you've even been stumped or provoked by the word, whether as the result of an awkward social situation,
如果你曾因它而感到为难或恼怒，无论是因为社交尴尬，
an uncomfortable academic conversation, something you heard in pop culture,
还是令人不适的学术讨论，或在流行文化里听到，
or if you've been called the slur, or witnessed someone getting called the slur, you have experienced a point of encounter.
或有人用这个蔑称骂你，或见到别人用它骂人，你都在经历一个“遭遇点”。
And depending on who you are and how that moment goes down, you might have a range of responses.
根据你的身份和当时的情形，你会有各种不同的反应。
Could throw you off a little bit, or it could be incredibly painful and humiliating.
可能只是让你有点失望，也可能让你无比痛苦和羞辱。
I've had lots of these points of encounter in my life, but one thing is true.
我自己就经历过无数个遭遇点，但有一件事是肯定的。
There's not a lot of space to talk about them.
没有太多空间可以讨论这些遭遇点。
That day in my classroom was pretty much like all of those times I had an uninvited run-in with the N-word.
那天课堂上的事也一样，我毫无防备地遭遇了这个词。
I froze. Because the N-word is hard to talk about.
我愣住了。因为这个词让人很难启齿。
Part of the reason the N-word is so hard to talk about, it's usually only discussed in one way,
这个词让人很难启齿的原因之一是，人们谈论它的方式只有一种，
as a figure of speech, we hear this all the time, right?
作为演讲人，我们会常听到，对吧？
It's just a word. The burning question that cycles through social media is who can and cannot say it.
它只是一个词。社交媒体上反复讨论的热点话题是这个词谁能说，谁不能说。
Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates does a groundbreaking job of defending the African American use of the word.
黑人作家塔-尼西斯·科玆做出了突破，他捍卫非裔美国人使用这个词的权利。
On the other hand, Wendy Kaminer, a white freedom of speech advocate,
另一方面，温迪·卡米纳，一位倡导言论自由的白人，
argues that if we don't all just come and say it, we give the word power.
她认为，如果不能大家一起说，我们就赋予了这个词特权。
And a lot of people feel that way. The Pew Center recently entered the debate.
很多人都赞同。最近，皮尤研究中心也参与了进来。
In a survey called "Race in America 2019,"
在一份叫做“2019美国种族”的调查问卷中，
researchers asked US adults if they thought is was OK for a white person to say the N-word.
研究人员询问美国成年人，能否接受白人说这个词。
Seventy percent of all adults surveyed said "never."
接受调查的成年人里，70%的人说“永远不行”。
And these debates are important. But they really obscure something else.
这些辩论很重要，但也确实掩盖了其他东西。
They keep us from getting underneath to the real conversation.
它们阻止我们进一步深入地进行真正的对话。
Which is that the N-word is not just a word. It's not neatly contained in a racist past, a relic of slavery.
N开头的这个词不仅仅是一个词。它不仅仅存在于种族主义的历史，不只是奴隶制的遗迹。
Fundamentally, the N-word is an idea disguised as a word:
从根本上说，这个词是伪装成单词的一种想法：
that black people are intellectually, biologically and immutably inferior to white people.
黑人在智力上，生物学上，永远比白人低等。
And -- and I think this is the most important part
我认为，最重要的部分是，
that that inferiority means that the injustice we suffer and inequality we endure is essentially our own fault.
这种低等意味着，我们遭遇的不公正和承受的不平等，本质上是我们自己的错。
So, yes, it is ... Speaking of the word only as racist spew or as an obscenity in hip hop music
所以，是的，它是...只把这个词说成是种族主义言论，或者是嘻哈音乐中的脏字，
makes it sounds as if it's a disease located in the American vocal cords that can be snipped right out.
使这个词听起来好像是一种疾病，长在了美国人的声带中，可以一刀切除。
It's not, and it can't. And I learned this from talking to my students.
不是的，也不可能。我是在与学生的对话中了解到这一点的。
So next time class met, I apologized, and I made an announcement. I would have a new policy.
所以，在之后的一节课上，我道歉了，并做出声明。我要建立新规则。
Students would see the word in my PowerPoints, in film, in essays they read,
学生会看到这个词出现在我的教学材料里，影片里，必读文章里，
but we would never ever say the word out loud in class.
但我们永远不能在课堂上大声说这个词。
Nobody ever said it again. But they didn't learn much either.
再也不许任何人说。但他们并不怎么理解。
Afterwards, what bothered me most was that I didn't even explain to students why, of all the vile, problematic words in American English,
在那之后，最困扰我的是，我甚至没有向同学们解释，为什么，在美国英语的那么多邪恶、有问题的词语中，
why this particular word had its own buffer, the surrogate phrase "the N-word."
只有这个词享有缓冲的替代表达：“N开头的词”。
Most of my students, many of them born in the late 1990s and afterwards,
我的大多数学生出生在90年代末及之后，
didn't even know that the phrase "the N-word" is a relatively new invention in American English.
他们甚至不知道这个词是美国英语中比较新的发明。
When I was growing up, it didn't exist. But in the late 1980s, black college students, writers, intellectuals,
在我小时候，它并不存在。但是在20世纪80年代末，黑人大学生、作家、知识分子，
more and more started to talk about racist attacks against them.
越来越多的人开始谈论他们受到的种族主义攻击。
But increasingly, when they told these stories, they stopped using the word.
但是当他们讲述这些故事时，他们越来越少使用这个词了。
Instead, they reduced it to the initial N and called it "the N-word."
而是用首字母代替，称之为“N开头的词”。
They felt that every time the word was uttered it opened up old wounds, so they refused to say it.
他们觉得，每次这个词被说出来，都会打开旧伤口，所以他们拒绝说出来。
They knew their listeners would hear the actual word in their heads. That wasn't the point.
他们知道听众会在脑海里听到原词。那不是重点。
The point was they didn't want to put the word in their own mouths or into the air.
关键是他们不想把这个词放进自己的嘴里或者说出来。
By doing this, they made an entire nation start to second-guess themselves about saying it.
通过这样做，他们让整个国家开始怀疑自己是否应该说这个词。
This was such a radical move that people are still mad about it.
这一行动如此激进，至今仍让大家感到气愤。
Critics accuse those of us who use the phrase "the N-word,"
批评家指责我们这些使用“N开头的词”的人，
or people who become outraged, you know, just because the word is said,
或者是那些听到别人说这个词就会感到愤怒的人，
of being overprincipled, politically correct or, as I just read a couple of weeks ago in The New York Times, "insufferably woke." Right?
说我们过于刻板，过于政治正确，或者，像我前些天在《纽约时报》上看到的，“难以忍受的敏感。”对吧？
So I bought into this a little bit too, which is why the next time I taught the course I proposed a freedom of speech debate.
所以我也开始有些买账了，因此，下一次教课时，我发起了言论自由的辩论。
The N-word in academic spaces, for or against?
在学术环境里使用这个词，支持还是反对？
I was certain students would be eager to debate who gets to say it and who doesn't.
我本来很确信学生们特别想辩论一下，谁可以说，谁不能说。
But they weren't. Instead ... my students started confessing.
可他们并不想。相反，我的学生们开始忏悔。
A white student from New Jersey talked about standing by as a black kid at her school got bullied by this word.
一个新泽西的白人学生说起了，她学校的黑人小孩被骂这个词，自己却在旁观。
She did nothing and years later still carried the guilt.
她当时什么都没做，很多年后仍然觉得愧疚。
Another from Connecticut talked about the pain of severing a very close relationship with a family member,
另一个来自康涅狄格州的学生说起了不得不与一个非常亲密的家人断绝关系的痛楚，
because that family member refused to stop saying the word.
原因是该人不听劝，坚持说那个词。
One of the most memorable stories came from a very quiet black student from South Carolina.
最难忘的故事之一，来自一位安静的黑人学生，她来自南卡罗莱纳州。
She didn't understand all the fuss. She said everyone at her school said the word.
她不明白为什么大家如此大惊小怪。她说她学校里每个人都用这个词。
She wasn't talking about kids calling each other names in the hall.
她说的不是小孩在走廊打闹时互相喊外号。
She explained that at her school when teachers and administrators became frustrated with an African American student,
她说，在她的学校，学校的教职工因为非裔美国学生而生气时，
they called that student the actual N-word. She said it didn't bother her at all.
他们会用这个词骂这位同学。她说自己完全无所谓。
But then a couple of days later, she came to visit me in my office hours and wept.
但过了两天，她在课后辅导时间来找我，她哭了。
She thought she was immune. She realized that she wasn't.
她以为自己不在乎，然后意识到她无法不在乎。
Over the last 10 years, I have literally heard hundreds of these stories from all kinds of people from all ages.
在过去的十年里，我听过几百个这样的故事，来自各种各样的人，多大年龄都有。
People in their 50s remembering stories from the second grade and when they were six,
五十多岁的人还能记起二年级的事，六岁时的事，
either calling people the word or being called the word, but carrying that all these years around this word, you know.
用这个词骂人，或者是被骂，关于这个词的事承受了这么多年。
And as I listened to people talk about their points of encounter,
我不断倾听人们讲述自己的"遭遇点"，
the pattern that emerged for me as a teacher that I found most upsetting
作为老师，让我最不安的是其浮现出来的模式，
is the single most fraught site for these points of encounter is the classroom.
是在所有这些“遭遇点”里，这些事最常发生的地方是学校的教室。
Most US kids are going to meet the N-word in class.
多数美国孩子会在课堂上遭遇这个词。
One of the most assigned books in US high schools is Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
美国高中使用最多的教材之一，是马克·吐温的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》，
in which the word appears over 200 times. And this isn't an indictment of "Huck Finn."
其中这个词出现了200次以上。我并不是在指责《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。
The word is in lots of US literature and history. It's all over African American literature.
这个词在很多美国文学和历史文献里都有用到。非裔美国文学里随处可见。
Yet I hear from students that when the word is said during a lesson without discussion and context,
但我从学生那里听到，如果在课上说出这个词，而没有给出讨论和背景，
it poisons the entire classroom environment. The trust between student and teacher is broken.
对整个教室环境都是有害的。学生与老师之间的信任就会崩塌。
Even so, many teachers, often with the very best of intentions, still say the N-word in class.
即使如此，很多老师，即使他们常常带着最美好的意愿，仍在课堂上使用这个词。
They want to show and emphasize the horrors of US racism, so they rely on it for shock value.
他们想展示和强调美国种族主义的恐怖，所以想要靠这个词来获得冲击效果。
Invoking it brings into stark relief the ugliness of our nation's past.
引用这个词使我们国家丑陋的历史面貌显露无遗。
But they forget the ideas are alive and well in our cultural fabric.
但他们忘了，这些想法仍然存在于我们的文化结构中。
The six-letter word is like a capsule of accumulated hurt.
这个单词就像能积蓄伤害的胶囊。
Every time it is said, every time, it releases into the atmosphere the hateful notion that black people are less.
每说一次，每次，它都向空气中释放着憎恨的观点，即黑人是低等人。
My black students tell me that when the word is quoted or spoken in class, they feel like a giant spotlight is shining on them.
我的黑人学生告诉我，在课堂上引用或说出这个词时，感觉有个巨型聚光灯照着他们。
One of my students told me that his classmates were like bobbleheads, turning to gauge his reaction.
一个学生告诉我，他的同学们就像摇头娃娃，都转过来看他的反应。
A white student told me that in the eighth grade,
一个白人学生告诉我，在八年级，
when they were learning "To Kill a Mockingbird" and reading it out loud in class,
他们学《杀死一只知更鸟》时，要在班上大声朗读，
the student was stressed out at the idea of having to read the word, which the teacher insisted all students do,
那个学生压力很大，一想到要读出那个词，而且是老师坚持让每个学生都读，
that the student ended up spending most of the unit hiding out in the bathroom. This is serious.
那个学生最后只能逃课，藏在厕所不出来。这是很严重的事。
Students across the country talk about switching majors and dropping classes because of poor teaching around the N-word.
全国各地的学生都在考虑换专业、退课，因为在这个词的问题上教学方法太差。
The issue of faculty carelessly speaking the word has reached such a fevered pitch,
教员随意使用这个词的问题已经达到了狂热的程度，
it's led to protests at Princeton, Emory, The New School, Smith College, where I teach,
导致普林斯顿、埃默里大学都举行了抗议，新的学校，我任教的史密斯学院，
and Williams College, where just recently students have boycotted the entire English Department over it and other issues.
还有威廉姆斯学院，那里的学生为了这个问题和一些其它问题，在抵制整个英语系。
And these were just the cases that make the news. This is a crisis.
这些只是新闻报出来的部分。这是一场危机。
And while student reaction looks like an attack on freedom of speech, I promise this is an issue of teaching.
虽然学生的反应像是在攻击言论自由，但我保证，这是教学方法问题。
My students are not afraid of materials that have the N-word in it.
我的学生不担心带有这个词的文章。
They want to learn about James Baldwin and William Faulkner and about the civil rights movement.
他们想要了解詹姆斯·鲍德温，威廉·福克纳和民权运动。
In fact, their stories show that this word is a central feature of their lives as young people in the United States.
事实上，他们的故事表达了这个词是美国年轻人生活里的一个中心特征。
It's in the music they love.
他们喜爱的音乐里有。
And in the popular culture they emulate, the comedy they watch, it's in TV and movies and memorialized in museums.
他们模仿的流行文化里，看的喜剧里，电视、电影里都有，博物馆里也在纪念。
They hear it in locker rooms, on Instagram, in the hallways at school, in the chat rooms of the video games they play.
他们在更衣室能听到，微博上能看到，学校走廊里也有，还有他们玩游戏的聊天室里。
It is all over the world they navigate. But they don't know how to think about it or even really what the word means.
他们的世界里随处可见。但他们不知道该如何判断，甚至不知道这个词是什么意思。
I didn't even really understand what the word meant until I did some research.
我自己也不知道这个词的真正含义，直到真正做了些研究。
I was astonished to learn that black people first incorporated the N-word into the vocabulary as political protest,
我很惊讶地发现，黑人首先引进了这个词用于政治抗议，
not in the 1970s or 1980s but as far back as the 1770s.
不是在20世纪70或80年代，而是早在18世纪70年代。
And I wish I had more time to talk about the long, subversive history of the black use of the N-word.
我希望能有更多时间聊聊关于黑人使用这个词的漫长、危险的历史。
But I will say this: Many times, my students will come up to me and say,
但我要说的是：很多次，我的学生跑来对我说，
"I understand the virulent roots of this word, it's slavery." They are only partially right.
“我理解这个词的恶毒根源，是奴隶制。”他们只说对了一部分。
This word, which existed before it became a slur, but it becomes a slur at a very distinct moment in US history,
这个词早就存在，以前并不是蔑称，但它在美国历史上一个特殊时刻发生了转变，
and that's as large numbers of black people begin to become free, starting in the North in the 1820s.
就在大量黑人获得自由的那个时刻，从19世纪20年代的北方开始。
In other words, this word is fundamentally an assault on black freedom, black mobility, and black aspiration.
换句话说，这个词从根本上说是攻击黑人的自由，黑人的流动性和黑人的梦想。
Even now, nothing so swiftly unleashes an N-word tirade as a black person asserting their rights
即使现在，最能迅速引起关于这个词的激烈讨论的，是维护自己权力的黑人，
or going where they please or prospering.
自由迁徙的黑人，追求梦想的黑人。
Think of the attacks on Colin Kaepernick when he kneeled.
想想当科林·卡佩尼克下跪抗议时那些对黑人的攻击。
Or Barack Obama when he became president. My students want to know this history.
或是在巴拉克·奥巴马当选总统时。我的学生们想要知道这些历史。
But when they ask questions, they're shushed and shamed.
但他们提问时，会无法启齿，感到羞耻。
By shying away from talking about the N-word,
逃避说出这个词的行为，
we have turned this word into the ultimate taboo, crafting it into something so tantalizing,
让我们把它变成了终极禁忌，塑造成如此引人好奇的东西，
that for all US kids, no matter their racial background, part of their coming of age is figuring out how to negotiate this word.
让所有的美国孩子，无论种族，在他们的成长过程中，需要一直探索如何与这个词共处。
We treat conversations about it like sex before sex education. We're squeamish, we silence them.
我们把关于它的对话当成是普及性教育之前的性。我们处处谨慎，闭口不谈。
So they learn about it from misinformed friends and in whispers.
孩子们就只能从不太懂的朋友和小道消息那里去了解。
I wish I could go back to the classroom that day and push through my fear to talk about the fact that something actually happened.
我真希望能回到那天的教室，克服自己的恐惧，说出已经发生的事实。
Not just to me or to my black students. But to all of us.
不只是为了自己，或黑人学生，而是为了我们所有人。
You know, I think we're all connected by our inability to talk about this word.
我认为，我们的共同之处是都对这个词无能为力。
But what if we explored our points of encounter and did start to talk about it?
但为什么不去寻找自己的“遭遇点”，讲出这些故事呢？
Today, I try to create the conditions in my classroom to have open and honest conversations about it.
如今，我在课堂上努力创造条件，让大家能开诚布公地讨论这个词。
One of those conditions -- not saying the word. We're able to talk about it because it doesn't come into the classroom.
其中一个条件是：不要说出原词。我们能讨论，因为它没有进入教室。
Another important condition is I don't make my black students responsible for teaching their classmates about this.
另一个重要的条件是，避免让我的黑人学生感觉自己有责任去教育其他同学这些事。
That is my job. So I come prepared. I hold the conversation with a tight rein, and I'm armed with knowledge of the history.
那是我自己的工作。所以我充分备课。我严格控制对话内容，我对历史如数家珍。
I always ask students the same question: Why is talking about the N-word hard?
我总是问学生同样一个问题：为什么人们避而不谈这个词？
Their answers are amazing. They're amazing.
他们的回答非常精彩，非常精彩。
More than anything though, I have become deeply acquainted with my own points of encounter, my personal history around this word.
但最重要的是，我已经充分熟悉了自己的“遭遇点”，我个人与这个词有关的经历。
Because when the N-word comes to school, or really anywhere, it brings with it all of the complicated history of US racism.
因为当这个词出现在学校，或任何地方，随之而来的是美国种族主义的复杂历史。
The nation's history and my own, right here, right now. There's no avoiding it.
国家的历史和我自己的经历，就在这里，就在当下。我们避无可避。
