评论
打印
Not that long ago, I received an invitation to spend a few days at the historic home of James Madison.
就在不久前，我收到邀请，去历史博物馆中詹姆斯·麦迪逊的故居呆几天。
James Madison, of course, was the fourth president of the United States, the father of the Constitution, the architect of the Bill of Rights.
没错，这位詹姆斯·麦迪逊就是美国的第四任总统，宪法之父，人权法案的缔造者。
And as a historian, I was really excited to go to this historic site, because I understand and appreciate the power of place.
作为一个历史学家，得知能够前往这个历史遗迹，让我感到非常兴奋，因为我理解和欣赏这个地方的魔力。
Now, Madison called his estate Montpelier. And Montpelier is absolutely beautiful.
麦迪逊称他的庄园为“蒙彼利埃”。蒙彼利埃非常漂亮。
It's several thousand acres of rolling hills, farmland and forest, with absolutely breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
那里有着几千英亩连绵起伏的群山，农田和森林，以及蓝岭山脉那令人惊叹的景色。
But it's a haunting beauty, because Montpelier was also a slave labor camp.
但那是一种凄苦的美，因为蒙彼利埃也是一个奴隶聚集地。
You see, James Madison enslaved more than 100 people over the course of his lifetime.
要知道，詹姆斯·麦迪逊在他的一生中拥有过100多个奴隶。
And he never freed a single soul, not even upon his death. The centerpiece of Montpelier is Madison's mansion.
他从未释放过任何一个灵魂，甚至在他死后也没有。位于蒙彼利埃中心的是麦迪逊的宅邸。
Now this is where James Madison grew up, this is where he returned to after his presidency, this is where he eventually died.
这是詹姆斯·麦迪逊长大的地方，也是他在总统任期结束后回到的地方，他最终也在这里溘然长逝。
And the centerpiece of Madison's mansion is his library. This room on the second floor, where Madison conceived and conceptualized the Bill of Rights.
而麦迪逊宅邸的核心，是他的图书馆。这个二楼的房间，是麦迪逊将《人权法案》概念化的地方。
When I visited for the first time, the director of education, Christian Cotz -- cool white dude -- took me almost immediately to the library.
当我第一次去参观的时候，那里的教育总监，克里斯蒂安·考兹，一个酷酷的白人哥们，马上就带我去了图书馆。
And it was amazing, being able to stand in this place where such an important moment in American history happened.
能够站在这个见证了美国历史上如此重要时刻的地方，真是太棒了。
But then after a little while there, Christian actually took me downstairs to the cellars of the mansion.
但过了一段时间，克里斯蒂安把我带到了宅邸的地下室。
Now, in the cellars of the mansion, that's where the enslaved African Americans who managed the house spent most of their time.
这个地下室是非裔美国人被奴役的地方，他们大半辈子都在打理宅邸的事务。
It's also where they were installing a new exhibition on slavery in America.
他们也在那里布置了一个关于美国奴隶制的新展厅。
And while we were there, Christian instructed me to do something I thought was a little bit strange.
当我们在那儿的时候，克里斯蒂安指示我做的事让我觉得有点奇怪。
He told me to take my hand and place it on the brick walls of the cellar and to slide it along,
他让我伸出我的手，放在地窖的砖墙上滑动，
until I felt these impressions or ridges in the face of the brick.
直到我在砖块的正面感觉到有一些印记或隆起。
Now look, I was going to be staying on-site on this former slave plantation for a couple of days, so I wasn't trying to upset any white people.
要知道，我将要在这个曾经的奴隶种植园里呆上好几天，所以我并不打算让任何白人感到不安。
Because when this was over, I wanted to make sure that I could get out.
因为当这一切结束后，我想确定我还能出去。
But as I'm actually sliding my hand along the cellar wall,
但当我真的用手沿着地窖的墙摸索，
I couldn't help but think about my daughters, and my youngest one in particular, who was only about two or three years old at the time,
我忍不住想到了我的女儿，也是我最小的孩子，当时她只有两三岁，
because every time she hopped out of our car, she would take her hand and slide it along the outside, which is absolutely disgusting.
因为每次她从车里跳下来，都会伸出手，沿着车的外壳滑动，这太不卫生了。
And then -- and then, if I couldn't get to her in time, she would take her fingers and pop them in her mouth, which would drive me absolutely crazy.
然后,如果我不能及时赶过去制止她，她就会把脏兮兮的小手塞进嘴里，于是我就彻底抓狂了。
So this is what I'm thinking about while I'm supposed to be a historian.
然而作为一名历史学家，我当时想到的只有这些。
But then, I actually do feel these impressions in the brick. I feel these ridges in the brick.
但是，我确实能感受到这些墙上的印痕。我感受着砖上的这些隆起。
And it takes a second to realize what they are. What they are are tiny hand prints.
我们需要花一点时间去了解它们是什么。它们实际上，是小小的手印。
Because all of the bricks at James Madison's estate were made by the children that he enslaved.
因为詹姆斯·麦迪逊庄园中的所有砖块都是他奴役的孩子们制作的。
And that's when it hit me that the library in which James Madison conceives and conceptualizes the Bill of Rights
就在那时，我突然意识到那座图书馆，詹姆斯·麦迪逊构思并使《人权法案》概念化的地方，
rests on a foundation of bricks made by the children that he enslaved.
是由他所奴役的孩子们所制造的砖块搭建起来的。
And this is hard history. It's hard history, because it's difficult to imagine the kind of inhumanity
这是一段沉重的历史。这段历史很沉重，因为我们难以想象这种不人道的程度：
that leads one to enslave children to make bricks for your comfort and convenience.
奴役儿童来制造砖块，为自己提供舒适和方便。
It's hard history, because it's hard to talk about the violence of slavery, the beatings, the whippings, the kidnappings, the forced family separations.
这段历史很沉重，因为很难开口描述关于奴隶制的暴力，那些殴打、鞭打、绑架，那些被迫的家庭分离。
It's hard history, because it's hard to teach white supremacy, which is the ideology that justified slavery.
这是沉重的历史，因为很难教授白人至上主义者，这是一种为奴隶制辩护的意识形态。
And so rather than confront hard history, we tend to avoid it.
于是与其直面沉重的历史，我们倾向于逃避它。
Now, sometimes that means just making stuff up.
有时候，这意味着篡改历史。
I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that "states' rights" was the primary cause of the Civil War.
我记不清有多少次听到人们说，“州的权利”是内战爆发的首要原因。
That would actually come as a surprise to the people who fought in the Civil War.
这会让那些参加过内战的人感到非常诧异。
Sometimes, we try to rationalize hard history.
有时候，我们试着为沉重的历史寻找理由。
When people visit Montpelier -- and by "people," in this instance, I mean white people
当人们参观蒙彼利埃庄园时--这个例子中的“人们”，我指的是白人，
when they visit Montpelier and learn about Madison enslaving people, they often ask, "But wasn't he a good master?"
当他们参观蒙彼利埃，了解到麦迪逊蓄奴的事实时，他们经常问，“但他不是一个好的主人吗？”
A "good master?" There is no such thing as a good master. There is only worse and worser.
一个“好主人”？事实上，根本没有所谓的好主人，只有糟糕的和更糟糕的。
And sometimes, we just pretend the past didn't happen.
有时,我们只是假装历史没有发生。
I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "It's hard to imagine slavery existing outside of the plantation South."
我记不清有多少次听到人们说，“很难想象奴隶制存在于南方种植园之外的地方。”
No, it ain't. Slavery existed in every American colony, slavery existed in my home state of New York for 50 years after the American Revolution.
不，不是这样的。奴隶制存在于每一个美国殖民地，也存在于我的家乡纽约州，一直持续到美国独立战争后的50年。
So why do we do this? Why do we avoid confronting hard history?
那么我们为什么要这样做呢？为什么我们要避免直面沉重的历史？
Literary performer and educator Regie Gibson had the truth of it when he said that our problem as Americans is we actually hate history.
文学表演者兼教育家雷吉·吉布森曾经一语中的：美国人的问题是，我们讨厌历史。
What we love is nostalgia. Nostalgia.
我们总是喜欢怀旧。怀旧。
We love stories about the past that make us feel comfortable about the present. But we can't keep doing this.
我们喜欢关于过去的那些能让我们对现在感到满足的故事。但我们不能再这样下去了。
George Santayana, the Spanish writer and philosopher, said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
西班牙作家和哲学家乔治·桑塔亚那曾说，“那些忘记过去的人注定要重蹈覆辙。”
Now as a historian, I spend a lot of time thinking about this very statement, and in a sense, it applies to us in America. But in a way, it doesn't.
作为一名历史学家，我花了很多时间理解这句话，在某种意义上，这适用于所有美国人。但在某种程度上，它又不适合。
Because, inherent in this statement, is the notion that at some point, we stopped doing the things that have created inequality in the first place.
因为这个表述的内在含义是，在某个时间点上，我们一开始就停止了那些造成不平等的事情。
And a harsh reality is, we haven't.
而残酷的现实是，我们并没有停止。
Consider the racial wealth gap. Wealth is generated by accumulating resources in one generation and transferring them to subsequent generations.
以种族贫富差距为例。财富积累往往是通过一代人积累资源，并传递给后代来实现的。
Median white household wealth is 147,000 dollars. Median Black household wealth is four thousand dollars.
白人家庭的财富中位数是14万7000美元。而黑人家庭的财富中位数是4000美元。
How do you explain this growing gap? Hard history.
你如何解释这种日益扩大的差距？沉重的历史。
My great-great-grandfather was born enslaved in Jasper County, Georgia, in the 1850s.
在19世纪50年代，我的高曾祖父一出生就成为了佐治亚州贾斯珀郡的一名奴隶。
While enslaved, he was never allowed to accumulate anything, and he was emancipated with nothing.
在被奴役的那段时期，他不被允许积累任何财富，即使被释放时，他也一无所有。
He was never compensated for the bricks that he made.
他未曾从他制造的砖中获得任何补偿。
My great-grandfather was also born in Jasper County, Georgia, in the 1870s, and he actually managed to accumulate a fair bit of land.
19世纪70年代，我的曾祖父也出生于佐治亚州贾斯珀县，他成功地积累了大量土地。
But then, in nineteen-teens, Jim Crow took that land from him. And then Jim Crow took his life.
但是，在20世纪10年代，吉姆·克劳夺走了他的土地。还夺去了他的生命。
My grandfather, Leonard Jeffries Senior, was born in Georgia, but there was nothing left for him there, so he actually grew up in Newark, New Jersey.
我的祖父，老伦纳德·杰弗里斯也出生于乔治亚州，但没有任何遗产可以继承，于是他小时候就搬去了新泽西的纽瓦克市。
And he spent most of his life working as a custodian.
在那里，他当了大半辈子看门人。
Job discrimination, segregated education and redlining kept him from ever breaking into the middle class.
就业歧视、隔离教育和地区贷款歧视法案使他永远无法跻身中产阶级。
And so when he passed away in the early 1990s,
当他在上世纪90年代初去世的时候，
he left to his two sons nothing more than a life-insurance policy that was barely enough to cover his funeral expenses.
他留给了两个儿子的仅仅是一份人寿保险单而已，还不够支付他的丧葬费用。
Now my parents, both social workers, they actually managed to purchase a home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1980, for 55,000 dollars.
我的父母都是社会工作者，于1980年在纽约布鲁克林的皇冠高地花了55000美元买了一套房子。
Now Crown Heights, at the time, was an all-Black neighborhood, and it was kind of rough.
皇冠高地在当时是一个全黑人社区，环境比较差。
My brother and I often went to sleep, by the mid-1980s, hearing gunshots.
我和弟弟常常都是伴着枪声入睡的，这种情况一直持续到20世纪80年代中期。
But my parents protected us, and my parents also held onto that home. For 40 years. And they're still there.
然而我的父母保护了我们，同时也保住了那座房子。40年了，他们还在那里。
But something quintessentially American happened about 20 years ago.
但是20年前，发生了一件典型的美国事件。
About 20 years ago, they went to sleep one night in an all-Black neighborhood, and they woke up the next morning in an all-white neighborhood.
大约20年前的一天晚上，他们在一个全是黑人的社区里睡觉，第二天醒来，却发现身在一个全是白人的社区里。
And as a result of gentrification, not only did all their neighbors mysteriously disappear, but the value of their home skyrocketed.
由于中产阶级化，不仅是他们的所有邻居都神秘地消失了，而且他们的房价也开始暴涨。
So that home that they purchased for 55,000 dollars -- at 29 percent interest, by the way -- that home is now worth 30 times what they paid it for.
所以当年他们花55000美元买的房子--顺便说一句，当时的利率是29%--现在的市场价已经涨到了原来的30倍。
Thirty times. Do the math with me. That's 55,000 times 30, carry the zeros -- That's a lot of money.
30倍。一起算一下。55000乘以30，后面的0别数错了--那可是数不清的钱啊。
So that means, as their single and sole asset, when the time comes for them to pass that asset on to my brother and I,
这就意味着，他们这唯一的资产会在时机成熟的时候传给我和我弟弟，
that will be the first time in my family's history, more than 150 years after the end of slavery,
这将是我们家族在奴隶制结束后的150多年，
that there will be a meaningful transfer of wealth in my family.
历史上第一次有意义的家族财富继承。
And it's not because family members haven't saved, haven't worked hard, haven't valued education. It's because of hard history.
这并不是因为家庭成员没有积蓄、没有努力工作、没有重视教育。而是因为那段沉重的历史。
So when I think about the past, my concern about not remembering it is not that we will repeat it if we don't remember it.
所以当我想起过去，我担心记不住历史并不是因为会重蹈覆辙。
My concern, my fear is that if we don't remember the past, we will continue it.
我所忧虑、恐惧的是，如果我们不记得过去，我们就会持续犯错。
We will continue to do the things that created inequality and injustice in the first place.
我们将继续那些从一开始就造成了不平等和不公正的事情。
So what we must do is we must disrupt the continuum of hard history.
所以我们必须做的是，我们必须打破沉重历史的持续。
And we can do this by seeking truth. By confronting hard history directly. By magnifying hard history for all the world to see.
我们可以通过寻求真理来做到这一点。通过直面沉重的历史，通过放大沉重的历史，让全世界都看到。
We can do this by speaking truth. Teachers teaching hard history to their students.
可以通过说出事实来做到这一点。教师为他们的学生讲授艰难的历史。
To do anything else is to commit educational malpractice.
不这样做，就是犯了教育上的错误。
And parents have to speak truth to their children, so that they understand where we have come from as a nation.
父母必须和他们的孩子讲述事实，让他们明白我们的国家从哪里来。
And finally, we must all act on truth. Individually and collectively, publicly and privately, in small ways and in large ways.
最后，我们都必须按照真理行事。不论是个人还是集体，公开还是私下里，在小的方面还是大的方面。
We must do the things that will bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice. To do nothing is to be complicit in inequality.
我们都必须做一些事情，使道德世界的弧线朝着正义的方向弯曲。无所作为就是与不平等串通一气。
History reminds us that we, as a nation, stand on the shoulders of political giants like James Madison.
历史提醒我们：我们作为一个国家，站在像詹姆斯·麦迪逊一样的政治巨人的肩膀上。
But hard history reminds us that we, as a nation, also stand on the shoulders of enslaved African American children.
但沉重的历史同时提醒我们：我们作为一个国家，也要站在被奴役的非裔美国儿童的肩膀上。
Little Black boys and little Black girls who, with their bare hands, made the bricks that serve as the foundation for this nation.
黑人小男孩和黑人小女孩，他们赤手空拳，用一块块砖头垒起了这个国家的根基。
And if we are serious about creating a fair and just society, then we would do well to remember that, and we would do well to remember them. Thank you.
如果我们真的想创造一个公平公正的社会，那就要牢记这段历史，牢记被奴役的人们。谢谢！
