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Repairing the story of race in the South
纠正南方的种族故事
I BELIEVE THAT THE FOUR CONFEDERATE monuments in New Orleans that became a dominating presence in my life for well more than two years
我想，(路易斯安那州)新奥尔良这四座联邦纪念碑，在过去远超过两年的时间里它们一直在我的生命中发挥着决定性的作用，
never relected what the true society of New Orleans, generations ago, actually felt when they were built.
丝毫没有体现好几代人以前，它们被立起来的时候真正的新奥尔良社会的感受。
The structures relected what the people who erected them, mostly ex–Confederate soldiers or sympathizers, believed
虽然它们的结构体现了那些当初打造它们的人——大部分都是前联邦士兵或者联邦的支持者——的信仰，
because they had the power to build them and because they wanted to send a particular political message.
因为他们有能力打造那些纪念碑，也因为他们想要传达一个特定的政治讯息。
They cast a dark and repressive shadow over my city and, in a way, held us back.
但它们令我们的城市蒙上了一层黑暗而压抑的阴影，并在一定程度上阻碍了我们的发展。
It took most of my lifetime to see this.
我花了大半辈子才想明白这一点。
So I listened to people who had absorbed a diferent message from those statues than the one I did over the years.
我听取那些从这些雕像中吸收了不同于我多年来吸收的信息的人们的看法。
A great part of governing is listening to and learning from your people.
治理政务一个很重要的部分就是倾听并向你的百姓学习。
Once you do learn the truth about the past, you have a responsibility to act, and so I did.
一旦你了解了过去的真相，你就有责任采取行动，所以我行动起来了。
A week before Christmas 2015, the city council voted 6-1 in favor of dismantling the monuments.
距离2015年圣诞节一周前，市议会以6比1的票数通过了拆除纪念碑的提案。
A Baton Rouge company agreed to service the order once we were out of the legal thicket—
巴吞鲁日一家公司愿意在我们走完繁杂的法律程序之后接下这个订单——
the Louisiana Landmarks Society and other groups had filed suit against our plan,
路易斯安那州地标协会和其他团体对我们的计划提起了诉讼，
citing their members’ “recognized interest in the aesthetic and cultural well-being in the city of New Orleans.”
说他们的成员“对新奥尔良市美学和文化福祉十分感兴趣”。
I assumed the legal appeals would be tossed out.
我认为这一上诉会被否决。
But before we reached that point, the owner of the company and his wife received death threats, which we reported to the FBI,
然而，事情还没有发展到那一步，巴吞鲁日那家公司的老板和他的妻子就受到了恐吓，我们向联邦调查局报告了此事，
and even though the company ended its agreement with the city, his sports car was set afire in the driveway of his business.
而且，即便该公司终结了与市议会达成的协议，他的跑车还是被人在他的私人车道上放火烧了。
The spread of domestic terrorism has many small stories like this—
国内蔓延的恐怖主义情绪还有很多这样的小故事——
threats, acts of religious desecration and vandalism that move across the news radar or make a few paragraphs on inside pages of the local press,
恐吓行为，亵渎和破坏宗教的行为逃过新闻雷达的追踪，抑或是在当地媒体不起眼的内页上被写上寥寥几笔，
and no one gets caught, or if so, quite some time later.
没有人被抓，即便被抓，也是猴年马月的事了。
This is part of the ho-hum racism that eats through our country every day.
这就是让人厌倦但每天都在吸食我们国家血肉的种族主义行径的一部分。
In other words, we really haven’t made it as far as we like to think—
换句话说，我们真的没有我们想象的那么成功——
we’re still mired in a mentality where they could lynch you, destroy your reputation, hurt your business or engage in symbolic lynchings, like a cross burned on your lawn or the car in your driveway torched.
我们仍然陷在一种心态里，以为种族主义者会对我们施加私刑，毁我们的声誉，砸我们的生意，或者对我们施加象征性的私刑，比如在我们家草坪上烧十字架或是在我们的私人车道上烧我们的车。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
