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AMERICANS ARE REPEATING AN OLD PATTERN—TALKING ABOUT RACIAL INEQUALITY BUT DOING LITTLE TO SOLVE IT
美国人正在重复一种旧模式——谈论种族不平等，却不采取行动解决它
BY JANELL ROSS
作者：贾内尔·罗斯
IN 1937, THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION hired a Swedish man to unravel an American quandary. The foundation had a history of funding initiatives to help the disadvantaged; in the U.S., where enslavement was only 72 years gone, the disadvantaged were disproportionately Black. The issue was often described as, simply, "the Negro Problem."
1937年，卡耐基基金会雇佣了一个瑞典人来解决美国人的一个困境。该基金会曾资助过旨在帮助弱势群体的举措，在奴隶制度刚刚结束72年后的美国，处于不利地位的黑人比例尤其庞大。这个问题通常被简单地描述为“黑人问题”。
But while it was clear that the problem existed, it was also obvious how difficult it was to solve. And so the foundation brought in economist, sociologist and future Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal to gather information to guide its programs.
但是，问题虽然明显存在，但解决它的难度也很明显。因此，基金会请来了经济学家、社会学家和未来的诺贝尔奖得主贡纳·米达尔来收集信息指导其项目。
Myrdal did much more. Almost seven years later, he produced a twovolume study he dubbed An American Dilemma, exploring, in statistical detail, the evidence of the great American lie—the gap between the nation's ideals and its racial reality. Myrdal was far from the first to try to illuminate the effects of ongoing institutional racism, the frequent and extreme way it pushed the U.S. away from its core ideals and constitutional promises. And he certainly would not be the last. Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, W.E.B. Du Bois in 1900 and again in 1935 and the Kerner Commission in 1968, among others, enriched our national understanding of troubles we still face today. But Myrdal and his army of social scientists seemed, for at least a time, to cut through America's fairy-tale understanding of itself. The study was one of just a few credited with prompting the Supreme Court to put a legal end to school segregation. And yet, once again, Myrdal's subject looms large. The profoundly inadequate question of whether America is a racist country has caused a wave in many elected officials' deep-as-a-puddle meditations on the nation's history. Many Americans remain ill informed about race and near delusional in their description of its reach. The evidence is clear—and was, in a way that all but only the most recalcitrant can deny, made plain again in the extended endurance test that began in March 2020. If the past year has been, as is so often claimed, the one in which the ugly scar of American inequality ripped open so wide that few could deny it, it should also be known as the year when a bold and opportunistic set learned to better talk the talk of needed change. Still, even in a country that prides itself on allowing citizens to speak freely and then act to change public policy accordingly, the renewed attention given to racial injustice has scarcely been matched with parallel action.
米达尔做得更多。将近七年后，他出版了一份名为《美国困境》的两卷研究，从统计的细节中探索了伟大的美国人的谎言——国家理想和种族现实之间的差距。默达尔并不是第一个试图阐明现行制度性种族主义影响的人，这种现象频繁而极端地将美国推向背离其核心理想和宪法承诺的境地。他肯定不会是最后一个。1835年的亚历克西斯·德·托克维尔、1900年的杜波依斯、1935年的杜波依斯以及1968年的克纳委员会等，丰富了我们对我们国家今天仍然面临的问题的理解。但默达尔和他的社会科学家大军似乎至少在一段时间内打破了美国对自身童话般的理解。这项研究是促使最高法院从法律上结束学校种族隔离的少数研究之一。然而，默达尔的主题又一次凸显出来。关于美国是否是一个种族主义国家的根本问题引发了许多民选官员对国家历史的深思。许多美国人仍然不了解种族问题，他们对种族影响的描述几乎就是妄想。证据很清楚，而且在2020年3月开始的延长耐力测试中，只有最顽固的人才能否认这一点。如果过去的一年真如人们常说的那样，是美国不平等的丑陋伤疤撕裂得相当之大(无人能否认)的一年，那么它也应该是大胆的机会主义者学会更好地谈论必要的变革的一年。然而，即使是在一个以允许公民自由发言并据此采取行动改变公共政策而自豪的国家，但对种族不公正的重新关注并没有和相应的行动匹配起来。
The problem is as clear as ever. What America is going to do about it is not.
这个问题和以前一样清晰可见，但美国对此要采取什么措施却如同雾里看花。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
