评论
打印
But really such is the task of every true university.
但这确实是每一所真正的大学的任务。
Those of you graduating today can well attest to that.
今天毕业的同学们就是最好的例证。
When you first arrived at Harvard as undergraduate or postgraduate students, you most likely could not have imagined the many ways that your ability would be tested, your insights sharpened and expanded, and your prospects in life improved by studying at the University.
当你第一次来到哈佛读本科或研究生的时候，你可能没有想象到，通过在哈佛的学习，你的能力将在许多方面经受考验，你的洞察力将得到磨练和延伸，你的生活前景将得到改善。
I certainly didn't expect such results when I arrived at Harvard.
我刚上哈佛的时候，也没有想到会是这样的结果。
And yet I know now that it is likely primarily because I studied at Harvard that I've had the deeply rich and satisfying career that I've enjoyed for so very many years.
然而，我现在知道，或许就是因为我上了哈佛，才能有一份丰富且满意的工作，让我享受了这么多年。
A product of a segregated upbringing in Houston and undergraduate study at an HBCU, I'm ashamed to say that in my youth, I secretly bought into the prevailing racial assumptions of the day, that someone like me would be ill prepared to benefit and contribute to study at a university of Harvard's stature.
作为种族隔离教育的产物，在休斯顿长大，去传统黑人大学上本科，我很惭愧地说，年轻的时候，我相信了当时的主流种族假设，认为像我这样的人即便在哈佛大学学习，也几乎不可能对世界有何贡献。
I expected to be flat-footed if not oafish in the company of well-heeled and urbane students who had the advantage of the best education and experiences.
我本以为自己在一群受过最好教育、经验丰富、举止文雅、穿着考究的学生面前，即使不是莽撞粗鲁，也是笨手笨脚的。
While not outwardly immobilized by fear of failing the biggest test of my life, I was inwardly terrified that I would fail to measure up.
虽然从表面上看，我并没有因为害怕无法通过人生中最大的考验而被吓傻，但我内心还是担心自己无法达标。
Uncertainty and malaise governed my early days at the University.
刚上大学的时候，我内心忐忑不安。
Harvard was, you see, a place steeped in other people's traditions, traditions that I could not easily access.
哈佛处处都体现着其他民族的传统，这些传统我很难接触到。
My reaction was very much akin to the French expression denoting window shopping, leche-vitrine.
我的反应非常类似于法语中“橱窗购物”的表达：leche-vitrine。
Those of us who are outsiders are often as mere observers, looking through windows, salivating and wondering how we might ever be able to attain a sense of inclusion, acceptance, and respect.
我们这些局外人往往只是作为旁观者，透过窗户，流着口水，思考我们如何才能获得包容、接受和尊重。
Just as when as a child I was banned from white establishment, I identified as the outsider looking enviously at others at Harvard who not only had full access to the University's history and traditions, but who also could so easily see themselves reflected in them.
就像我小时候被禁止进入白人权势集体一样，我感觉自己是个局外人，羡慕地看着哈佛的其他人，他们不仅完全了解哈佛的历史和传统，而且很容易从这些历史和传统中看到自己的影子。
Few things that I could see at Harvard at the time represented me.
当时我在哈佛几乎看不到能代表我的东西。
Perhaps it is the memory of that feeling that moved me to remain in university life to make that experience easier for others who felt excluded.
也许正是这种感受，让我选择在大学工作，去帮助那些感到被排斥的人。
The need to make universities more aware of how first-generation and underserved communities reacted to the stultified tradition in many universities shaped my conviction about the importance of individuals feeling fully embraced and respected as learners, erasing vestiges of disparagement that inevitably accrue in unequal society.
有必要让大学更多地意识到，第一代和服务不足的社区是如何对许多大学中愚蠢的传统做出反应的，这让我确信，作为学习者，个人感到完全被接纳和尊重的重要性，从而消除不平等社会中不可避免地产生的歧视痕迹。
Having been profiled and racially isolated and having carried within me for so many years the weight of that sentence, I understood that to change our country, we have to insist that everyone's humanity, everyone's traditions and history, everyone's identity contributes to our learning about the world that we must live in together.
我曾被异化和种族孤立过，这么多年，怀揣着这份信念，我明白要改变我们的国家，就必须承认每个人的人性、每个人的传统和历史、每个人的身份都有助于我们了解这个共同生活的世界。
I came to believe what Harvard expressed in its admission philosophy, that such human differences intentionally engaged in the educational context are as much a resource to our intellectual growth as the magnificent tomes that we build libraries to protect and the state-of-the-art equipment so proudly arrayed in our laboratories.
我开始相信哈佛入学的哲学寄语，即刻意将人类之间的差异性融入教育环境中，对人才培养的意义不亚于我们建造图书馆悉心呵护的伟大著作和骄傲地陈设在实验室里的先进设备。
The encounter with difference rocks.
碰撞激发火花。
I believe that each of us has a solemn duty to learn about and embrace that difference.
我相信，我们每个人都有学习和拥抱这种差异的重要责任。
That undertaking takes not a month, not a year, but a lifetime of concerted action to ensure that we are equipped to play a role in caring for and improving the world we inhabit together.
这项工作需要的不是一个月，也不是一年，而是一生的协调行动，以确保我们有能力去照顾和改善这个世界。
This responsibility should encourage us to commit to our individual as well as professional role in advancing access, equality and mutual respect.
这一责任应激励我们努力发挥个人和专业的作用，促进权利、平等和相互尊重。
