The Dream, the Stars and Dr. King

The Dream, the Stars and Dr.King

JesseJackson

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Last week in Memphis,we commemorated the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. He was struck down 27years ago -- not a dreamer, but a man of action. We have come a long way sincethen, in part as a fruit of his labors.

梦想、星辰与金博士

杰西·杰克逊

     上个星期在孟菲斯，我们纪念马丁·路德·金博士逝世。27年前他被击倒了――不是作为一个梦想家，而是作为一个实干家。从那以后，我们取得了巨大进展，其中一部分是他努力的结果。

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Inless than 30 years, as schools opened and ceilings lifted, a large AfricanAmerican middle class has been created. High school graduation rates, evenintelligence test results, grow closer between whites and blacks with eachpassing year.

     在不到30年的时间内，由于兴办学校、种种限制被取消，一个为数众多的非洲裔美国中产阶级得以形成。白人与黑人的高中毕业率，甚至智力测试成绩，也都一年比一年更接近。

  

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The civil-rights movement that Dr. King led also helped women gaingreater opportunity. The same laws that guarantee equal opportunity for AfricanAmericans apply to women, to other minorities, to the disabled. (1) Our societybenefits as fewer of its people have their genius suppressed or their talentswasted.

      金博士领导的民权运动也帮助妇女获得更多的机会。保障非洲裔美国人平等机会的法律同样适用于妇女、其他少数民族以及残疾人。如今天才遭受压抑、才华被浪费的人数减少了，我们的社会因此而受益。

  

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We have come a long way -- but we have far to go. Commission aftercommission, report after report, show that systematic discrimination stillstains our country.

     我们取得了巨大进展――但我们还有大量的工作要做。一个个委员会的调查，一份份的报告都表明，蓄意的歧视依然玷污我们的国家。

   

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African Americans have more difficulty obtaining business loans, buyinghomes, getting hired. Schools and housing patterns are still largely separateand unequal. Women still face glass ceilings in corporate offices. Ninety-sevenpercent of the corporate CEOs of the Fortune 500 are white men. That does notresult from talent being concentrated among males with pale skin.
非洲裔美国人在商业贷款、购房、就业方面遇到更多的困难。学校与居住格局在很大程度上仍黑白分隔，无平等可言。妇女在企业管理阶层的发展仍面临着无形的限制。财富杂志500强企业名录中97％的首席执行官是男性白人。这并不是白肤色男士具有才能优势的结果。

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(2)Today, Dr. King's legacy -- the commitment to take affirmativeactions to open doors and opportunity -- is under political assault. Dr. Kingworked against terrible odds in a hopeful time. America was experiencing twodecades of remarkable economic growth and prosperity. It was assumed, as theKerner Commission made clear, that the "growth dividend" would enableus to reduce poverty and open opportunity relatively painlessly. But the war onpoverty was never fought; instead, the dividend and the growth were squanderedin the jungles of Vietnam.

      今天，金博士的遗产――采取积极行动打开大门、提供机会的承诺――正受到政治上的攻击。金博士在一个充满希望的时代冲破重重困难奋力斗争。美国当时正经历着持续20年的令人惊叹的经济增长与繁荣。正如克纳调查委员会所清楚表明的那样，当时人们认为，“增长红利”会使我们相对来说较为容易地减少贫困、创造机会。但从来不曾发起过消除贫困的战争，相反，那些红利、那些经济增长，都被耗在了越南的丛林之中。

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Three decades later, the country is more prosperous but the times areless hopeful. Real wages for working people have been declining for 20 years.People are scared for good reason, as layoffs rise to record levels even in themidst of a recovery.

30年之后，国家更加繁荣昌盛，但时势不再那么充满希望。劳动者的实际工资连续20年一路下跌。人们有充分的理由感到恐惧，因为即使在经济复苏之时，下岗人数仍达到创纪录的高度。

   

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Inthis context, prejudice flourishes, feeding on old hates, keeping alive oldfears. What else could explain the remarkably dishonest assault onaffirmative-action programs that seek to remedy stubborn patterns ofdiscrimination?

     在这种情形之下，政治上掠夺成性者利用宿怨和往昔的恐惧变得越发猖獗。不然如何解释对积极行动计划如此颠倒是非的攻击呢？该计划旨在疗治歧视这一痼疾。

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House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a history professor, sets the tone bysimply erasing history. The Washington Post reported: "Gingrich dismissedthe argument that those who benefit from affirmative action, commonly AfricanAmericans, have been subjected to discrimination over a period of centuries.That is true of virtually every American, Gingrich said, noting that the Irishwere discriminated against by the English, for example."

     众议院议长纽特·金里奇，一位历史教授，以完全抹杀历史的方式定下了基调。《华盛顿邮报》报道说：“对于受益于积极行动计划的人――通常是非洲裔美国人――几个世纪以来遭受歧视的论点，金里奇拒不接受。金里奇说，几乎每一个美国人都曾受到歧视。他举例说，爱尔兰人曾受到英国人的歧视。”

   

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As Roger Wilkins writes in a thoughtful essay in the Nation magazine,this is breathtakingly dishonest for a history professor. Blacks have been onthe North American continent for nearly 375 years. For 245 of those, thecountry practiced slavery. For another 100 or so, segregation was enforcedthroughout the South and much of the North, often policed by home-grownterrorists. We've had only 30 years of something else, largely the legacy ofthe struggle led by Dr. King.

     正如罗杰·威尔金斯在《国家》杂志上发表的一篇颇具思想深度的文章中所写的那样，对一位历史教授而言，这是骇人听闻的欺骗。黑人来到北美大陆将近375年了。其中的245年中，美国实行奴隶制。在另外大约100年间，南方各州及北方大部分地区实行种族隔离，通常由地方恐怖分子监督实施。我们只有30年免受奴役、隔离的历史，而这在很大程度上是金博士所领导的斗争的产物。

   

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The media plays up the "guilt" African Americans supposedlysuffer about affirmative action. I can tell you this. Dr. King felt no guiltwhen special laws gave us the right to vote. He felt no guilt about lawsrequiring that African Americans have the opportunity to go to schools, toenter universities, to compete for jobs and contracts. This supposed guilt isat best a luxurious anxiety of those who now have the opportunity to succeed orfail.

     媒体渲染了所谓非洲裔美国人对于积极行动心怀“愧疚”的说法。我可以告诉你。当特别法令赋予我们投票权时，金博士没有丝毫愧疚。对于那些规定非洲裔美国人有上学、读大学、参与就业竞争与赢得合同竞争的平等机会的法律，金博士没有丝毫愧疚。这种臆想的愧疚充其量是那些业已获得成功或失败的机会的人过分装模作样的忧虑罢了。

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If Dr. King were alive today, he would be 66, younger than Senator BobDole who suggests that discrimination ended "before we were born."Unlike Dole, Dr. King would be working to bring people together, not drive themapart.

     如果金博士仍在人世，他今年66岁，比声称“早在我们出生之前”歧视就不再存在的参议员鲍伯·多尔更年轻。不同于多尔的是，金博士会致力于团结人民，而不是分裂人民。

   

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(3) Modern-day conservatives haven't a clue about what to do with aneconomy that is generating greater inequality and reducing the security andliving standards of more and more Americans. So they seek to distract anddivide.

     今天的经济正造成更大的不平等，并使越来越多的美国人安全感减少、生活水准降低；对于如何应对目前的这种经济形势，当今的保守分子一无所知。于是他们试图分散人们的注意力，分裂人民。

   

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As Dole reaffirmed his abandonment of affirmative action, fellowRepublican Senator Phil Gramm of Texascalled for more cuts from the poor.

     正当多尔重申摒弃积极行动计划时，得克萨斯州同样属于共和党的参议员菲尔·格拉姆呼吁进一步削减对穷人的帮助。

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As we head into this troubling time, we would do well to remember Dr.King's legacy. No matter how desperate things were, no matter how grave thecrisis, no matter how many times his dreams were shattered, Dr. King refused togrow bitter. (4) Men and women, he taught, "have the capacity to do rightas well as wrong, and [our] history is a path upward, not downward. It's onlywhen it is truly dark that you can see the stars."

      我们正进入这样一个多难的时期，此时此刻我们最好记取金博士的遗训。无论情况多么糟糕，无论危机多么严重，无论梦想多少次破碎，金博士都决不会怨恨失望。他教导说，人，无论是男是女，“既有能力做好事，也有能力做坏事，而我们的历史的道路是向上走的，不是向下走的。 只有在天空漆黑的时候，你才能望见星星。”