英文原文

生活太匆忙、太繁琐、太沉重，我们没有时间聆听。
精神太疲惫、太紧张，太压抑，我们没有心情聆听。
那么很多个独处的时刻，我们会干什么？

I believe in listening, even if that’s not the typical image of an organizer. Movies provide the scenes: The organizer climbs on the soapbox to make the speech that turns the crowd, calls the strike and galvanizes the community into action. I’ve done all that, but none of that is the heart of organizing — at least to me.

I started doing this work when I was a teenager. What did I know about being a mother on welfare? What did I know about housing, education and jobs? Nothing.

But I found out quickly that if I listened — really listened — to what people were telling me about their lives and their problems, then I did know something. I knew what they knew.

Any morning of the week, for the price of a cup of coffee, Max Allison held court at the Walgreen’s on Main Street in Little Rock. Allison, the political wizard behind a dozen Arkansas politicians, would lecture me on what he called “the equation” — how politics really worked. I listened. On long phone calls late at night, Mamie Ruth Williams taught me everything she had learned about dealing with the press from the 1957 school desegregation fights. I listened.

The more people talked and the more I listened, it became almost inevitable, maybe even irresistible, for us to organize and do something effective. I was just a young kid filled with rage, fear and passion who wanted to make a difference, who wanted to be part of the sweeping changes all around me. Thirty-five years later, this is still how I feel.

When Hurricane Katrina happened, none of us knew up from down. We worried that New Orleans had become a biohazard zone, that houses would have to be demolished, and that it would be irresponsible to help people to return. I was at a loss about what to do, how to organize.

So I listened hard to our members who were dislocated and relocated. Long-time ACORN leader Paul Fernandez was fighting to prevent foreclosure on his flooded home in the Lower Ninth Ward. He taught me that protecting that right, the right to return, was what our organization’s role should be. I had been lost, but listening showed me the way.

Listening is good for everyone. When people have to explain something to me, it helps them understand their own needs better. We can decide together what needs to be done, and then take action. Listening strengthens all of our beliefs.

重点词汇

1.galvanize vt. 镀锌；通电；刺激

How can we galvanize the students into taking the responsibility for their own work?
我们怎样才能激励学生对他们的作业负起责任来呢?

2.equation n. 方程式，等式；相等；反应式

This is a similar equation.
这是一个类似的方程“。

Show me how to solve this equation.
告诉我，这个方程式怎么解。

3.desegregation n. 废止种族歧视

Today, during the very act of large-scale townish constructions, these cultural relics full of rare architecture culture history are facing the danger of desegregation.
正当我国处于大规模城镇化建设之际，这些具有珍贵建筑、文化、历史价值的文物类型正面临着解体的险境。

4.demolish vt. 拆除；破坏；毁坏；推翻；驳倒

We are going to demolish the old building.
我们准备爆破这座旧大楼。

What do I get when I demolish facilities ?
拆除场地/设施有资金返回吗？

5.dislocate vt. 使脱臼；使混乱

A long-protracted strike dislocated the economy.
长期罢工打乱了经济秩序。

6.foreclosure n. 丧失抵押品赎回权

But such plans often only delay foreclosure, because they do nothing to make the loan affordable over time.
但是这类的计画通常只能延缓查封法拍，因为他们并无助于延期偿还贷款。