What is up with us white people?
我们白种人是怎么一回事？
I've been thinking about that a lot the last few years, and I know I have company.
过去这几年，我一直在思考这个问题，而且我知道有很多人跟我一样。
Look, I get it -- people of color have been asking that question for centuries.
好，我知道同样的问题有色人种已经问了好几世纪。
But I think a growing number of white folks are too, given what's been going on out there in our country.
但现在有同样疑问的白种人持续增加，尤其是现今的局势--我们国内的局势。
And notice I said, "What's up with us white people?"
请注意，我刚才说的是：“我们白种人是怎么一回事？”
because right now, I'm not talking about those white people, the ones with the swastikas and the hoods and the tiki torches.
因为此刻，我说的白种人不是“那些”--那些持万字符、戴斗篷、手持火把的白种人。
They are a problem and a threat. They perpetrate most of the terrorism in our country, as you all in Charlottesville know better than most.
那些人的确是问题及威胁。他们将恐怖主义渗透到全国各地，你们住在夏洛特镇的人比谁都清楚。
But I'm talking about something bigger and more pervasive. I'm talking about all of us, white folks writ large.
我说的是比那更大、更普遍的问题。我指的是我们所有人，广义的白种人。
And maybe, especially, people sort of like me, self-described progressive, don't want to be racist. Good white people.
或许，尤其是跟我类似的，自诩为先进的一群，我们不想当种族主义者。而是当一个好的白人。
Any good white people in the room?
现场有好白人吗？
I was raised to be that sort of person.
父母从小教我成为一个好白人。
I was a little kid in the '60s and '70s, and to give you some sense of my parents:
六、七十年代时我还是一个小小孩，让我说一下我的父母是怎样的人：
actual public opinion polls at the time showed that only a small minority, about 20 percent of white Americans,
当时做的民意调查显示只有极少数--大约20%的白种美国人，
approved and supported Martin Luther King and his work with the civil rights movement while Dr.
认同且支持马丁·路德·金及他在黑人民权运动上的努力。
King was still alive. I'm proud to say my parents were in that group. Race got talked about in our house.
金当时还在世。我敢骄傲地说，我的父母正属于那少数的一群。在我家种族问题可公开讨论。
And when the shows that dealt with race would come on the television,
每次电视上出现种族议题的节目时，
they would sit us kids down, made sure we watched: the Sidney Poitier movies, "Roots"...
他们会叫我们几个孩子坐下来看，像是西德尼·波蒂埃的电影、《根》等等。
The message was loud and clear, and I got it: racism is wrong; racists are bad people.
所传达的信息大声且清楚，我听懂了：种族歧视是不对的，有种族歧视的人是坏人。
At the same time, we lived in a very white place in Minnesota.
当时，我们住在明尼苏达州的一个白人为主的地方。
And I'll just speak for myself,
我现在所说只代表个人言论，
I think that allowed me to believe that those white racists on the TV screen were being beamed in from some other place.
当时电视屏幕上的种族歧视者让我相信那些种族歧视都发生在其他的地方。
It wasn't about us, really. I did not feel implicated.
跟我们一点关系都没有。我并不觉得自己也牵连在内。
Now, I would say, I'm still in recovery from that early impression.
可以说，我现在还在从早年的印象中醒悟过来。
I got into journalism in part because I cared about things like equality and justice.
我进入新闻这一行有一部分就是因为我在乎公平、公正。
For a long time, racism was just such a puzzle to me.
有很长一段时间，种族主义让我困惑不已。
Why is it still with us when it's so clearly wrong? Why such a persistent force?
如果它根本就是错的，为什么大家还坐视它的存在？为何如此有持续力？
Maybe I was puzzled because I wasn't yet looking in the right place or asking the right questions.
或许我的困惑是来自我看错了方向，还是问错了问题。
Have you noticed that when people in our mostly white media report on what they consider to be racial issues, what we consider to be racial issues,
你们有注意到吗，在白人主流的媒体中，只要出现被认为是种族议题的报导，我们认为是种族议题的新闻，
what that usually means is that we're pointing our cameras and our microphones and our gaze at people of color,
通常也就是我们将摄影机的镜头以及麦克风及目光转到有色人种身上，
asking questions like, "How are Black folks or Native Americans, Latino or Asian Americans, how are they doing?"
提出的问题也通常是：“那么黑人、美国原住民、拉丁美洲人或亚裔美国人他们觉得怎样？”
in a given community or with respect to some issue -- the economy, education.
可能是某个特定小区，还是针对某些议题--经济、教育之类。
I've done my share of that kind of journalism over many years.
我做了许多年那类的新闻工作，够了。
But then George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, followed by this unending string of high-profile police shootings of unarmed Black people,
在乔治·兹莫曼枪杀了特雷沃恩·马丁后，陆续又发生了一连串的高阶警察枪击未携带武器的黑人事件，
the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Dylann Roof and the Charleston massacre, #OscarsSoWhite
接着“黑人的命也是命”运动展开、位于查尔斯顿的迪伦·鲁夫屠杀案，“奥斯卡太白”舆论大潮，
all the incidents from the day-to-day of American life,
所有这些发生在美国日常生活的事件，
these overtly racist incidents that we now get to see because they're captured on smartphones and sent across the internet.
公开的种族主义事件，都被以智慧手机拍下，在网上流传而广为人知。
And beneath those visible events, the stubborn data, the studies showing systemic racism in every institution we have:
而在这些事件表面之下，根深蒂固的数据、无数的研究结果显露出我们所有的公共机构中存在着系统化的种族歧视，
housing segregation, job discrimination, the deeply racialized inequities in our schools and criminal justice system.
普遍见于住宅分配隔离、工作歧视、还有长久以来存在于学校、刑事司法系统中的不平等待遇。
And what really did it for me, and I know I'm not alone in this, either:
最让我无法忍受的是，我知道我也不是唯一一个，
the rise of Donald Trump and the discovery that a solid majority of white Americans would embrace
唐纳德·特朗普的崛起，让我发现有绝大多数的美国白人若非热烈欢迎，
or at least accept such a raw, bitter kind of white identity politics.
至少也认可接受他那赤裸裸、充满仇恨的白人取向的政治理念。
This was all disturbing to me as a human being.
身为人类，这是最令我不安的一点。
As a journalist, I found myself turning the lens around, thinking, "Wow, white folks are the story. Whiteness is a story."
身为记者，我发现我把镜头转向了，我在想：“哇！故事主角换成白人了，白种人上新闻了”。
And also thinking, "Can I do that? What would a podcast series about whiteness sound like?"
同时我也想：“有可能吗？以白种人为题制做一系列的Podcast？”
"And oh, by the way -- this could get uncomfortable."
“噢，先说一声，这节目可能会让人觉得不自在。”
I had seen almost no journalism that looked deeply at whiteness,
我从未看过任何深入探讨白人种族议题的报导，
but, of course, people of color and especially Black intellectuals have made sharp critiques of white supremacist culture for centuries,
当然，几世纪以来，有色人种，尤其是黑人知识分子，曾对白人至上的文化提出尖锐的批评，
and I knew that in the last two or three decades, scholars had done interesting work looking at race through the frame of whiteness,
我也知道过去二、三十年来，有些学者做了有趣的研究工作--从白人的角度去看“种族”：
what it is, how we got it, how it works in the world.
它的定义、起源、在世界各地的状况。
I started reading, and I reached out to some leading experts on race and the history of race.
我开始阅读涉猎，也请教了许多研究种族及种族历史领域内的专家。
One of the first questions I asked was, "Where did this idea of being a white person come from in the first place?" Science is clear.
我提出的第一个问题是：“请问身为白人的这个概念是起源于何处？”科学证据一目了然。
We are one human race. We're all related, all descended from a common ancestor in Africa.
所有的人类都是同一个物种。我们都是相关联的，最早都是同一个祖先，来自非洲。
Some people walked out of Africa into colder, darker places and lost a lot of their melanin, some of us more than others.
有一部分的人离开了非洲大陆去到比较冷、比较暗的地方因而流失了他们的黑色素，一些人流失的多过其他人。
But genetically, we are all 99.9 percent the same.
但是，我们的基因99.9%一样。
There's more genetic diversity within what we call racial groups than there is between racial groups.
同一族群中的基因多样性远多过跨族群间的多样性。
There's no gene for whiteness or blackness or Asian-ness or what have you.
没有哪个基因是白人特有，或是黑人、亚洲人特有的，各色人种都是一样的。
So how did this happen? How did we get this thing? How did racism start?
所以究竟种族是怎么来的？我们从哪得来这个概念？种族主义何时开始？
I think if you had asked me to speculate on that, in my ignorance, some years ago,
如果你要我推论的话，用我之前天真的想法去分析的话，
I probably would have said, "Well, I guess somewhere back in deep history, people encountered one another, and they found each other strange.
我可能会说：“我猜很久很久以前，在某个地方，人们碰到彼此时，发现对方与自己不同。
'Your skin is a different color, your hair is different, you dress funny.
‘你的肤色与我不同、发色也不同、又奇装异服。
I guess I'll just go ahead and jump to the conclusion that since you're different that you're somehow less than me,
我想我应该可以下结论说：既然你跟我不同，那你应该就是不如我，
and maybe that makes it OK for me to mistreat you.'"
那我无需礼遇还是平等对待你。’”
Right? Is that something like what we imagine or assume?
是吗？那不正是我们所想象、认为的吗？
And under that kind of scenario, it's all a big, tragic misunderstanding. But it seems that's wrong.
而且，在那种情况下，简直是巨大且悲惨的误解。不过这推论显然不对。
First of all, race is a recent invention. It's just a few hundred years old.
首先，种族是近代的发明。只有几百年历史。
Before that, yes, people divided themselves by religion, tribal group, language, things like that.
在那之前，是的，用来区分彼此的是宗教、部落族群、语言等等的。
But for most of human history, people had no notion of race.
但是以人类的整体历史来看，人们几乎没有种族观念。
In Ancient Greece, for example -- and I learned this from the historian Nell Irvin Painter
举例来说，在古希腊--这是我从历史学家内尔·艾尔文·潘特那学到的，
the Greeks thought they were better than the other people they knew about, but not because of some idea that they were innately superior.
古希腊人自认为比所有其他所知的人更杰出，不是因为他们天生就比较擅长某些事物。
They just thought that they'd developed the most advanced culture.
而是因为他们认为他们发展出了最先进的文明。
So they looked around at the Ethiopians, but also the Persians and the Celts,
所以在环顾了周遭的埃塞俄比亚人、还有波斯人及凯尔特人后，
and they said, "They're all kind of barbaric compared to us. Culturally, they're just not Greek."
他们下结论说：“跟我们相比，他们基本上就是野蛮人。从文明来看，他们就是比不上我们希腊人。”
And yes, in the ancient world, there was lots of slavery,
没错，古老的世界上充斥着奴隶制度，
but people enslaved people who didn't look like them, and they often enslaved people who did.
但是奴役的对象除了与自己长得不像的人，也包含了跟自己同类的人。

Did you know that the English word "slave" is derived from the word "Slav"?
你们知道英文的奴隶是从Slav这个字演变来的吗？
Because Slavic people were enslaved by all kinds of folks, including Western Europeans, for centuries.
因为斯拉夫人被各种人奴役得最多，包括西欧人在内，长达几世纪之久。
Slavery wasn't about race either, because no one had thought up race yet.
奴役其实也跟种族无关，因为当时还没有人想到种族这个概念。
So who did? I put that question to another leading historian, Ibram Kendi.
那么是谁起头的呢？我拿这问题问另一个杰出的历史学家，伊布拉姆·肯迪。
I didn't expect he would answer the question in the form of one person's name and a date, as if we were talking about the light bulb.
我并不期望他给我的回答中会有明确的人名还是日期，就像问是谁发明电灯泡那样。
But he did. He said, in his exhaustive research, he found what he believed to be the first articulation of racist ideas.
可是他真的就是那样说的。他说在做了详尽的研究后，他找到了他相信应该是第一个提倡种族观念的文章。
And he named the culprit. This guy should be more famous, or infamous. His name is Gomes de Zurara. Portuguese man.
他也找到了罪魁祸首。这个人其实应该很有名，还是说恶名昭彰。他的名字是戈梅斯·德祖拉拉。葡萄牙人。
Wrote a book in the 1450s in which he did something that no one had ever done before, according to Dr. Kendi.
他在15世纪50年代写了一本书，书中有个没人做过的创举，这是肯迪博士的说法。
He lumped together all the people of Africa -- a vast, diverse continent -- and he described them as a distinct group, inferior and beastly.
德祖拉拉一竿子打翻一船人，将辽阔、多元的非洲大陆上所有的人归类为一个单独的群体，形容他们是如野兽般低等的生物。
Never mind that in that precolonial time some of the most sophisticated cultures in the world were in Africa.
全然不顾在殖民时代之前的非洲大陆曾出现世界上最复杂先进的文明。
Why would this guy make this claim?
他为何出此断言？
Turns out, it helps to follow the money.
结果是为了金钱利益。
First of all, Zurara was hired to write that book by the Portuguese king, and just a few years before, slave traders -- here we go
首先，德祖拉拉是受雇的写手，雇主是葡萄牙国王，在这本书问世的几年前，奴隶贩子--听清楚了，
slave traders tied to the Portuguese crown had effectively pioneered the Atlantic slave trade.
跟葡萄牙皇室关系密切的奴隶贩子是大西洋地区最早开发奴隶买卖的。
They were the first Europeans to sail directly to sub-Saharan Africa to kidnap and enslave African people.
他们是第一批直接航向撒哈拉以南的非洲大陆的欧洲人--俘虏、奴役非洲人。
So it was suddenly really helpful to have a story about the inferiority of African people
突然之间，这本关于非洲人如何低等的书让奴隶买卖者能自圆其说，
to justify this new trade to other people, to the church, to themselves.
向他人、教会及自身证明奴役的正当性。
And with the stroke of a pen, Zurara invented both blackness and whiteness,
就靠着他的一支笔，德祖拉拉编造出了黑人与白人，
because he basically created the notion of blackness through this description of Africans,
基本上他借着对非洲人的形容去创造出所谓黑人的概念，
and as Dr. Kendi says, blackness has no meaning without whiteness.
就像肯迪博士所说的，没有白，也就不会有黑。
Other European countries followed the Portuguese lead
其他欧洲国家纷纷效法葡萄牙人，
in looking to Africa for human property and free labor and in adopting this fiction about the inferiority of African people.
前往非洲开发免费的奴隶财产，相信德祖拉拉书中捏造的非洲人乃低等人的说法。
I found this clarifying. Racism didn't start with a misunderstanding, it started with a lie.
我发现一切都真相大白了。种族歧视原来并非源自误解，而是出自谎言。
Meanwhile, over here in colonial America,
当时，在殖民地的美洲大陆上，
the people now calling themselves white got busy taking these racist ideas and turning them into law,
那些自称为白人的一群则是忙着将这些种族言论写进法律中，
laws that stripped all human rights from the people they were calling Black
剥夺那些他们归类为黑人的人权，
and locking them into our particularly vicious brand of chattel slavery,
将他们编入我们那套狠毒的奴隶财产制中，
and laws that gave even the poorest white people benefits, not big benefits in material terms but the right to not be enslaved for life,
同时也制定法律提供穷困的白人某些好处，虽然不见得是很大的实质利益，但至少有免于沦落成奴隶的权利，
the right to not have your loved ones torn from your arms and sold, and sometimes real goodies.
身边所爱的人也不会被抓去卖掉，但是也有真的不错的东西。
The handouts of free land in places like Virginia to white people only started long before the American Revolution and continued long after.
有些地方，例如弗吉尼亚州，曾释放出免费土地，但是只发给白人，这类事情远在美国独立战争前就已开始，却持续到战后很长一段时间。
Now, I can imagine there would be people listening to me -- if they're still listening who might be thinking,
我现在可以想象有些人听到这里--如果真有在听的话可能会想：
"Come on, this is all ancient history. Why does this matter?
“拜托！那都是过去的历史啦。一点都不重要吧？
Things have changed. Can't we just get over it and move on?" Right?
现在已经不是那样了。可不可以忘掉过去，向前看啊？”好像没错？
But I would argue, for me certainly, learning this history has brought a real shift in the way that I understand racism today.
我只想说，至少对我个人而言，知道这段历史改变了我对今日种族议题的看法。
To review, two quick takeaways from what I've said so far:
回顾前面我所提到的，有两点各位可以带回去深思：
one, race is not a thing biologically, it's a story some people decided to tell;
一、生物学上并没有种族这回事，那是有心人编造的故事；
and two, people told that story to justify the brutal exploitation of other human beings for profit.
二、那故事被复诵流传只为了用奴役、剥削他人来图利自己的自圆其说。
I didn't learn those two facts in school. I suspect most of us didn't.
这两件事实我都是离开学校后才知道的。我相信大部分人都跟我一样。
If you did, you had a special teacher. Right?
否则，你一定碰到非常特别的老师。对吧？
But once they sink in, for one thing, it becomes clear that racism is not mainly a problem of attitudes, of individual bigotry. No, it's a tool.
一旦充分意识到这两点，你就会恍然大悟，原来种族主义主要不是个人偏执的态度问题。实际上是个工具。
It's a tool to divide us and to prop up systems economic, political and social systems that advantage some people and disadvantage others.
用来分化人类，支撑起经济、政治及社会系统的工具，图利一些人，却伤害另一些人。
And it's a tool to convince a lot of white folks
这个工具让很多白种人相信，
who may or may not be getting a great deal out of our highly stratified society to support the status quo.
无论他们从高度分层的社会制度上得利多寡，至少还愿意支持现状。
"Could be worse. At least I'm white."
“还不是最糟糕的。还好我是白人。”
Once I grasped the origins of racism, I stopped being mystified by the fact that it's still with us.
在我弄清楚种族主义的由来后，也解开了为什么社会上还存在种族主义的谜。
I guess, you know, looking back, I thought about racism as being sort of like the flat Earth
我刚才跟大家提到，我过去把种族认为是类似“地球是方的”那种理论，
just bad, outdated thinking that would fade away on its own before long.
错误、过时，总有一天会被自动淘汰。
But no, this tool of whiteness is still doing the job it was invented to do.
可是我错了，这个白种人专属的工具还是在持续做着当初发明者想达到的工作。
Powerful people go to work every day,
有权势的人每天去工作，
leveraging and reinforcing this old weapon in the halls of power, in some broadcast studios we could mention...
不断地运用、强化这个古老的工具，无论是在权力的殿堂之上，还是在某些我们可以点名的新闻摄影棚中...
And we don't need to fuss over whether these people believe what they're saying, whether they're really racist.
而且我们也无须大惊小怪这班人是否真心相信自己所说的话，或者他们是不是种族歧视者。
That's not what it's about. It's about pocketbooks and power.
那都不重要。重要的是，他们的财力与势力。
Finally, I think the biggest lesson of all -- and let me talk in particular to the white folks for a minute:
最后，我想最重要的一课--让我对现场的白人郑重地说一下：
once we understand that people who look like us invented the very notion of race in order to advantage themselves and us,
一旦理解了所谓的种族是由那些跟我们一样的人发明出来的，以便图利他们自身及我们，
isn't it easier to see that it's our problem to solve?
是不是就很清楚这个问题必须由我们来解决？
It's a white people problem.
因为这是一个白人的问题。
I'm embarrassed to say that for a long time, I thought of racism as being mainly a struggle for people of color to fight,
我很惭愧地说，有很长一段时间我认为种族问题是有色人种必须去挣扎、克服的，
sort of like the people on the TV screen when I was a kid.
就像小时候电视上的那些人一样。
Or, as if I was on the sidelines at a sports contest, on one side people of color,
也有点像去看运动比赛，在场边观赛，一边是有色人种，
on the other those real racists, the Southern sheriff, the people in hoods.
另一边则是种族歧视者，南方的警长，还是那些戴斗篷的人们。
And I was sincerely rooting for people of color to win the struggle.
而我真心为有色人种加油，希望他们赢得这场争战。
But no. There are no sidelines. We're all in it. We are implicated.
可是，不行。因为这场比赛没有场边。我们所有的人都在场内。我们都牵连在内。
And if I'm not joining the struggle to dismantle a system that advantages me, I am complicit.
如果我不加入去拆除那个图利于我的系统，我就成了同谋共犯。
This isn't about shame or guilt. White guilt doesn't get anything done, and honestly, I don't feel a lot of guilt.
而这跟羞耻心或罪恶感无关。白人的罪恶感无法成事，坦白说，我也没有多深的罪恶感。
History isn't my fault or yours. What I do feel is a stronger sense of responsibility to do something.
历史不是我造成的，也不是你。我只是觉得有股强烈的责任感，觉得应该做点什么。
All this has altered the way that I think about and approach my work as a documentary storyteller and as a teacher.
发现这段历史让我重新审视自己的工作--身为纪录片导演、说书人及老师的我能怎么做。
But beyond that, besides that, what does it mean? What does it mean for any of us?
然而，除此之外呢？知道这段历史后对我们有什么关系吗？
Does it mean that we support leaders who want to push ahead with a conversation about reparations?
是否我们应该支持那些想要促成对话、提出补偿的领导人？
In our communities, are we finding people who are working to transform unjust institutions and supporting that work?
在社会上，对那些致力于改革不公平体制的人时，我们是否给予支持？
At my job, am I the white person who shows up grudgingly for the diversity and equity meeting,
在职场上，我是那个勉为其难出席多元平等会议的白人代表，
or am I trying to figure out how to be a real accomplice to my colleagues of color?
还是真心想要帮助有色人种同事的人？
Seems to me wherever we show up,
在我看来，无论任何场合，
we need to show up with humility and vulnerability and a willingness to put down this power that we did not earn.
我们都必须展现自身的谦卑与不足，以及放弃那原不属于我们的权力的意愿。
I believe we also stand to benefit if we could create a society that's not built on the exploitation or oppression of anyone.
如果能够重新打造一个新社会，其基础不是建立在剥削压迫任何人，我相信我们也会是受益者。
But in the end we should do this, we should show up, figure out how to take action. Because it's right. Thank you.
但是最终，我们真的必须做，挺身而出、想出如何采取行动。因为那样才是对的。谢谢。