美国国家公共电台 NPR Pregnancy Is Personal, Not Political, In 'The Mothers'

Pregnancy¹ Is Personal, Not Political, In 'The Mothers' 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0005:45repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser² to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE³: And I'm Steve Inskeep, with a bit of wisdom about secrets.

BRIT BENNETT: (Reading) All good secrets have a taste before you tell them.

INSKEEP: A taste? Well, that's what Brit Bennett writes in a first novel that's receiving a lot of attention. The novel is called "The Mothers." The secret in question is about a young woman - 17 years old.

BENNETT: (Reading) We shared this sour secret, a secret that began the summer Nadia Turner got knocked up by the pastor's son and went to the abortion⁴ clinic downtown to take care of it.

INSKEEP: The novel follows the young woman after that abortion. She graduates from school in Oceanside, Calif., moves away to college in the wider world. She sometimes returns home in later years to see people living the life she might have had. Writer Britt Bennett is 26 years old and on a National Book Foundation list of promising⁵ young writers. She wrote and rewrote and revised this novel since she herself was in high school in Oceanside.

How did you come to begin writing about that subject - the 17-year-old - when you yourself were 17?

BENNETT: Yeah. I mean, I think there was a way in which her situation was something that I feared at that age - the idea of this unwanted pregnancy and the way that that could change your life or, you know, dictate⁶ your future, depending on what you chose to do.

So I sort of run in the direction of that fear and explore the idea of these young people in this church community because I'd grown up in the church myself and had a lot of questions about being young in the church.

INSKEEP: So you were wondering, what if this was me?

BENNETT: Yeah, exactly. It was, you know - I think, often, the way that we think about teen pregnancies⁷ or even think about abortion is this very politicized way. It's not necessarily personal in thinking about what we would necessarily do if we were caught in these situations, which are very complicated emotional situations.

So I think I was drawn⁸ to the idea of this character who is driven and wants to go to college but who gets pregnant unexpectedly and has to figure out what to do.

INSKEEP: So when I was reading this, I was aware that the characters are African-American. But I didn't feel like anybody in the story had to be particularly black. And, in fact, here and there, I wondered if a character was black or not.

BENNETT: Yeah. I mean, I think I was interested in depicting¹⁰ this community that was racially diverse, which - Oceanside is, as a military town, very diverse. But I also was interested in the experience of creating characters whose lives are inflected by race but whose lives are not necessarily dictated¹¹ by racism¹².

So I wanted to sort of just depict⁹ ordinary black life. I think that there's something really powerful in humanizing - of not foregrounding white racism as the number one problem of being black.

INSKEEP: How different do you think your experience growing up in California in fairly recent times was from, say, your mother's experience growing up in Louisiana?

BENNETT: I mean, I think it was very different. You know, I grew up in a lot of culturally diverse spaces and definitely not majority-black spaces, where my mom lived in, you know, segregated¹³ Louisiana. She went to segregated schools.

You know, she told me a story about how, you know, they couldn't try on shoes in the store. You had to measure your foot with a string and bring the string to the shoe store because black people couldn't try on shoes.

INSKEEP: Couldn't touch the shoes if they weren't going to buy them.

BENNETT: Exactly. And just the idea of an experience like shoe shopping being so racialized - I feel like the way that I've had to come to think of race and think of racism is complicated in a different way. I think that a lot of the ways in which I've learned to read it has been a lot more nuanced than somebody saying, you can't try on shoes because you're black.

INSKEEP: I'm thinking of an essay that you wrote a couple of years ago that got a lot of notice that deals with race. And you recount an incident at an airport where a white woman steps in front of you in line. And you never know. Is that because you're black or just because she's oblivious¹⁴?

BENNETT: Right.

INSKEEP: Or - you never really know what's going on there. You just know that something annoying happened.

BENNETT: Right. And I think that that level of second-guessing - you know, I know my mom told me, like, I didn't have to second-guess, you know, growing up in segregated Louisiana. I knew exactly...

INSKEEP: They tell you. Exactly.

BENNETT: Exactly. I knew exactly - people would tell you to your face how they felt about you. So it wasn't that level of second-guessing. And I think that that's something that I experience. I think a lot of people of color told me that they experience that, too - this sort of question of, you know, is this person just rude?

Are they doing this to me because I'm black? You know, is it because I'm a young - you know, that level of trying to constantly read into the intentions of other people. And, you know, does it matter why this person did this thing to me, if it's harmful?

INSKEEP: So you clearly think about these things. And yet you're the second person of color who's talked with us on the program recently who said, I'm a racial minority. But I want to write a story about characters who are characters. And it's going to be obvious who they are. But it's not really going to be what the story is about. Is there a trend here?

BENNETT: I mean, I think it's - yeah. I think it's what - you know, I think it's indicative of our time. You know, I think racism is something that is pervasive¹⁵, that is systemic, that definitely still exists and shapes our lives and shapes our perceptions and our reactions and our histories and all of that.

That being said, I think that there is something that's very powerful - to shine a spotlight¹⁶ on black communities that are interacting with each other. You know, black relationships and black people living life, going through whatever existential questions any person might experience - and that their major conflict is not whiteness.

You know, I think that that's something that's powerful to think about. And I think that there are a lot of really exciting black writers who are doing that nowadays.

INSKEEP: Brit Bennett's first novel is called "The Mothers."

1 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

5 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

6 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？

7 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

8 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

9 depict   

vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述

参考例句：

• I don't care to see plays or films that depict murders or violence.我不喜欢看描写谋杀或暴力的戏剧或电影。
• Children's books often depict farmyard animals as gentle,lovable creatures.儿童图书常常把农场的动物描写得温和而可爱。

10 depicting   

描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• a painting depicting the Virgin and Child 一幅描绘童贞马利亚和圣子耶稣的画
• The movie depicting the battles and bloodshed is bound to strike home. 这部描写战斗和流血牺牲的影片一定会取得预期效果。

11 dictated   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• He dictated a letter to his secretary. 他向秘书口授信稿。
• No person of a strong character likes to be dictated to. 没有一个个性强的人愿受人使唤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

13 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

14 oblivious   

adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的

参考例句：

• Mother has become quite oblivious after the illness.这次病后，妈妈变得特别健忘。
• He was quite oblivious of the danger.他完全没有察觉到危险。

15 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

16 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。