美国国家公共电台 NPR Florida Election Is Latest Target Of White Supremacist Robocalls

 

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The Florida gubernatorial election has started out with issues of race at the center. The morning after the primary last week, Republican nominee¹ Ron DeSantis told voters not to monkey up the state by electing his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum, who's African-American. DeSantis denied his comment was racist³. Later in the week, racist robocalls impersonating Gillum went out to some Florida voters. NPR's Emily Sullivan has more.

EMILY SULLIVAN, BYLINE⁴: Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum is the first African-American to win a major party's nomination⁵ for Florida governor. The 39-year-old progressive defeated centrist Democrats⁶ in an upset in last week's primary.

NPR obtained a recording⁷ of a robocall targeting Florida voters in the race for governor. A narrator claiming to be the candidate speaks in an exaggerated dialect straight out of Jim Crow with background sound evoking⁸ the jungle. The brief excerpt⁹ you're about to hear is overtly¹⁰ racist.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Well, hello there. I is Andrew Gillum, and I be the mayor of Tallahassee.

SULLIVAN: Again, that overtly racist clip is an impersonation. The call ends noting it was paid for by The Road to Power, a neo-Nazi, white supremacist podcast operated by an Idaho man. The Road to Power also sent robocalls to Iowa last week, using the death of Mollie Tibbetts to try to spread a racist, white supremacist message. Tibbetts, a University of Iowa student, disappeared on a run in July. Her body was discovered over a month later. The suspect in her killing¹¹ is a Mexican immigrant who entered the U.S. illegally.

The Iowa robocall, in part, suggested that if Tibbetts were alive today, she'd advocate for the killing of all Mexican immigrants. Her father, Rob Tibbetts, wrote an op-ed in an Iowa newspaper on Saturday decrying¹² the political furor¹³ around his daughter's death. He said, quote, "do not appropriate Mollie's soul in advancing views she believed were profoundly racist." More than a billion robocalls head to landlines and cellphones every month. An executive in the robocall industry tells NPR it costs just around 1 to 5 cents per call placed.

Besides targeting Gillum and using Tibbetts' death to spread racist rhetoric¹⁴, the neo-Nazi podcast has also been linked to robocall campaigns in Charlottesville, Va., Oregon and California. FCC regulations say robocalls must clearly state the identity of the entity¹⁵ behind the call at the beginning of every message, which The Road to Power failed to do. The Republican nominee, Rob DeSantis, and Gillum both condemn¹⁶ the call. The Democrat² said on CNN...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STATE OF THE UNION")

ANDREW GILLUM: What I don't want this race to turn into is a race of name-calling. I want to make sure that we don't racialize and, frankly¹⁷, weaponize race as a part of this process.

SULLIVAN: Gillum says he'll continue to focus on his campaign. Emily Sullivan, NPR News.

1 nominee   

n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者

参考例句：

• His nominee for vice president was elected only after a second ballot.他提名的副总统在两轮投票后才当选。
• Mr.Francisco is standing as the official nominee for the post of District Secretary.弗朗西斯科先生是行政书记职位的正式提名人。

2 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

3 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

4 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。

5 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

6 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

8 evoking   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Some occur in organisms without evoking symptoms. 一些存在于生物体中，但不发生症状。
• Nowadays, the protection of traditional knowledge is evoking heat discussion worldwide. 目前，全球都掀起了保护传统知识的热潮。

9 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

10 overtly   

ad.公开地

参考例句：

• There were some overtly erotic scenes in the film. 影片中有一些公开色情场面。
• Nietzsche rejected God's law and wrote some overtly blasphemous things. 尼采拒绝上帝的律法，并且写了一些渎神的作品。

11 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

12 decrying   

v.公开反对，谴责( decry的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Soon Chinese Internet users, including government agencies, were decrying the' poisonous panda. 不久，中国网民以及政府机构纷纷谴责“影响极坏的熊猫烧香”。 来自互联网
• Democratic leaders are decrying President Bush's plan to indefinitely halt troop withdrawals from Iraq after July. 民主党领导公开谴责布什总统七月后无限停止从伊拉克撤兵的举动。 来自互联网

13 furor   

n.狂热；大骚动

参考例句：

• His choice of words created quite a furor.他的措辞引起了相当大的轰动。
• The half hour lecture caused an enormous furor.那半小时的演讲引起了极大的轰动。

14 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

15 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

16 condemn   

vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑

参考例句：

• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。
• We mustn't condemn him on mere suppositions.我们不可全凭臆测来指责他。

17 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。