时代周刊:美国的未来属于黑人?(1)（在线收听）

Where the fault lies

问题出在哪里

It is unreasonable to keep expecting black voters to save our democracy

指望黑人选民来拯救我们的民主是不合理的

Since the 2000 election, the first in which I was old enough to vote, the Republican Party and the courts have worked together to disenfranchise voters on the left, who are disproportionately people of color. It is because of two sets of practices— voter suppression and the Electoral College, both rooted in American racism—that the 2020 presidential election is a nail-biter. It should not be.

自2000年大选以来，也是我第一次能够投票之时，共和党和法院已经联手剥夺了左翼选民的选举权，这些选民是不成比例的有色人种。正是那两套植根于美国种族主义的做法——选民压制和选举团制度——使得2020年的总统选举变得紧张不安。这是不应该的。

The Trump presidency has been a failure. He was impeached for inviting foreign interference into U.S. elections. He has separated breastfeeding babies from their mothers and locked kids in cages at our border. He has encouraged white supremacists, failed to pay his taxes and mismanaged a pandemic costing more than a quarter-million American lives. There is no set of standards—professional or moral—by which he could be deemed a success.

特朗普的总统任期是失败的，他因邀请外国干涉美国选举而被弹劾。在美国边境，他把正在哺乳的婴儿和他们的母亲分开，把孩子锁在笼子里。他鼓励白人至上主义者，他不缴税，他对导致25万美国人丧生的新冠处理不当。我们无法通过任何一套标准——专业的或者道德上的——来认定他是成功的。

But he may still be re-elected.

但他仍有可能再次当选。

Like many Americans who love "liberty and justice for all," I hope that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail. But if they don't, it's certainly not Black people's fault. Let's be clear: Donald Trump is the fault of white people. His rise is a direct result of white people's collective rejection of the progress that the Obama era signaled. And it is time to point fingers. It is time for the Americans who elected him the first time, handing him the power of incumbency this time, to take responsibility. At some point, we must reckon as a country with the moral perversion of asking the people with the knee of the state on their necks to subdue their attackers. Yes, that is the African-American story—that we fled plantations and led slave revolts to demand our freedom. But that is not a reasonable expectation of citizens in a functioning democracy. The institution of slavery did not die until white Americans were willing to risk something to insist on a better way for the country.

像许多热爱“人人享有自由和正义”的美国人一样，我希望乔·拜登和卡玛拉·哈里斯能够获胜。但如果他们没有，这当然不是黑人的错。我们来明确一点：唐纳德·特朗普是白人的错。他的崛起是白人集体拒绝奥巴马时代所标志的进步的直接结果。现在是指责的时候了，是时候让第一次选他上台、这次又将总统权利交给他的美国人承担责任了。在某种程度上我们必须认为，作为一个国家，要求那些被国家所压迫的人民制服他们的攻击者是一种道德上的扭曲。是的，这就是非洲裔美国人的故事——我们逃离种植园，领导奴隶起义，要求获得自由。但在一个运转正常的民主国家，这不是公民的合理期望。直到美国白人愿意冒着风险坚持为国家寻找更好的出路，奴隶制制度才会消亡。