时代周刊:漫长的清算之路(2)（在线收听）

Four years of Trump have accelerated the learning. The COVID-19 pandemic—which has killed people of color at higher rates than their white counterparts—has exposed the health disparities that divide this country. His campaign for "law and order" has only inflamed tensions and further highlighted the mistreatment that many Black Americans are likely to face at the hands of law enforcement. He attempted to schedule a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Okla., the site of a 1921 massacre of Black people, inadvertently bringing attention to both the history of violence against Black Americans and the Juneteenth holiday, which celebrates the freeing of the enslaved. And that was just this year.

特朗普任期的四年加速了这方面的学习。新冠病毒下有色人种的死亡率高于白人，这暴露了美国存在的健康方面的差距。他倡导的“法律和秩序”运动只会给紧张局势带来负面影响，同时进一步突显出许多美国黑人可能在执法人员手中遭受的虐待。他想要安排6月14日在曾于1921年发生过黑人大屠杀的俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨举行集会，这无意中引起了人们对针对美国黑人的暴力历史和六月节（庆祝奴隶的解放）的关注。而这仅仅是今年的情况。

Some white Americans have reacted with outrage to this newfound understanding, joining Black Lives Matter rallies and reckoning with race in the workplace, at school and with friends. The marches this summer that captured the nation's attention, occurring in small towns and metropolises alike, are thought to be the largest mass demonstration in American history, collectively drawing nearly 9% of the country to the streets, according to datascience firm Civis Analytics.

一些美国白人对这一新发现表示愤怒，纷纷参加“黑人的命也是命”集会并在工作场所、学校和朋友之间都要顾及种族问题。数据科学公司Civis Analytics的数据显示，今年夏天在小城镇和大城市发生的游行吸引了全国的关注，被认为是美国历史上规模最大的大规模示威活动，全国有近9%的人走上了街头。

And yet nothing really changed. Gridlock in Washington stymied even modest reform efforts. Trump doubled down, using the unrest to stoke his base's fears of social unrest and crime with a seemingly endless stream of shock-and-awe television ads and dramatic rhetoric in his speeches. By the end of the summer, the marches still continued, but their strength—and, most important, their resonance with the larger American public—had started to fade. Why that happened and what can be done about it will be the work of the months to come.

然而，这并没有真正改变什么。华盛顿的僵局阻碍了一些甚至温和的改革努力。特朗普加大了打击力度，没完没了地播放令人震惊的电视广告，在演讲中使用夸张的修辞，利用社会动荡加剧选民对社会动荡和犯罪的恐惧。在这个夏季结束之前，行军仍在继续，但他们的力量——最重要的是，他们与广大美国公众的共鸣——已经开始消退。为什么会发生这种情况以及对此我们能做些什么将是未来几个月的工作。

When it came time to vote, tens of millions of Americans evidently shrugged off the racism. Many say they don't like Trump's handling of race but prefer his approach to the economy. That makes sense: sacrificing the welfare of a minority group for economic prosperity may not be uniquely American, but it is a part of the American DNA. For some others, Trump's stoking of racial hostilities has been more a feature of his presidency than a bug. At Trump's rallies, adoring crowds repeated and amplified the President, whether it was his reference to COVID-19 as "Kung flu" or adopting a chant of "Send her back" in reference to Ilhan Omar, a member of Congress born in Somalia.

在投票的时候，数千万美国人显然对种族歧视不屑一顾。许多人表示，他们不喜欢特朗普处理种族问题的方式，但更喜欢他处理经济问题的方式。这是有道理的：牺牲少数群体的福利以换取经济繁荣可能不是美国独有的做法，但这是美国基因的一部分。对一些人来说，特朗普煽动种族敌意的做法更多的是他担任总统期间的一个特点，而不是一个缺陷。在特朗普的集会上，无论是他把新冠肺炎称为“Kung flu”，还是对出生在索马里的国会议员伊尔汉·奥马尔高喊“把她送回去”，崇拜他的人群不断重复并将总统放大。