广州法律翻译公司：达拉斯袭警事件的惨痛教训

Dallas’s threat to the 2016 race

达拉斯袭警事件的惨痛教训

广州法律翻译公司：那些对美国式开放社会已经习以为常的人，如今却痛苦地看到，美国的种族隔阂正迎来多年来最糟糕的时刻。

For a change, Donald Trump has been a model of restraint. Instead of stirring things up on Twitter, the Republican nominee struck the right tone after five police officers were killed in Dallas. Every American should be able to live in safety, he said — thus implicitly including black victims of police shootings. Now was the time for unity, prayer, love and leadership. His words could have been uttered by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Having evoked every racial division in the book — and adding some pages of his own — could Mr Trump have turned a new leaf?

与以往不一样的是，这一次唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)成了克制的楷模。这位共和党总统候选人在5名达拉斯警官被枪杀后做了正确的表态，而不是在Twitter上借机炒作。他说，每个美国人都应该能够安全地生活（此言含蓄地包括被警察枪杀的黑人受害者）。现在是团结、祈祷、展现爱和领导力的时候。这些话本来可能从希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)或巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的嘴里说出。在揭开所有种族隔阂的伤疤——再加上他自创的一些矛盾——之后，特朗普会不会翻开了新的一页？广州法律翻译公司。

Americashould hope that he has. In political terms, 2016 is a racial tinderbox awaiting a match. On any sober measure,USsociety is more racially polarised at the end of Mr Obama’s term than at the start. A hundred days after he took office, 59 per cent of black Americans saidUSrace relations were “generally good”. Six months before he leaves office that number has fallen to 34 per cent. Much of the pessimism stems from the spate of police shootings and the viral impact of incidents captured on video. But the disdain with which Mr Obama has been treated by his enemies has undoubtedly fed it.

美国应该希望他确实如此。在政治上，2016年是种族火药桶一触即发之年。以任何严肃标准衡量，美国社会种族极化程度在奥巴马任期结束之际比其上台伊始更为严重。在他上任100天后，59%的美国黑人表示，美国种族关系“大体还不错”。在他离任前6个月，这一比例下降至34%。悲观情绪在很大程度上源于一连串的警察枪杀事件，以及记录此类事件的视频在网上引起轰动效应，但无疑也与奥巴马遭受对手蔑视有很大关系。

It could hardly be otherwise. No president inUShistory has had his legitimacy questioned like Mr Obama. Mr Trump’s 2011 campaign to force Mr Obama to release his birth certificate proving that he was born in theUS, notKenya, petered out after the White House published the long-form document. But the echo of Mr Trump’s “birther” campaign carried by a broader crowd of Obama doubters was one of the reasons behind his decision to run for the presidency last year. It was a trial balloon in other words, which by Mr Trump’s measure was a success.

很难说有其他可能。在美国历史上，没有哪位总统像奥巴马那样遭到合法性方面的质疑。在白宫公布奥巴马完整版的出生证后，特朗普在2011年发起的迫使奥巴马公布其出生证以证明他出生在美国、而非肯尼亚的运动逐渐偃旗息鼓。但特朗普的“出生地阴谋论”运动得到了更多奥巴马怀疑者的呼应，这是他去年决定角逐总统的原因之一。换言之，那是一个试探性气球，按特朗普的标准衡量，它取得了成功。广州法律翻译公司。

Yet it was just one in a litany of challenges to Mr Obama’s credentials. They began long before he became the Democratic nominee in 2008 when someone noticed he was not wearing a stars and stripes flag pin on his lapel. Thus began the trope that Mr Obama did not loveAmerica— that he was in fact anti-American. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, was speaking for many last year, when he said: “I do not believe that the president loves America . . . He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

然而，这只是奥巴马总统资质面临的一系列挑战之一。这些挑战始于2008年奥巴马成为民主党总统候选人之前，有人注意到，他没有在衣领上佩戴星条旗徽章，因此引申出奥巴马不爱美国，甚至是反美国的。纽约前市长鲁迪•朱利安尼(Rudy Giuliani)去年似乎说出了许多人的心声，他表示：“我不相信总统是爱美国的……他没有像你我那样，在成长过程中受到爱这个国家的熏陶”。

It is a line repeatedly disseminated by anchors on Fox News and a thousand Greek choruses. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, whom Mr Trump is considering as his running mate, has been among the most prominent. In 2012 he called Mr Obama the “food stamp president”, in reference to the growth of the nutrition assistance programme for the poor.

福克斯新闻(Fox News)的主播们和一众帮腔者反复散播这一言论。特朗普正在考虑作为竞选搭档的众议院前议长纽特•金里奇(Newt Gingrich)是其中最知名的人士之一。2012年，金里奇将奥巴马称为“食品券总统”，这指的是在奥巴马在任期间针对穷人的营养援助项目的增长。广州法律翻译公司。

One of the striking things about Mr Trump’s Dallas statement is how few of his supporters agree. In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, there is now a Blue Lives Matter campaign for the police. A number of Republican figures, including the lieutenant governor of Texas, have blamed the killings on Black Lives Matter, at whose protest they took place. The internet is awash with invented stories of how the group incites its supporters to attack the police. Instead of viewing it as a civil-rights protest, it is depicted as a black separatist movement.

在特朗普关于达拉斯事件的声明中引人瞩目的一点是，他的支持者中几乎没有人赞同。为了回应“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)运动，现在有声援警方的“警察的命也是命”(Blue Lives Matter)运动。许多共和党人士，包括德克萨斯州副州长，将达拉斯袭警事件归咎于“黑人的命也是命”——枪击是在该团体的抗议活动期间发生的。互联网上充斥着该团体煽动支持者袭击警方的虚构故事。它被描述为是一场黑人分裂主义运动，而不是公民权利抗议。

Mr Trump has the power to subdue these sentiments or to stoke them. So far he is doing the right thing. Will he continue to do so?

特朗普有能力抑制或者煽动这些情绪。迄今他在做正确的事情。他会继续这么做吗？

The nature of Mr Trump’s rise suggests that would be a rash bet. But even if it holds, the 2016 presidential election is taking place against the most racially divided backdrop in years.

特朗普崛起的本质似乎表明，这将是轻率的押注。但即便这个押注正确，2016年总统大选也将在多年来种族隔阂最严重的背景下进行。广州法律翻译公司。

It will also be the first since Mr Obama was a child to take place without the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That was the historic bill that finally ended a century of “Jim Crow” laws that disenfranchised the black electorate in the south.

这也将是自奥巴马孩童时期以来首次在没有《1965年投票权法》(Voting Rights Act of 1965)完全保护的情况下举行的总统大选。《投票权法》是一个具有历史意义的法案，它最终终结了长达一个世纪的剥夺南方黑人选民公民权的《吉姆•克劳法》(Jim Crow laws)。

In 2013 the US Supreme Court struck down key elements in the law. Since then, 17 states, including key battlegrounds such as North Carolina, have introduced tough new voter ID laws that will disproportionately suppress black turnout.

2013年，美国最高法庭废除了《投票权法》中的一些关键要素。自那以来，17个州（包括北卡罗来纳等关键选举战场）出台了新的严厉的投票者身份法律，这将超出比例地压低黑人投票率。广州法律翻译公司。

Many such laws were already in place in 2014, which had the lowest turnout for midterm congressional elections since before Mr Obama was born. In essence, Mr Trump’s strategy in November will be to maximise white turnout and minimise the rest.

许多此类法律已经在2014年生效——2014年国会中期选举的投票率是自奥巴马出生前以来最低的。归根结底，特朗普在今年11月的战略将是尽可能扩大白人的投票率，同时尽可能减少其他人种的投票率。

It is tempting to believe thatAmericacould never turn the clock back on the dramatic racial strides it has made during Mr Obama’s lifetime. But this year appears to be a bad one for conventional wisdom. Few would have believed thatBritaincould reject the benefits of multiculturalism — a key element of its prosperity. Fewer still would have believed a figure such as Mr Trump could win the Republican nomination.

诱人的想法是，美国不可能逆转自奥巴马出生以来在种族方面取得的巨大进步。但对传统观点来说，今年似乎是一个坏年头。很少有人相信，英国会拒绝多元文化的益处——那是英国繁荣的一个关键因素。更没有人相信，特朗普这样的人会赢得共和党总统候选人提名。广州法律翻译公司。

For those who subscribe toAmerica’s model of an open society, its turn against immigration has been sobering. For the last two generations, Americans and other western nations have been fed on a diet of ever-rising progress. We are learning the painful way that nothing should be taken for granted.

对那些认同美国式开放社会的人来说，美国转向反对移民令人警醒。上两代人已经习惯于美国和其他西方国家不断取得进步。现在我们正痛苦地认识到，对任何事都不应该想当然。

The lesson from Dallas is that responsible leadership is indispensable.Britainseems to have mislaid that basic truth. TheUSis toying with whether to follow suit.

达拉斯的教训在于，负责任的领导不可或缺。英国似乎忘记了这个基本真理。美国正寻思着要不要效仿英国。

广州法律翻译公司