Longreads Best of 2020: Essays
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020.
整个 12 月，我们都会精选 Longreads 的 2020 年最佳作品。
This year, our editors picked and featured hundreds of beautifully written and poignant essays published on the web.
今年，我们的编辑挑选并精选了数百篇在网络上发表的文笔优美、令人心酸的文章。
Because of the wide range of writing across many topics and themes, it was a challenge to sift through them all over the past several weeks to compile a definitive Best of Essays list.
由于写作涉及许多主题和主题，因此在过去几周内对它们进行筛选以编制一份明确的最佳散文列表是一项挑战。
As I shortlisted stories, I realized there could be many different versions of this list, but, in the end, these eight reads really spoke to me.
当我列出入围故事时，我意识到这个列表可能有很多不同的版本，但最终，这八篇读物确实对我产生了影响。
If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly email every Friday.
如果您喜欢这些，您可以注册以每周五接收我们的每周电子邮件。
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## Mississippi: A Poem, in Days (Kiese Makeba Laymon, Vanity Fair)
## 密西西比：一首诗，在日子里（Kiese Makeba Laymon，名利场）
Kiese Makeba Laymon was on a book tour when the pandemic hit in the U.S. In this stunner of a piece that unfolds over 14 days, the author writes on fear, racism, death, and home amid a moment of awakening.
当新冠疫情在美国爆发时，基泽·马克巴·莱蒙 (Kiese Makeba Laymon) 正在巡回售书。在这部历时 14 天的精彩作品中，作者在一个觉醒的时刻写下了恐惧、种族主义、死亡和家庭。
We follow along on the journey, from event to event in Ohio and West Virginia, with Laymon’s observations and thoughts interspersed with daily COVID-19 death counts and the latest words or orders from Donald Trump and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves.
我们跟随整个旅程，从俄亥俄州和西弗吉尼亚州发生的事件到事件，雷蒙的观察和想法穿插着每日的 COVID-19 死亡人数以及唐纳德·特朗普和密西西比州州长泰特·里夫斯的最新言论或命令。
It’s a powerful meditation, one that will stop you in your tracks.
这是一种强大的冥想，可以让你停下来。
We are awakened, I want to believe.75 miles from the armed confederate statue in Oxford, Emmett Till’s childish body was destroyed.
我愿意相信，我们已经觉醒了。距离牛津的武装同盟雕像 75 英里，埃米特·蒂尔幼稚的身体被摧毁了。
70 miles from that armed confederate statue, Fannie Lou Hamer was nearly beaten to death.
距那座武装同盟雕像 70 英里处，范妮·卢·哈默 (Fannie Lou Hamer) 差点被打死。
160 miles from that armed confederate statue, Medgar Evers was murdered as he enters his home.
距离那座武装同盟雕像 160 英里的梅德加·埃弗斯 (Medgar Evers) 在回家时被谋杀。
80 miles from that armed confederate statue, Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis.It took way too much Black death to get here.I am wandering around the spiritual consequences of materially progressing at the expense of Black death.
距离那座武装同盟雕像 80 英里，马丁·路德·金在孟菲斯被谋杀。经历了太多的黑死病才到达这里。我徘徊在以黑死病为代价的物质进步的精神后果中。
I want to be courageous.
我想变得勇敢。
I wonder, though, when courage becomes contagious—when courage is credentialized, subsidized, and incentivized—if it is still courage at all.Today, as I prepare to push send, and I lather my hands in sanitizer, it feels a bit too much like cowardice.Maybe I’ll wait to send tomorrow.
不过，我想知道，当勇气变得具有传染性时——当勇气得到认证、补贴和激励时——它是否仍然是勇气。今天，当我准备推动发送，并在双手上涂上消毒剂时，感觉有点太懦弱了。也许我会等到明天发送。
Maybe I won’t send at all.The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, a group of white men, unanimously vote to keep the armed confederate monument in the middle of Oxford, the town where I live, teach, and write.Humiliation, agony, and death, are what I feel.It could all be so much worse, is what the worst of white folks want us to recite.
也许我根本不会发送。拉斐特县监事会，一群白人，一致投票决定保留牛津市中心的武装同盟纪念碑，这是我生活、教书和写作的小镇。羞辱、痛苦和死亡，是我的感受。一切可能会更糟，这是最糟糕的白人希望我们背诵的。
We are awakened, I want to believe.
我愿意相信，我们已经觉醒了。
75 miles from the armed confederate statue in Oxford, Emmett Till’s childish body was destroyed.
在距牛津的武装同盟雕像 75 英里处，埃米特·蒂尔幼稚的尸体被摧毁。
70 miles from that armed confederate statue, Fannie Lou Hamer was nearly beaten to death.
距那座武装同盟雕像 70 英里处，范妮·卢·哈默 (Fannie Lou Hamer) 差点被打死。
160 miles from that armed confederate statue, Medgar Evers was murdered as he enters his home.
距离那座武装同盟雕像 160 英里的梅德加·埃弗斯 (Medgar Evers) 在回家时被谋杀。
80 miles from that armed confederate statue, Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis.
距离那座武装同盟雕像 80 英里，马丁·路德·金在孟菲斯被谋杀。
It took way too much Black death to get here.
黑死病花了太多时间才到达这里。
I am wandering around the spiritual consequences of materially progressing at the expense of Black death.
我徘徊在以黑死病为代价的物质进步所带来的精神后果上。
I want to be courageous.
我想变得勇敢。
I wonder, though, when courage becomes contagious—when courage is credentialized, subsidized, and incentivized—if it is still courage at all.
不过，我想知道，当勇气变得具有传染性时——当勇气得到认证、补贴和激励时——它是否仍然是勇气。
Today, as I prepare to push send, and I lather my hands in sanitizer, it feels a bit too much like cowardice.
今天，当我准备推送发送，并在双手上涂上消毒剂时，感觉有点太懦弱了。
Maybe I’ll wait to send tomorrow.
也许我会等到明天发送。
Maybe I won’t send at all.
也许我根本不会发送。
The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, a group of white men, unanimously vote to keep the armed confederate monument in the middle of Oxford, the town where I live, teach, and write.
由一群白人组成的拉斐特县监事会一致投票决定将武装同盟纪念碑保留在牛津市中心，牛津是我居住、教书和写作的小镇。
Humiliation, agony, and death, are what I feel.
羞辱、痛苦和死亡，这就是我的感受。
It could all be so much worse, is what the worst of white folks want us to recite.
一切可能会更糟，这是最糟糕的白人希望我们背诵的内容。
## Molly (Blake Butler, The Volta)
## 莫莉（布莱克·巴特勒，沃尔特）
December’s special issue of The Volta is dedicated to the late poet Molly Brodak, and Brodak’s husband, Blake Butler, writes an incredibly moving essay to remember and honor her.
《沃尔特》十二月特刊献给已故诗人莫莉·布罗达克，布罗达克的丈夫布莱克·巴特勒写了一篇令人难以置信的感人文章来纪念和纪念她。
In “Molly,” he weaves an intimate portrait of his late wife — and the details, textures, and expanse of their relationship –with so much love and care.
在《莫莉》中，他充满了爱和关怀，为他已故的妻子描绘了一幅亲密的肖像——以及他们关系的细节、质感和广度。
Grab a tissue before sitting down to read it.
坐下来阅读之前先拿一张纸巾。
Making her laugh made me feel alive, like I’d really accomplished something.
让她笑让我感觉自己还活着，就像我真的完成了某件事一样。
She wanted to laugh, I think, despite a widening parcel in her telling her that laughter in a world like ours was for fools.
我想，她想笑，尽管她心里有一个越来越大的想法告诉她，在我们这样的世界里，笑是傻瓜的专利。
When I think the sound of it now, it reminds me of a bird trapped in a ballroom, looking for anywhere to land.
当我现在想起它的声音时，它让我想起一只被困在舞厅里的小鸟，寻找着落脚的地方。
But there was always something still there underneath that, shredding its pasture—parts of her so dark and displaced I cannot find them anywhere touching the rest of how she was.
但在那之下，总有一些东西，撕碎了它的牧场——她的某些部分如此黑暗和错位，我无法在任何地方找到它们触及她的其他部分。
The story, like all stories, holds no true shape.
这个故事和所有故事一样，没有真实的形状。
And that’s exactly what it wants—the pain—it wants more blank to feed the pain with, to fill the space up.
这正是它想要的——痛苦——它想要更多的空白来填补痛苦，填补空间。
It wants us all.
它想要我们所有人。
Then, in her poem, “Horse and Cart,” one of the last she ever wrote: “I can’t even imagine a horse / anymore.
然后，在她写的最后一首诗《马和马车》中：“我什至无法想象一匹马/了。
/ That we sat on their spines / and yanked their mouths around.” The gears of her mind, as she grew tired, wore down even these good times, seeking further ways to break them up, send her away.
/我们坐在他们的脊椎上/猛拉他们的嘴。”当她变得疲倦时，她心灵的齿轮甚至磨损了这些美好的时光，寻找进一步的方法来打破它们，送她走。
## I Cry for the Mountains: A Legacy Lost (Dave Daley, Chico Enterprise-Record)
## 我为群山哭泣：遗失的遗产（Dave Daley，Chico Enterprise-Record）
California experienced another unprecedented wildfire season this year; a number of fire complexes burned throughout the state, including the massive North Complex Fire that started in August and burned in Northern California’s Plumas and Butte counties.
加州今年又经历了一个史无前例的野火季节；全州多处火灾综合体被烧毁，其中包括 8 月份开始并在北加州普卢马斯县和巴特县发生的大规模北综合体火灾。
Rancher Dave Daley offers a devastating account of the destruction of his family’s cattle range in Plumas National Forest, and a passionate plea to legislators and regulators to ultimately listen to the land and the locals when it comes to forest management.
牧场主戴夫·戴利 (Dave Daley) 讲述了他家在普拉玛斯国家森林 (Plumas National Forest) 的牧场遭到破坏的惨痛经历，并热情呼吁立法者和监管者在森林管理方面最终听取土地和当地人的意见。
Daley originally posted this account on Facebook; his followers recommended that the Chico Enterprise-Record reprint it for a wider audience.
Daley 最初在 Facebook 上发布了这个帐户；他的追随者建议 Chico Enterprise-Record 为更广泛的读者重印它。
I cry for the forest, the trees and streams, and the horrible deaths suffered by the wildlife and our cattle.
我为森林、树木和溪流哭泣，为野生动物和牲畜的可怕死亡而哭泣。
The suffering was unimaginable.When you find groups of cows and their baby calves tumbled in a ravine trying to escape, burned almost beyond recognition or a fawn and small calf side by side as if hoping to protect one another, you try not to wretch.
那种痛苦是难以想象的。当你发现成群的奶牛和它们的小牛犊试图逃跑时跌入峡谷，被烧得面目全非，或者一只小鹿和小牛犊肩并肩，仿佛希望互相保护时，你尽量不要去可怜。
You only pray death was swift.
你只能祈祷死亡快点。
Worse, in searing memory, cows with their hooves, udder and even legs burned off still alive who had to be euthanized.
更糟糕的是，在灼热的记忆中，牛的蹄子、乳房甚至腿都被活活烧死，不得不被安乐死。
A doe lying in the ashes with three fawns, not all hers I bet.
一只母鹿和三只小鹿躺在灰烬中，我敢打赌，这不是她的全部。
And you are glad they can stand and move, even with a limp, because you really cannot imagine any more death today.
你很高兴他们能够站立和移动，即使是一瘸一拐的，因为你真的无法想象今天还会有更多的死亡。
I cry for the forest, the trees and streams, and the horrible deaths suffered by the wildlife and our cattle.
我为森林、树木和溪流哭泣，为野生动物和牲畜的可怕死亡而哭泣。
The suffering was unimaginable.
那种痛苦是难以想象的。
When you find groups of cows and their baby calves tumbled in a ravine trying to escape, burned almost beyond recognition or a fawn and small calf side by side as if hoping to protect one another, you try not to wretch.
当你发现成群的奶牛和它们的小牛犊在峡谷里翻滚试图逃跑，被烧得面目全非，或者一只小鹿和小牛犊肩并肩，仿佛希望互相保护时，你尽量不要去伤害。
You only pray death was swift.
你只能祈祷死亡快点。
Worse, in searing memory, cows with their hooves, udder and even legs burned off still alive who had to be euthanized.
更糟糕的是，在灼热的记忆中，牛的蹄子、乳房甚至腿都被活活烧死，不得不被安乐死。
A doe lying in the ashes with three fawns, not all hers I bet.
一只母鹿和三只小鹿躺在灰烬中，我敢打赌，这不是她的全部。
And you are glad they can stand and move, even with a limp, because you really cannot imagine any more death today.
你很高兴他们能够站立和移动，即使是一瘸一拐的，因为你真的无法想象今天还会有更多的死亡。
For those of you on the right blaming the left and California, these are National Forest lands that are “managed” by the feds.
对于那些指责左翼和加利福尼亚州的右翼人士来说，这些是由联邦政府“管理”的国家林地。
They have failed miserably over the past 50 years.
过去50年来，他们惨遭失败。
Smokey the Bear was the cruelest joke ever played on the western landscape, a decades long campaign to prevent forest fires has resulted in mega-fires of a scope we’ve never seen.
斯莫基熊是西部地区有史以来最残酷的笑话，长达数十年的森林防火运动导致了我们从未见过的特大火灾。
Thanks, Smokey.
谢谢，斯莫基。
I get frustrated with experts and consultants who drive by and “know just what to do.” For 35 years I have attended conferences, given presentations and listened.
我对开车经过并“知道该怎么做”的专家和顾问感到沮丧。 35 年来，我一直参加会议、发表演讲并倾听。
What I have learned is solutions are local and specific.
我了解到的解决方案是本地化且具体的。
What happens in one watershed in Plumas or Butte County may be entirely different in the Lassen National Forest just next door.
普卢马斯或比尤特县的一个流域发生的情况可能与隔壁拉森国家森林完全不同。
But experts of all kinds are glad to tell you how to do it.
但各类专家都很乐意告诉您如何做到这一点。
“Let’s prescribe graze, use virtual fences, change your timing, change your genetics.” Prescribe graze the forest and canyons?
“让我们规定放牧，使用虚拟围栏，改变你的时间，改变你的基因。”规定在森林和峡谷放牧？
Yea.
是的。
Right.
正确的。
They don’t know what they don’t know but they will take the honorarium anyway and have a great dinner on your dime.
他们不知道自己不知道什么，但无论如何他们都会接受酬金，并用你的钱享用一顿丰盛的晚餐。
The locals and land rarely benefit.
当地人和土地很少受益。
## How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda (Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker)
## 我和我的母亲如何成为中国的宣传员（范嘉阳，《纽约客》）
Jiayang Fan pens a masterful piece of personal history, on her mother and their relationship, identity, family, propaganda and social media, and chronic illness (her mother has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS).
范嘉阳撰写了一部精彩的个人历史，内容涉及她的母亲及其关系、身份、家庭、宣传和社交媒体以及慢性疾病（她的母亲患有肌萎缩侧索硬化症或 ALS）。
Fan recounts her struggle to help her mother get hospital care during New York’s COVID-19 crisis, all while going viral and facing threats on social media, calling her a criminal and a traitor to China.
范女士讲述了她在纽约新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 危机期间为帮助母亲获得医院护理所做的努力，同时她的言论也在社交媒体上疯传，并面临着威胁，称她是罪犯和中国的叛徒。
She tells a complicated and very personal story, one of loyalty and love, with strength and eloquence.
她用力量和雄辩讲述了一个复杂且非常个人化的故事，一个关于忠诚和爱的故事。
My mother has always knelt at the altar of mianzi, an aspiration of which A.L.S.
我的母亲一直跪在面子坛前，这是 A.L.S. 的一个心愿。
makes a spectacular mockery.
发出了惊人的嘲讽。
You may think it’s embarrassing to slur your speech and limp, but wait until you are being spoon-fed and pushed around in a wheelchair—all of which will seem trivial once you can no longer wash or wipe yourself.
你可能会觉得说话含糊不清、跛行很尴尬，但等到你被人用勺子喂食、坐在轮椅上推来推去——一旦你不再能洗澡或擦拭自己，所有这些都会显得微不足道。
The progress of the disease is a forced march toward the vanishing point of mianzi.
疾病的进展是向面子的消失点强行进军。
When my mother was first given her diagnosis, she became obsessed with the idea of why—why her, why now, and, above all, why an illness that would subject her to the kind of public humiliation she feared more than death itself.
当我母亲第一次得到诊断结果时，她开始痴迷于“为什么”的想法——为什么是她，为什么是现在，最重要的是，为什么这种疾病会让她遭受比死亡本身更可怕的公开羞辱。
When she could still operate her first-generation iPad, my mother gave me a contact list of everyone she was still in touch with in China, and told me that, except for her siblings, no one must know of her affliction.
当我的母亲还能操作她的第一代iPad时，她给了我一份她在中国仍然有联系的所有人的联系人名单，并告诉我，除了她的兄弟姐妹，任何人都不能知道她的痛苦。
Such self-imposed isolation seemed like madness to me, but she preferred to cut friends out of her life rather than admit to the indignity of her compromised state.
这种自我强加的孤立对我来说似乎是疯狂的，但她宁愿把朋友从她的生活中剔除，也不愿承认她的妥协状态的侮辱。
Her body’s insurrection, my mother believes, is her punishment for her prideful strivings in America.
我母亲相信，她身体的反抗是对她在美国骄傲的奋斗的惩罚。
At the beginning of the pandemic, I had read that a virus is neither dead nor alive, and replicates only in the shelter of a host organism.
在大流行开始时，我读到病毒既不死也不活，只能在宿主有机体的庇护下复制。
I began to think of “Jiayang Fan” as viral not in a social-media sense but in a biological one; the calamitous state of the world and certain random mutations in the story had made it unexpectedly contagious.
我开始认为“嘉阳扇”的病毒式传播不是社交媒体意义上的，而是生物学意义上的；世界的灾难性状况和故事中的某些随机突变使其出乎意料地具有传染性。
My original posts had served their purpose; now they were serving the purposes of others.
我原来的帖子已经达到了目的；现在他们正在为他人的目的服务。
I had unwittingly bred a potent piece of propaganda.
我无意中孕育出了一种强有力的宣传。
## The Promise That Tested My Parents Until the End (Christopher Solomon, GQ)
## 直到最后考验我父母的承诺（克里斯托弗·所罗门，GQ）
Don’t you ever put me in one of those places, she said.Don’t put me in one of those places, my father replied.
“你永远不要把我放在那些地方之一，”她说。 “不要把我放在那些地方之一，”我父亲回答道。
Christopher Solomon’s parents made a pledge to one another.
克里斯托弗·所罗门的父母彼此做出了承诺。
But what did that actually look like over time, especially when his father became sick?
但随着时间的推移，尤其是当他父亲生病时，情况实际上是什么样子呢？
What does unconditional love and devotion look like in our own lives?
在我们的生活中，无条件的爱和奉献是什么样的？
Solomon writes an honest and heartbreaking essay on love, aging, and marriage — in sickness and in health.
所罗门写了一篇关于爱情、衰老和婚姻的诚实而令人心碎的文章——无论是疾病还是健康。
In time what was imperceptible in him became noticeable, and then what was noticeable became something worse.
随着时间的推移，他身上那些难以察觉的东西变得明显起来，然后那些明显的东西变得更糟。
The landscape of my father changed, the coastline eroded.
我父亲的地貌发生了变化，海岸线被侵蚀。
There was less of him, until the old map of my father no longer fit the man before us.
他的身影越来越少，直到我父亲的旧地图不再适合我们面前的这个人。
It has been 20 years now since he was diagnosed, and sometimes it is hard to remember a time that he was not sick.
距离他被确诊已经20年了，有时很难记得他没有生过病。
His speech became a gargle of consonants.
他的讲话变成了辅音的漱口。
The dementia took most of his mind.
痴呆症占据了他大部分的注意力。
His body curled in on itself—shrinking, reducing, as if he were becoming an infant again.
他的身体蜷缩起来——缩小、缩小，仿佛他又变成了婴儿。
Despite this, for years he still played the piano, every day, and nearly as well as ever—the mysteryland of the brain permitting this freedom even as body, and mind, crumbled around him.
尽管如此，多年来他仍然每天弹钢琴，几乎一如既往——大脑的神秘领域允许这种自由，即使身体和思想在他周围崩溃。
My mother would sing along from the kitchen, as she always had.And then one day, after I arrive home, my mother sounds more concerned than usual.
我妈妈会像往常一样在厨房里跟着唱。然后有一天，我回到家后，我妈妈听起来比平时更关心。
He has stopped playing the piano, she says.
她说，他已经不再弹钢琴了。
This seems to worry her more than anything else.
这似乎比其他事情更让她担心。
In time what was imperceptible in him became noticeable, and then what was noticeable became something worse.
随着时间的推移，他身上那些难以察觉的东西变得明显起来，然后那些明显的东西变得更糟。
The landscape of my father changed, the coastline eroded.
我父亲的地貌发生了变化，海岸线被侵蚀。
There was less of him, until the old map of my father no longer fit the man before us.
他的身影越来越少，直到我父亲的旧地图不再适合我们面前的这个人。
It has been 20 years now since he was diagnosed, and sometimes it is hard to remember a time that he was not sick.
距离他被确诊已经20年了，有时很难记得他没有生过病。
His speech became a gargle of consonants.
他的讲话变成了辅音的漱口。
The dementia took most of his mind.
痴呆症占据了他大部分的注意力。
His body curled in on itself—shrinking, reducing, as if he were becoming an infant again.
他的身体蜷缩起来——缩小、缩小，仿佛他又变成了婴儿。
Despite this, for years he still played the piano, every day, and nearly as well as ever—the mysteryland of the brain permitting this freedom even as body, and mind, crumbled around him.
尽管如此，多年来他仍然每天弹钢琴，几乎一如既往——大脑的神秘领域允许这种自由，即使身体和思想在他周围崩溃。
My mother would sing along from the kitchen, as she always had.
我母亲会像往常一样在厨房里跟着唱。
And then one day, after I arrive home, my mother sounds more concerned than usual.
有一天，我回到家后，妈妈听起来比平时更担心。
He has stopped playing the piano, she says.
她说，他已经不再弹钢琴了。
This seems to worry her more than anything else.
这似乎比其他事情更让她担心。
Finally, exhausted, she relents.
最后，她筋疲力尽，屈服了。
She drives to visit a nearby nursing home.
她开车去参观附近的一家疗养院。
Afterward she cries in the parking lot.
后来她在停车场哭了。
She cries for what she sees there.
她为在那里看到的一切而哭泣。
She cries at the prospect of breaking the Promise.
一想到违背诺言，她就哭了。
She cries because even though almost nothing remains of her husband—even though he is the cause of her sleepless nights and her tendinitis and her bruises and her anger—in 55 years she rarely has been apart from him.
她哭泣是因为尽管她的丈夫几乎已不复存在——尽管他是她失眠、肌腱炎、瘀伤和愤怒的根源——55年来，她很少与他分离。
She loves even the scrap of him that remains.
她甚至还爱着他仅存的一点残骸。
He is half of the story they share, of the red VW Beetle and the sunstruck Italian patios and the singalongs and the three towheaded children.
他是他们所分享的故事的一半，包括红色的大众甲壳虫、阳光灿烂的意大利庭院、歌声和三个黄头发的孩子。
As long as he is here, their story, however unlikely, is not yet over.
只要他在这里，他们的故事，无论多么不可能，都还没有结束。
She cries because the end of him is the end of a possibility.
她哭是因为他的终结意味着一种可能性的终结。
And I think, not for the first time, how little I still know about love.
我想，我对爱还知之甚少，这已经不是第一次了。
## Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration and Me (Reginald Dwayne Betts, The New York Times Magazine)
## 卡玛拉·哈里斯，《大规模监禁和我》（雷金纳德·德韦恩·贝茨，《纽约时报》杂志）
“The prosecutor’s job, unlike the defense attorney’s or judge’s, is to do justice.
“与辩护律师或法官不同，检察官的工作是伸张正义。
What does that mean when you are asked by some to dole out retribution measured in years served, but blamed by others for the damage incarceration can do?” In this nuanced reported essay about mass incarceration in the U.S., Reginald Dwayne Betts reveals “our contradictory impulses” around crime, punishment, and the justice system.
当一些人要求你以服刑年限进行惩罚，但另一些人却因监禁造成的损害而指责你时，这意味着什么？”在这篇关于美国大规模监禁的细致报道文章中，雷金纳德·德韦恩·贝茨揭示了围绕犯罪、惩罚和司法系统的“我们的矛盾冲动”。
And he knows these impulses well, as both a felon and a son to a woman who was raped by a Black man.
作为一名重罪犯和一名被黑人强奸的妇女的儿子，他非常了解这些冲动。
But I know that on the other end of our prison sentences was always someone weeping.
但我知道，在我们监狱服刑的另一端，总是有人在哭泣。
During the middle of Harris’s presidential campaign, a friend referred me to a woman with a story about Senator Harris that she felt I needed to hear.
在哈里斯总统竞选期间，一位朋友向我推荐了一位女士，她讲述了一个关于哈里斯参议员的故事，她觉得我需要听听。
Years ago, this woman’s sister had been missing for days, and the police had done little.
几年前，这名妇女的妹妹已经失踪好几天了，警方却几乎没有采取任何行动。
Happenstance gave this woman an audience with then-Attorney General Harris.
偶然的机会，这位女士会见了时任司法部长哈里斯。
A coordinated multicity search followed.
随后进行了协调的多城市搜索。
The sister had been murdered; her body was found in a ravine.
妹妹被谋杀了；她的尸体在峡谷中被发现。
The woman told me that “Kamala understands the politics of victimization as well as anyone who has been in the system, which is that this kind of case — a 50-year-old Black woman gone missing or found dead — ordinarily does not get any resources put toward it.” They caught the man who murdered her sister, and he was sentenced to 131 years.
这位女士告诉我，“卡马拉和系统中的任何人一样了解受害的政治，那就是，这种案件——一名 50 岁的黑人妇女失踪或被发现死亡——通常不会得到任何资源。”他们抓到了谋杀她妹妹的凶手，他被判处 131 年徒刑。
I think about the man who assaulted my mother, a serial rapist, because his case makes me struggle with questions of violence and vengeance and justice.
我想起了那个袭击我母亲的连环强奸犯，因为他的案件让我在暴力、复仇和正义的问题上挣扎。
And I stop thinking about it.
我不再想它。
I am inconsistent.
我不一致。
I want my friends out, but I know there is no one who can convince me that this man shouldn’t spend the rest of his life in prison.
我想让我的朋友们出去，但我知道没有人能让我相信这个人不应该在监狱里度过余生。
## Safe at Home in Los Angeles (Lynell George, High Country News)
## 洛杉矶在家安全（Lynell George，高地新闻）
Lynell George’s beautiful read exemplifies what I love about writing on place and home.
莱内尔·乔治的精彩读物体现了我对在地方和家里写作的热爱。
A native of Los Angeles, George builds and shapes a complex L.A.
乔治是洛杉矶人，他建造并塑造了一座复杂的洛杉矶。
in her piece: a “city of contradictions,” an elusive, ever-shifting place “built on either impermanence or illusion.” It’s a sensory and richly textured portrait of a vast place, looking at Los Angeles through a sort of kaleidoscope lens of gentrification, nature, and the pandemic lockdown.
在她的作品中：一座“矛盾之城”，一个难以捉摸、不断变化的地方，“建立在无常或幻觉之上”。这是一幅幅感性而富有质感的幅幅肖像，描绘了一个广阔的地方，通过万花筒般的中产阶级化、自然和大流行封锁的镜头来观察洛杉矶。
Los Angeles has long been a contested domain — both as territory (from the Indigenous Tongva onward) and as emblem.
洛杉矶长期以来一直是一个有争议的领域——无论是作为领土（从土著通瓦人开始）还是作为象征。
Boosters, speculators and swindlers have had their way not just with the land but with the very image of Los Angeles.
支持者、投机者和骗子不仅对这片土地，而且对洛杉矶的形象也颇为得意。
The city grew, like an opportunistic vine.
这座城市像机会主义的藤蔓一样成长。
It couldn’t just be.
不可能只是这样。
It had to be bigger than life, better than perfect.
它必须比生活更重要，比完美更好。
Even within my lifetime, popular culture has conjured a vision of Los Angeles that is sleight-of-hand, a trick of light, brutally at odds with the lived experience.
即使在我有生之年，流行文化也已经让人们对洛杉矶产生了一种幻觉，这种幻觉是一种花招，一种光的把戏，与生活经历残酷地背道而驰。
Los Angeles, by its sprawling nature, absolutely resists oversimplification.
洛杉矶因其庞大的性质而绝对反对过度简单化。
This, despite its frustrations, irritants and absurdities, is precisely why I remain here.
尽管有挫折、刺激和荒谬，但这正是我留在这里的原因。
Those stories of place, the Los Angeles of my childhood and adolescence and young adulthood — the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s — couldn’t be told until we began to tell them.
那些关于地方的故事，我童年、青春期和青年时期的洛杉矶——60年代、70年代、80年代、90年代——直到我们开始讲述它们才能够被讲述。
Until we steadied and raised our voices.
直到我们稳定下来并提高声音。
Until we made our way through gatekeepers, and most significantly until we were of age and of mind to turn our attention to a shifting definition of the West (or El Norte), one that included stories of migration and immigration, of protest, of underemployment, of struggle, and of love and resilience despite disappointment, and in the ways in which we tend to the physical environment, to conserve against drought or be mindful of energy use and emissions.
直到我们跨过把关人，最重要的是，直到我们成年并有思想将我们的注意力转向西方（或北国）的不断变化的定义，这个定义包括移民和移民、抗议、就业不足、斗争、尽管失望的爱和韧性的故事，以及我们对待自然环境的方式，以防止干旱或注意能源的使用和排放。
We must tend to the region’s various topographies in narrative.
我们必须在叙述中关注该地区的各种地形。
It’s imperative.
这是势在必行的。
Or they will be lost.
否则他们就会迷路。
As a chronicler, my responsibility is to try and tell an honest story.
作为一名编年史家，我的责任是尝试讲述一个诚实的故事。
True to its roots.
忠于其根源。
Even now, even in this quiet moment in the city, we must remember its cacophony, its music.
即使是现在，即使在城市的这个安静时刻，我们也必须记住它的刺耳声音，它的音乐。
## My Mustache, My Self (Wesley Morris, The New York Times Magazine)
## 我的胡子，我自己（韦斯利·莫里斯，纽约时报杂志）
This essay from Wesley Morris on growing a mustache during the pandemic is about so much more than quarantine-grown facial hair — it’s a brilliant and vulnerable piece on masculinity and race, one in which Morris reflects on becoming himself and considers and celebrates his Blackness.
韦斯利·莫里斯 (Wesley Morris) 写的这篇关于在大流行期间留胡子的文章不仅仅涉及隔离区种植的面部毛发，这是一篇关于男性气质和种族的精彩而脆弱的文章，莫里斯在其中反思了自己，思考并庆祝了他的黑人身份。
The mustache had certainly conjoined me to a past I was flattered to be associated with, however superficially.
小胡子无疑将我与一段过去联系在一起，我很荣幸能与之联系在一起，无论表面上如何。
But there were implications.
但这是有影响的。
During the later stages of the movement, a mustached man opened himself up to charges of white appeasement and Uncle Tom-ism.
在运动的后期阶段，一名留着小胡子的男子暴露了自己对白人绥靖政策和汤姆叔叔主义的指控。
Not because of the mustache, obviously, but because of the approach of the sort of person who would choose to wear one.
显然，不是因为胡子，而是因为那种选择留胡子的人的做法。
Such a person might not have been considered radical enough, down enough, Black enough.
这样的人可能会被认为不够激进、不够卑鄙、不够黑。
The civil rights mustache was strategically tolerant.
民权胡子在战略上是宽容的。
It didn’t advocate burning anything down.
它不提倡烧毁任何东西。
It ran for office — and sometimes it won.
它竞选公职——有时甚至获胜。
It was establishmentarian, compromising and eventually, come the infernos at the close of the 1960s, it fell out of fashion, in part because it felt out of step with the urgency of the moment.
它是建制主义的、妥协的，最终，在 20 世纪 60 年代末的地狱般的情况下，它不再流行，部分原因是它感觉与当下的紧迫性不合拍。
The Black-power salute is not a casual gesture.
向黑人权力致敬并不是一个随意的举动。
It’s weaponry.
这是武器装备。
You aim that arm and fire.
你瞄准那只手臂并开火。
I aimed mine in solidarity — with white people instead of at a system they personify.
我的目标是与白人团结一致，而不是针对他们所代表的制度。
And that didn’t feel quite right.
这感觉不太对劲。
But how would I know?
但我怎么知道呢？
I had never done a Black-power salute.
我从来没有向黑人权力致敬。
It always seemed like more Blackness than I’ve needed, maybe more than I had.
它似乎总是比我需要的更多的黑色，也许比我拥有的还要多。
I’m not Black-power Black.
我不是黑人权力黑人。
I’ve always been milder, more apprehensive than that.
我一向比较温和，也比较忧心忡忡。
I was practically born with a mustache.
我几乎生来就留着小胡子。