It doesn't stop there. Black children remain more likely than white ones to attend high-need, low-performing schools, low-quality preschools, and high schools that offer few if any college-prep courses. The Black homeownership rate in the first quarter of 2021 was 29 percentage points lower than that of white Americans. When Black Americans do own homes, those properties are often undervalued by appraisers. That disparity—not saving, spending or even earnings—drives the bulk of the nation's massive Black-white wealth gap. Black Americans are also more likely to live in "nature"-deprived areas than white Americans and experience more exposure to pollutants. Black incarceration rates continue to outpace those for all other groups, and the effort to restrict Black voter participation, which has been a part of American politics since Reconstruction, has resurged today.
它并没有停止。黑人孩子仍然比白人孩子更有可能进入需求高、表现差的学校、质量差的幼儿园,以及很少有大学预科课程的高中。2021年第一季度,黑人的住房拥有率比白人低29个百分点。当美国黑人拥有自己的房产时,这些房产往往被估价师低估。正是这种差距——而不是储蓄、消费甚至是收入——导致了美国巨大的黑白贫富差距。美国黑人也比白人更有可能生活在“自然”匮乏的地区,也更容易接触到污染物。黑人的监禁率持续超过其他所有群体,而限制黑人选民参与的努力,自重建以来一直是美国政治的一部分,今天又重新兴起。
And yet, just as was the case when Myrdal was working, many of those in power have the temerity to express total shock about those vast racial disparities, to confuse the causes of inequality with its effects, and to question what, exactly, is wrong with Black Americans. Or Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans—take your pick. As distinct as the Black experience is, so many communities throughout the U.S. have their own parallel set of facts.
然而,就像默达尔工作时的情况一样,许多当权者对巨大的种族差异表示非常震惊,混淆了不平等的原因和后果,并质疑美国黑人到底出了什么问题。或者是拉美裔美国人,亚裔美国人,印第安人——随你挑。尽管黑人的经历很独特,但美国各地的许多社区都有着相似的事实。
These problems are not products of the long pandemic. But many were made worse, and perhaps the copious concern about being "woke" to inequality (or deeply opposed to anything like it) has hitched a fast ride on the virus to the cultural forefront. Corporations that only years ago reached massive settlements with the U.S. government for engaging in what federal officials alleged was widespread discrimination have released carefully worded statements declaring that Black lives matter. Promises have been made. They will have to be tracked. In the interim, the Dear Black, Latino, Asian employees, we see you and feel your pain email after a horrible event in the news has become a new genre of corporate communication. The very same impulse is also a feature of a certain set's social media feeds and the launching point for thousands of online lists of goods created by people of color, to be bought by those who wish to understand themselves as good.
这些问题并不是由长期的大流行导致的。但许多人的情况变得更糟了,也许对不平等的“觉醒”(或强烈反对任何类似的事情)的大量担忧搭上了病毒的快车,来到了文化的前沿。几年前,一些公司因为联邦官员所称的普遍歧视而与美国政府达成大规模和解,如今这些公司发表了措辞谨慎的声明,宣称黑人的生命很重要。承诺已经发出,他们必须被监督。在此期间,“亲爱的黑人、拉丁裔、亚裔员工,我们看到了你们的处境,感受到了你们的痛苦”,在一个可怕的新闻事件发生后,电子邮件成为了企业沟通的一种新的方式。同样的冲动也是某一组社交媒体的一个特征,也是成千上万的有色人种创建的在线商品清单的起点,这些商品被那些希望能更好地了解自己的人购买。
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