TED | The Danger of Silence 你的沉默意味着什么

演讲简介：2014 | “我们花了太多时间倾听人们在说什么，却几乎不会注意到他们未曾提及的事情。”说唱诗人，教师克林特·史密斯这样说到。一段短小精悍，发自肺腑的演讲，帮助我们找到了畅所欲言的勇气，来对抗无知和不公。

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a 1968 speech where he reflects upon the Civil Rights Movement, states, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

小马丁·路德·金博士，在1968年的一次回顾民权运动的演讲中说到：“最终，我们会记住的不是敌人的话语，而是朋友的沉默。"

 

As a teacher, I've internalized this message. Every day, all around us, we see the consequences of silence manifest themselves in the form of discrimination, violence, genocide and war. In the classroom, I challenge my students to explore the silences in their own lives through poetry. We work together to fill those spaces,to recognize them, to name them, to understand that they don't have to be sources of shame.

作为一名教师，我在心中早已接纳并消化了这种信息。每一天，在我们周围，我们都会看到沉默产生的后果，以歧视、暴力、屠杀和战争的形式展现在我们面前。在课堂里，我给学生们出了道难题，让他们通过诗歌来探索自己生活中的沉默。我们一起填补空白之处，去欣赏它们、给它们起名字，并试着明白他们并不是羞耻的来源。

 

In an effort to create a culture within my classroom where students feel safe sharing the intimacies of their own silences, I have four core principles posted on the board that sits in the front of my class, which every student signs at the beginning of the year: read critically, write consciously, speak clearly, tell your truth.

为了在我的课堂上创造一种文化氛围，让学生们可以无所顾忌的分享他们从前从未提及的事，我在教室前面的黑板上写下了四个核心原则，年初的时候每名学生都签了名：批判性的阅读，有意识的写作，清晰的说话，说实话。

 

And I find myself thinking a lot about that last point, tell your truth. And I realized that if I was going to ask my students to speak up, I was going to have to tell my truth and be honest with them about the times where I failed to do so.

在最后一条上，我不由地思考了很多，说出实话。我意识到如果想让学生们畅所欲言，我就得实话实说，坦诚地告诉他们我曾经还无法做到这一点。

 

So I tell them that growing up, as a kid in a Catholic family in New Orleans, during Lent I was always taught that the most meaningful thing one could do was to give something up, sacrifice something you typically indulge in to prove to God you understand his sanctity. I've given up soda, McDonald's, French fries, French kisses, and everything in between. But one year, I gave up speaking.

所以我告诉他们我在新奥尔良一个天主教家庭长大，在四旬斋期间，（译注：基督教在复活节前为期40天的一个节期）大人们告诉我能做的最有意义的事就是放弃一些事情，牺牲你曾经所沉迷的事物，向上帝证明你感悟到了他的圣洁。我放弃了汽水、麦当劳、薯条、法式亲吻还有这其中的各种东西。不过有一年，我放弃了说话。

 

I figured the most valuable thing I could sacrifice was my own voice, but it was like I hadn't realized that I had given that up a long time ago. I spent so much of my life telling people the things they wanted to hear instead of the things they needed to, told myself I wasn't meant to be anyone's conscience because I still had to figure out being my own, so sometimes I just wouldn't say anything, appeasing ignorance with my silence, unaware that validation doesn't need words to endorse its existence.

我发现我能够牺牲的最有价值的东西就是我的声音，但我还没有意识到我已经放弃说话有很长一段时间了。我花了太多时间告诉人们他们想要听到的东西，而不是他们需要听到的那些，我也告诉自己我不想成为任何人的道德标杆，因为我仍然需要学着以身作则，所以有时候我一言不发，用沉默来安抚无知，却并未意识到其实合理性并不需要言辞来证明其存在。

 

When Christian was beat up for being gay, I put my hands in my pocket and walked with my head down as if I didn't even notice. I couldn't use my locker for weeks because the bolt on the lock reminded me of the one I had put on my lips when the homeless man on the corner looked at me with eyes up merely searching for an affirmation that he was worth seeing. I was more concerned with touching the screen on my Apple than actually feeding him one.

当一名基督徒因其为同性恋而遭到殴打时，我却把双手放在口袋里，低着头走过去，装作什么都没看到。我有几个星期没法用我的柜子，因为锁头上的安全栓让我想起了之前被我放在嘴唇上的那一枚，那时有个角落里的流浪汉正抬起头看着我，仅仅想要寻找他值得人们注意的证据。相比起给他食物，我更关心手机上有什么好玩的。 

When the woman at the fund raising gala said "I'm so proud of you. It must be so hard teaching those poor, unintelligent kids," I bit my lip, because apparently we needed her money more than my students needed their dignity.

当募捐晚会上的女士说到“我真为你感到自豪。给那些贫穷的、智商低下的孩子上课一定很难。” 我依旧没有开口，因为很明显，相比学生们的尊严，我们更需要她的钱。

 

We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't. Silence is the residue of fear. It is feeling your flaws gut-wrench guillotine your tongue. It is the air retreating from your chest because it doesn't feel safe in your lungs. Silence is Rwandan genocide. Silence is Katrina. It is what you hear when there aren't enough body bags left. It is the sound after the noose is already tied. It is charring. It is chains. It is privilege. It is pain. There is no time to pick your battles when your battles have already picked you.

我们花费了太多时间倾听人们正在说的事，却不会注意到他们没说的那些。沉默是恐惧的残留物。让你无比痛苦的意识到自己的缺点却无言以对。让你感到胸口憋闷无法呼吸。沉默是卢旺达大屠杀。沉默是卡特里娜飓风。是当你听到没有足够的裹尸袋。是当绳索被套紧时的声音。是碳化、是锁链、是特权、是伤痛。已经没有时间决定是否要奋起反抗，此时冲突已来到了你的面前。

 

I will not let silence wrap itself around my indecision. I will tell Christian that he is a lion, a sanctuary of bravery and brilliance. I will ask that homeless man what his name is and how his day was, because sometimes all people want to be is human. I will tell that woman that my students can talk about transcendentalism like their last name was Thoreau, and just because you watched one episode of "The Wire" doesn't mean you know anything about my kids.

我不会允许沉默让我变得优柔寡断。我会告诉基督徒，他是一头狮子，是勇气和智慧的庇护所。我会询问流浪汉的名字，他过得怎么样，因为有时候大家只想做个真正的人。我会告诉那位女士我的学生们会谈论先验论，仿佛他们有着梭罗（Thoreau）家族血统，仅仅因为你看过了一集《火线》 （译注：美剧，又译为《线人》、《监听风云》）， 并不意味着你很了解我的孩子们。

 

So this year, instead of giving something up, I will live every day as if there were a microphone tucked under my tongue, a stage on the underside of my inhibition.Because who has to have a soapbox when all you've ever needed is your voice?

那么今年， 我并没有放弃什么东西， 而是把每天都过得好像有个麦克风 被植入进了我的嘴里， 而家里的地面就是讲台。 当你只需要大声的表达你的观点时，谁还会需要一个肥皂箱呢？ （译注：美国人常站在肥皂箱上进行街头演讲）

 

Thank you. (Applause)

谢谢大家。（掌声）