成长在一个经济飞速，文化与意识闭塞的江南小县城，埋头读书上学，埋头梦想。那时候，周遭人事，多模糊成一片。隐隐约有烦躁不耐，当闹市区有巨人路过，看众人哗然，啧啧仰头，划人一脸手指；隐隐约鼻间酸楚，当菜市场有同龄孩子跪在地上，面前处处折痕字迹工整的“求学书”，飞奔至母亲单位要50块钱，惹众人哄堂，争先恐后要从头教我如何世故泰然。
那些人生的瞬间，能成就一个年轻生命的终生格局：人与人，是不一样的。上中下，黑白黄，穷富和小康。
这是我们很多人的格局。现在的，成年后的格局。
黄种人最聪明。白种人还过得去。白种人现在比我们先进，但是我们黄种人有5000年文明。白种人蠢起来也是惊天地泣鬼神。黑人简直不要拿到桌面上跟我提。不是穷鬼就是垃圾，专在中国骗我们黄种女生。走大街上拜托那些脑残女生眼睛擦亮，到时候小心被骗去非洲当奴隶。
上一段最后一句，是某公众号前段时间的文章节选。并非个人杜撰。
这个世界，美好的时候特别美好，丑陋起来，不堪入目，非比寻常。
你有没有想过，出生无法选择的你，如果生在一具黑色的身体里，如果出生那一刻，就困于一个意识形态的监狱，你会怎样? 因为这具身体，你要上特殊学校，你只能活动于城市的某一区，你要吞下路人恐惧躲避的眼光，你要接受随时被搜身，你要学会穿某一种衣服戴某一种首饰行走不忘某一种摆肩，因为只有这样，你才能在一定程度上，保护自己？你愤怒不平，你无声尖叫，你想告诉这个世界，你他妈很优秀，你比他妈那些天生无忧虑的白人看不知道多多少书，懂不知道多少东西，你明明智力领悟力学识凌驾很多人之上，你却不能反抗，你除非自毁，不然逃不出这个世界，这个社会，这个文明强加于你的手铐脚链？因为一切已经发生了，因为历史，因为你的先辈，因为你的皮肤，因为你身体里流的血，注定你的低等廉价?
如果是这样，你会活成什么样？如果是这样，你的抑郁，戾气，愤怒，绝望，悲哀，会侵占你人生的几分之几？
这是一本意识流的书。一名黑人父亲写给黑人儿子的长信。一具沉重，惊恐，愤怒，悲伤的灵魂，想给自己的孩子传承下去的东西。看完后，希望我们这些隔大半个地球的黄种人，至少叹口气，在心里吞下一句：
可是人，终归没有不一样。
可是我们人，只不过都要爱要尊重要价值，我们会开心会难过会尴尬会恐慌会愤怒会沮丧。我们会和爱人吵架，会有讨厌的老板，会疲于为人父母，会为生计和养家不停与原则对抗。
有些憎恨，是习得的。正如有些恐惧。
天真的理想主义？
有句话说，你信仰什么，便得到什么。
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME
TA-NEHISI COATES
All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit.
我只知道，暴力生于恐惧，正如烟生于火。而我无法断定，哪怕是因恐惧与爱而施的暴力，究竟是为我们长鸣警钟还是在出口处烟呛了我们。
The fearless boys and girls who would knuckle up, call on cousins and crews, and, if it came to it, pull guns seemed to have mastered the streets. But their knowledge peaked at seventeen, when they ventured out of their parents' homes and discovered that America had guns and cousins, too. I saw their futures in the tired faces of mothers dragging themselves onto the 28 bus, swatting and cursing at three-year-olds; I saw their futures in the men out on the corner yelling obscenely at some young girl because she would not smile. Some of them stood outside liquor stores wating on a few dollars for a bottle. We would hand them a twenty and tell them to keep the change. They would dash inside and return with Red Bull, Mad Dog, or Cisco. Then we would walk to the house of someone whose mother worked nights, play "Fuck tha Police," and drink to our youth. We could not get out. The ground we walked was trip-wired. The air we breathed was toxic. The water stunted our growth. We could not get out.
这些无惧的男女生，磨拳擦掌，叫上堂兄弟和帮派，如有必要便拔枪上阵，他们好像对街斗生存了如指掌。但是他们的知识在17岁便已置顶，当他们离开父母离开家，发现美国也是有枪有堂兄弟的。我看到了他们的未来，看到了面容疲惫的母亲拖着双脚上28号公交车，打骂自己三岁的孩子；我看到街角的男人对某个女生破口大骂，就因女生不苟言笑。他们中的有些人站在卖酒的店门口等人丢几美元好换瓶酒。我们会给他们20美金不用找。他们闪进店里，出来的手里拿着红牛，疯狗（一种葡萄酒），或Cisco。然后我们走回到谁妈上夜班的家里，就着我们的青春，喝着酒，玩着“操警察”。我们逃无可逃。我们行走的地面布满警线，我们呼吸的空气巫毒有余，那些水滞抑成长，我们逃无可逃。
Questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.
用提问来探索，不要去寻求必然。
There was nothing holy or particular in my skin; I was black because of history and heritage. There was no nobility in falling, in being bound, in living oppressed, and there was no inherent meaning in black blood. Black blood wasn't black; black skin wasn't even black. And now I looked back on my need for a trophy case, on the desire to live by the standards of Saul Bellow, and I felt that this need was not an escaple but fear again - fear that "they," the alleged authors and heirs of the universe, were right.
我的皮肤，全无神圣特别之处；历史和继承，成就了我的黑色。在坠落和捆绑和被压抑的生存里面，没有任何高贵。黑色的血液本身，不带任何意义。黑色的血液并不是黑色，连黑色的皮肤也不是黑色。现在我往回看我对一个光荣案例的渴求，对以Saul Bellow标准来生活的渴望，我感到那种需要并非出口，而又是恐惧 - 恐惧着“他们”， 那些所谓的宇宙的写作者和继承者，是对的。
Hate gives identity.
憎恨给予身份。
So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.
所以，每天清晨醒来，你必须要知道没有承诺牢不可破，尤其是关于会不会醒来的承诺。这不是灰心不是绝望。这是这个宇宙的偏好：动词于名词之上，行动于状态之上，挣扎于希望之上。
But you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other black bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you. And you must be responsible for the bodies of the powerful - the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements.
但你是一名黑人男孩，你必须以一种别的男生不懂的方式，为你的身体负责任。事实上，你必须为其他黑色身体的最恶劣的行为负责任，这些行为，最终会算在你的头上。你必须为其他有权势的身体负责任 - 那个用夜棒打你的警察很快就在你举止鬼祟上找到理由。
You have to make your peace with the chaos, but you cannot lie. You cannot forget how much they took from us and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold.
你必须在混乱中宁静，但是你不能撒谎。你不能忘记他们从我们这里夺走的东西，不能忘记他们如何用我们的身体揉变成糖，烟草，棉花和黄金。
Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made.
黑人以一种入魔的方式爱他们的孩子。你们是我们的全部，你们在危机四伏里来到我们身边。我们想在看着你们被美国制造的街道谋杀之前，亲手自己先杀了你们。
All my life I'd heard people tell their black boys and black girls to "be twice as good," which is to say "accept half as much." These words would be spoken with a veneer of religious nobility, as though they evidenced some unspoken quality, some undetected courage, when in fact all they evidenced was the gun to our head and the hand in our pocket. This is how we lose our softness. This is how they steal our right to smile.
这一生，我都在听人们告诉自己的黑人男孩女孩，”要加倍听话“，也是在说“只接受一半”。这些话出口的时候，被涂上宗教似的神圣高贵，仿佛他们见证着某些不可名状的品质，某些隐隐存在的勇气，当事实上，他们唯一见证的，不过是我们头顶有枪，手插口袋。我们是这样丢掉了柔软。他们是这样偷走了我们微笑的权利。
Your very vulnerability bring you closer to the meaning of life, just as for others, the quest to believe oneself white divides them from it.
正是你的脆弱，带你更近生命的意义一步，正如那些其他人自以为白种人的信仰，带他们远离那意义一步一样。
I am wounded. I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next. I think of your grandmother calling me and noting how you were growing tall and would one day try to "test me". And I said to her that I would regard that day, should it come, as the total failure of fatherhood because if all I had over you were my hands, then I really had nothing at all.
我负着伤。我身烙旧密码。它们在一个世界里护着我，在下个世界里拷着我。我想到你的奶奶给我电话，提醒我你在长高，有一天你会要“试我”。我告诉她如果那一天真的到来，我会看作是我为人父的终极失败。因为如果我对于你，唯一有的力量只是来自于我的双手，那么我其实什么力量都没有。
To be distanced, if only for a moment, from fear is not a passport out of the struggle.
哪怕有一刻，可以从恐惧中抽离，也不是从挣扎里出来的通行证。
My job, in the little time we have left together, is to match that intelligence with wisdom.
在我们所剩不多的一起的时光里，我的工作，便是用我的智慧去匹配你的智商。
I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves. And still I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of the Mecca. Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name.
我不相信我们可以阻止他们,Samori,他们最终必须自己阻止自己。而我，仍然要督促你去挣扎。为你先辈的历史去挣扎，为智慧去挣扎，为Mecca的温暖去挣扎，为你的祖父母去挣扎，为你的名字，去挣扎。
