This is a photograph of a man whom for many years I plotted to kill.
这是一张照片 照片中的男人是一个很多年来 我都处心积虑想杀掉的人。
This is my father, Clinton George "Bageye" Grant. He's called Bageye because he has permanent bags under his eyes. As a 10-year-old, along with my siblings, I dreamt of scraping off the poison from fly-killer paper into his coffee, grounded down glass and sprinkling it over his breakfast, loosening the carpet on the stairs so he would trip and break his neck. But come the day, he would always skip that loose step, he would always bow out of the house without so much as a swig of coffee or a bite to eat. And so for many years, I feared that my father would die before I had a chance to kill him. (Laughter)
他是我的父亲, 克林顿 乔治 "泡泡眼“ 格兰。 他被称为“泡泡眼”是因为 在他的眼下永远有两个大眼袋。 作为一个十岁的孩子,与兄弟姐妹一同, 我设想着将除蝇纸上的 毒药刮下来放到我父亲的咖啡中; 将玻璃摔碎然后 洒在他的早餐上; 把台阶上的地毯弄皱, 这样他就会绊倒然后摔断脖子。 但是,在当天他总是能 越过那节松了的台阶, 他总是会低着头就出门了, 而没有大口喝咖啡, 也没有吃一口早餐。 因此,这么多年来, 我害怕我的父亲在我有机会 杀掉他之前就去世了。 (笑声...)
Up until our mother asked him to leave and not come back, Bageye had been a terrifying ogre. He teetered permanently on the verge of rage, rather like me, as you see. He worked nights at Vauxhall Motors in Luton and demanded total silence throughout the house, so that when we came home from school at 3:30 in the afternoon, we would huddle beside the TV, and rather like safe-crackers, we would twiddle with the volume control knob on the TV so it was almost inaudible. And at times, when we were like this, so much "Shhh," so much "Shhh" going on in the house that I imagined us to be like the German crew of a U-boat creeping along the edge of the ocean whilst up above, on the surface, HMS Bageye patrolled ready to drop death charges at the first sound of any disturbance.
在我们的母亲让他离开, 并且再也不要回来之前, “泡泡眼”一直是一个可怕的恶魔, 他永远都在愤怒的边缘徘徊, 这和我有些相像, 如你们现在看到的这样。 他在卢顿的沃克斯豪尔公司上夜班, 因此他要求在白天房子里要绝对安静。 这就使得,当我们下午三点 放学回家后,会挤在电视旁, 像破解保险箱的窃贼似的, 我们会转动电视上的声音调节钮, 来让它的声音几乎听不见。 每当我们这样做的时候, 屋子里只会有许多 “嘘..." ”嘘..."的声音。 这让我想象我们就像 德国U型潜艇上的船员似的, 在大海的边缘悄悄潜行, 同时在上方的水面上, “泡泡眼”号皇家海军在巡逻, 随时准备着在听到第一声 噪音时执行死刑。
So that lesson was the lesson that "Do not draw attention to yourself either in the home or outside of the home." Maybe it's a migrant lesson. We were to be below the radar, so there was no communication, really, between Bageye and us and us and Bageye, and the sound that we most looked forward to, you know when you're a child and you want your father to come home and it's all going to be happy and you're waiting for that sound of the door opening. Well the sound that we looked forward to was the click of the door closing, which meant he'd gone and would not come back.
所以,那节课给我的告诫正是: “无论在家里,还是在外面, 都不要将别人的注意力引到你身上。” 也许这是对移民者告诫。 我们就像是暴露在雷达下的目标一样, 所以,在“泡泡眼”和我们之间 之际上并没有真正的交流。 而我们最期盼听到的声音, 如大家所知那样,当你还是个孩子时, 你盼望着你的父亲回家, 然后所以的一切都将幸福欢乐, 这就会让你期待着家门被打开的声音。 然而,我和我的兄弟姐妹所期盼的声音 是房门被关上时的声响, 这就意味着我们的父亲出去了且不会回来了。
So for three decades, I never laid eyes on my father, nor he on me. We never spoke to each other for three decades, and then a couple of years ago, I decided to turn the spotlight on him.
因而,三十多年来, 我从未注视过父亲一眼, 而他也没注视过我。 在过去的三十多年, 我们从未交谈过, 然后,在几年前,我决定 将聚光灯投向他。
"You are being watched. Actually, you are. You are being watched." That was his mantra to us, his children. Time and time again he would say this to us. And this was the 1970s, it was Luton, where he worked at Vauxhall Motors, and he was a Jamaican. And what he meant was, you as a child of a Jamaican immigrant are being watched to see which way you turn, to see whether you conform to the host nation's stereotype of you, of being feckless, work-shy, destined for a life of crime. You are being watched, so confound their expectations of you. To that end, Bageye and his friends, mostly Jamaican, exhibited a kind of Jamaican bella figura: Turn your best side to the world, show your best face to the world.
“你正在被监视, 真的, 你正在被监视着” 这是他对我们—他的孩子们, 所说的咒语。 一次又一次他这样对我们念道。 这张照片就是1970年摄于卢顿, 他当时在沃克斯豪尔公司工作, 他是牙买加人。 他说那些话的意思就是, 你作为一个牙买加移民者的孩子, 你是时刻被人监视着的。 有人监视你拐向哪条路,监视你 是否遵守你所移入国家为你设立的模式, 表现的没有价值,游手好闲, 注定一生充满罪行。 你正在被监视着, 所以,把他们所有的期盼都打消吧。 最后,“泡泡眼”和他的朋友们, 大部分都是牙买加人, 展示了一种良好的印象: 把你最好的一面展示给世界, 将你最好的面貌展现给世界。
If you have seen some of the images of the Caribbean people arriving in the '40s and '50s, you might have noticed that a lot of the men wear trilbies. Now, there was no tradition of wearing trilbies in Jamaica. They invented that tradition for their arrival here. They wanted to project themselves in a way that they wanted to be perceived, so that the way they looked and the names that they gave themselves defined them. So Bageye is bald and has baggy eyes. Tidy Boots is very fussy about his footwear. Anxious is always anxious. Clock has one arm longer than the other. (Laughter) And my all-time favorite was the guy they called Summerwear. When Summerwear came to this country from Jamaica in the early '60s, he insisted on wearing light summer suits, no matter the weather, and in the course of researching their lives, I asked my mom, "Whatever became of Summerwear?" And she said, "He caught a cold and died." (Laughter) But men like Summerwear taught us the importance of style. Maybe they exaggerated their style because they thought that they were not considered to be quite civilized, and they transferred that generational attitude or anxiety onto us, the next generation, so much so that when I was growing up, if ever on the television news or radio a report came up about a black person committing some crime — a mugging, a murder, a burglary — we winced along with our parents, because they were letting the side down. You did not just represent yourself. You represented the group, and it was a terrifying thing to come to terms with, in a way, that maybe you were going to be perceived in the same light. So that was what needed to be challenged. Our father and many of his colleagues exhibited a kind of transmission but not receiving. They were built to transmit but not receive. We were to keep quiet. When our father did speak to us, it was from the pulpit of his mind. They clung to certainty in the belief that doubt would undermine them. But when I am working in my house and writing, after a day's writing, I rush downstairs and I'm very excited to talk about Marcus Garvey or Bob Marley and words are tripping out of my mouth like butterflies and I'm so excited that my children stop me, and they say, "Dad, nobody cares." (Laughter)
如果你见过这些 四五十年代时加勒比人 刚到达这里的图片, 你也许会发现他们中的很多人 戴着软毡帽。 如今,牙买加人再也 没有戴软毡帽的传统了。 他们是为了抵达这里才创立了这个传统。 他们试图把自己包装成 他们想要别人见到的那一面。 所以,他们的样子 以及他们给自己取的名字 定义了他们。 因此,“泡泡眼”是一个有大眼袋的光头。 “整洁靴子”对他的鞋子十分讲究。 “焦虑”总是表现出很焦虑。 "钟表“的胳膊一只长一只短。 (笑声...) 长期以来我最喜欢的一位是 被叫做”夏日装着“的人。 在60年代早期当”夏日装着“从牙买加 来到这个国家时, 无论天气如何, 他都坚持穿轻便的夏日装着。 在我研究父辈们生活的过程时, 我问我的母亲:”夏日装着“后来发生了什么? 她回答说:他得感冒去世了。(笑声...) 但是,像”夏日装着“这样的人 教会了我们个人风格的重要性。 也许他们过度夸大了自身的风格, 因为他们觉得自己是被人们 看作是不文明的, 并且,他们还把他们那一代人的态度 或焦虑传到了下一代——我们的身上。 以致于当我渐渐长大时, 只要在电视新闻或者收音机上 出现关于一个黑人犯罪 的报道, 比如行凶抢劫,谋杀,盗窃等, 我们和父母都会一同避开, 因为这些报道会让我们失落。 你不仅仅代表着你自己 而代表着整个群体。 这是需要忍受的一件很可怕的事, 在某种程度上,人们很可能 会以同样的目光看待你。 所以这就是需要被挑战的。 我们的父亲和他的许多同事 展现出了一种传播而不是接收。 他们生来就是为了传播而不是接收的。 我们被要求保持安静。 当父亲对我们说话时, 那是来自他思想的讲坛。 他们是如此依附于那些信仰的正确性, 以致于任何怀疑都会诋毁他们。 但是,当次我在家中工作和写作时, 在完成了一天的写作后,我冲下楼梯 我非常激动得想谈论 马克思·加维或巴布·马里, 言辞像蝴蝶似的从我嘴中飞出, 我如此兴奋以致于我的孩子们打断了我, 他们说:爸爸,没人在乎这些。 (笑声...)
But they do care, actually. They cross over. Somehow they find their way to you. They shape their lives according to the narrative of your life, as I did with my father and my mother, perhaps, and maybe Bageye did with his father. And that was clearer to me in the course of looking at his life and understanding, as they say, the Native Americans say, "Do not criticize the man until you can walk in his moccasins."
但是,事实上,他们是在乎的。 他们穿过你, 不知怎么,他们寻找到了通向你的道路。 他们参照你生活的叙述来 塑造着他们自己的生活, 也许,正如我和我的父母做的那样, 也许也像”泡泡眼“和他父亲那样。 在我研究我父亲生活的过程中, 我对这一点的理解越来越清晰, 而且我明白了,正如他们说的那样, 美国原住民所说的那样, ”不要在你没有经历过他人所经历的事 之前就随意评论他。
But in conjuring his life, it was okay and very straightforward to portray a Caribbean life in England in the 1970s with bowls of plastic fruit, polystyrene ceiling tiles, settees permanently sheathed in their transparent covers that they were delivered in. But what's more difficult to navigate is the emotional landscape between the generations, and the old adage that with age comes wisdom is not true. With age comes the veneer of respectability and a veneer of uncomfortable truths.
但是,在他魔术般的人生中, 在描述19世纪70年代生活 于英国的加勒比人时, 用桌上摆着的几碗塑料水果, 聚苯乙烯天花板, 以及永远罩着刚买来时的透明塑料罩的长沙发 来描述他们是即正确有直率的。 但是,两代之间的 情感鸿沟则 是更难以跨越的, 古话说道:智慧会随着年龄增长, 这并不是真的。 年龄会带来受人尊敬的表象, 和令人不适的真理的表象。
But what was true was that my parents, my mother, and my father went along with it, did not trust the state to educate me. So listen to how I sound. They determined that they would send me to a private school, but my father worked at Vauxhall Motors. It's quite difficult to fund a private school education and feed his army of children. I remember going on to the school for the entrance exam, and my father said to the priest — it was a Catholic school — he wanted a better "heducation" for the boy, but also, he, my father, never even managed to pass worms, never mind entrance exams. But in order to fund my education, he was going to have to do some dodgy stuff, so my father would fund my education by trading in illicit goods from the back of his car, and that was made even more tricky because my father, that's not his car by the way. My father aspired to have a car like that, but my father had a beaten-up Mini, and he never, being a Jamaican coming to this country, he never had a driving license, he never had any insurance or road tax or MOT. He thought, "I know how to drive; why do I need the state's validation?" But it became a little tricky when we were stopped by the police, and we were stopped a lot by the police, and I was impressed by the way that my father dealt with the police. He would promote the policeman immediately, so that P.C. Bloggs became Detective Inspector Bloggs in the course of the conversation and wave us on merrily. So my father was exhibiting what we in Jamaica called "playing fool to catch wise." But it lent also an idea that actually he was being diminished or belittled by the policeman — as a 10-year-old boy, I saw that — but also there was an ambivalence towards authority. So on the one hand, there was a mocking of authority, but on the other hand, there was a deference towards authority, and these Caribbean people had an overbearing obedience towards authority, which is very striking, very strange in a way, because migrants are very courageous people. They leave their homes. My father and my mother left Jamaica and they traveled 4,000 miles, and yet they were infantilized by travel. They were timid, and somewhere along the line, the natural order was reversed. The children became the parents to the parent.
但真相是,我的父母, 我的母亲和父亲都同意的是, 他们并不信任所在州立学校对我进行的教育。 所以听听我说的话吧。 他们决定把我送去一所私立学校, 但是我的父亲在沃克斯豪尔公司工作, 这使得为私立学校付学费,同时 并为他所有的孩子提供食物是十分困难的。 我记得去那所学校参加入学测试时, 我父亲对神父说 那是一所天主教学校 他希望这个孩子能得到更好的”角“育, 但是,同样,他,我的父亲, 从未打算要通过卫生检查, 更不在意入学考试了。 但是为了资助我的学费, 他打算做些投机取巧的事, 所以,我父亲打算通过在他的车后备箱 贩卖非法货品来为我付学费, 但更为棘手的是 那辆车甚至并不是我父亲的。 我父亲他一直期望有一辆那样的车, 但他仅有的是一辆破旧的Mini, 作为一个牙买加移民, 他从未获得驾照, 也从未交过保险和道路税,也没参加驾照考试。 他认为:“我知道如何开车, 为什么还需要州政府来验证?” 但是,这就使得在警察让我们 停下来时比较棘手, 而警察又常常让我停下来, 我对我父亲与警察交涉的方式 印象深刻。 他会立刻让警察升职, 在谈话的过程中,警察布洛格斯 变成了探长布洛格斯, 然后愉快的向我们挥手告别。 这就是我父亲在展示我们 牙买加人称之为的“扮猪吃老虎”的智慧。 但是,这也许以另一种想法也能解释, 就是实际上,他被警察贬低 和轻视了, 作为一个十岁的男孩,我看出了这点, 但是还是一种对当权者的一种矛盾心理。 所以,一方面 是对当权的嘲讽, 但是,另一方面, 是对当权者的敬重, 且这些加勒比人, 以一种非常显著且奇怪的方式 对当权者者极其服从, 因为移民者都是十分有勇气的人。 他们远走他乡。 我的父母离开牙买加,然后旅行了四千英里, 即便如此,他们仍不擅长旅行。 他们非常胆小, 而不知在前行道路上的何处, 自然的秩序被颠倒了, 孩子们反而成为了父母们的父母。
The Caribbean people came to this country with a five-year plan: they would work, some money, and then go back, but the five years became 10, the 10 became 15, and before you know it, you're changing the wallpaper, and at that point, you know you're here to stay. Although there's still the kind of temporariness that our parents felt about being here, but we children knew that the game was up. I think there was a feeling that they would not be able to continue with the ideals of the life that they expected. The reality was very much different. And also, that was true of the reality of trying to educate me. Having started the process, my father did not continue. It was left to my mother to educate me, and as George Lamming would say, it was my mother who fathered me.
加勒比人是带着他们的五年 计划来到这个国家的: 即他们工作,赚钱,然后回加勒比, 但是“五年”变成了十年, 接着十年变成了十五年, 接下来,在你还未意识到时, 你正在换家中的墙纸, 也就是在这时,你才知道自己要留在这里了。 尽管,我父母依旧觉得留在这里 是一种暂时性的事, 但是我们这些孩子都知道游戏已经结束了。 我认为,这是一种觉得 他们没有能力继续他们所期盼的 理想生活的感觉。 而现实是与之如此不同。 此外,我父亲试图教育我 这一现实也是真的。 是他开始教育我的, 但他并没有坚持下来。 而是留给我母亲来继续教育我, 正如乔治·雷明说的那样, 是我的母亲扮演了我父亲的角色。
Even in his absence, that old mantra remained: You are being watched. But such ardent watchfulness can lead to anxiety, so much so that years later, when I was investigating why so many young black men were diagnosed with schizophrenia, six times more than they ought to be, I was not surprised to hear the psychiatrist say, "Black people are schooled in paranoia." And I wonder what Bageye would make of that.
即便他缺席了,他古老的”咒语“依旧存在: 你正在被监视着。 但是如此炽热的注视会导致焦虑, 这就使得许多年后,当我在研究 为何如此多的黑人青年 被诊断为精神分裂症, 该疾病在他们身上的发病率是他们原本发病率的六倍, 而且在我听到心理医生说:”黑人们 在恐吓中被教育“时我并不感到吃惊。 我很好奇”泡泡眼“对此有何想法。
Now I also had a 10-year-old son, and turned my attention to Bageye and I went in search of him. He was back in Luton, he was now 82, and I hadn't seen him for 30-odd years, and when he opened the door, I saw this tiny little man with lambent, smiling eyes, and he was smiling, and I'd never seen him smile. I was very disconcerted by that. But we sat down, and he had a Caribbean friend with him, talking some old time talk, and my father would look at me, and he looked at me as if I would miraculously disappear as I had arisen. And he turned to his friend, and he said, "This boy and me have a deep, deep connection, deep, deep connection." But I never felt that connection. If there was a pulse, it was very weak or hardly at all. And I almost felt in the course of that reunion that I was auditioning to be my father's son.
现在,我自己也有了一个十岁的儿子, 我便开始把注意力转向”泡泡眼“ 我开始寻找他。 他回到了卢顿,他当时已经82岁了, 而我已经有三十几年没见过他了, 当他来开门时, 我看见这个瘦小的男人眼中带着隐约的笑意, 他在冲我微笑,而我之前从未见他笑过。 这使我感到非常惊惶。 但是,我们坐下后,而且他有 位加勒比朋友正与他一起, 我父亲正与他聊一陈年往事, 我父亲看向我, 他看向我的样子 好像我会像我突然出现那样乍然的消失。 接着,他转向他的朋友,说到: “这个男孩和我有着很深的联系, 很深,很深的联系。” 但是我从没感觉到这种联系。 如果我们之间有某种脉动,那也非常弱 或者基本没有。 我几乎快要觉得,在重聚的过程中, 我是在为担当我父亲的儿子试镜。
When the book came out, it had fair reviews in the national papers, but the paper of choice in Luton is not The Guardian, it's the Luton News, and the Luton News ran the headline about the book, "The Book That May Heal a 32-Year-Old Rift." And I understood that could also represent the rift between one generation and the next, between people like me and my father's generation, but there's no tradition in Caribbean life of memoirs or biographies. It was a tradition that you didn't chat about your business in public. But I welcomed that title, and I thought actually, yes, there is a possibility that this will open up conversations that we'd never had before. This will close the generation gap, perhaps. This could be an instrument of repair. And I even began to feel that this book may be perceived by my father as an act of filial devotion.
当书出版时, 它在国家报纸上有着不错的评论, 但是在卢顿,人们选择的包装并不是卫报, 而是卢顿新闻, 卢顿新闻将这本书作为了头条, 标题写道:“一本能够愈合32年的裂痕的书”。 并且我理解这可能也代表了 两代之间的裂痕, 像是我和我父亲这一代人之间的这种裂痕, 但是在加勒比人的生活中, 并没有记录回忆或者写传记的传统。 那只有不在公共场合谈论私事的传统。 但是我很喜欢这个标题, 而且我认为正是如此, 这也许提供了让我们进行一次 从未有过的谈话的可能性。 也许,这能使我们之间的代沟变小。 这也可能成为修复我们之间关系的工具。 我甚至开始觉得我父亲 会将这本书理解为 是一种孝心的展现。
Poor, deluded fool. Bageye was stung by what he perceived to be the public airing of his shortcomings. He was stung by my betrayal, and he went to the newspapers the next day and demanded a right of reply, and he got it with the headline "Bageye Bites Back." And it was a coruscating account of my betrayal. I was no son of his. He recognized in his mind that his colors had been dragged through the mud, and he couldn't allow that. He had to restore his dignity, and he did so, and initially, although I was disappointed, I grew to admire that stance. There was still fire bubbling through his veins, even though he was 82 years old. And if it meant that we would now return to 30 years of silence, my father would say, "If it's so, then it's so."
这个傻子。 ”泡泡眼“被激怒了,因为他认为 这本书使公众知道了他的缺点。 他被我的背叛激怒了, 第二天,他去了报纸发行处 并且要求他们给他回应的权利, 接着,他得到了次日的头条: ”泡泡眼的回击“。 这是一个备受瞩目的对我的背叛做出的解释, 我不是他的儿子。 他意识到他的颜面扫地, 被污泥沾染,而他不能允许这样的事发生。 他必须要重建他的尊严,他也这么做了。 虽然,一开始我对此很失望, 但是我渐渐开始钦佩他的立场了。 尽管他已经82岁了, 但他的血管中仍有澎湃的火球。 如果这意味着我们可能重新 回到那互不交谈的30年, 我父亲可能会说:“如果是这样,那就只能如此了。”
Jamaicans will tell you that there's no such thing as facts, there are only versions. We all tell ourselves the versions of the story that we can best live with. Each generation builds up an edifice which they are reluctant or sometimes unable to disassemble, but in the writing, my version of the story began to change, and it was detached from me. I lost my hatred of my father. I did no longer want him to die or to murder him, and I felt free, much freer than I'd ever felt before. And I wonder whether that freedness could be transferred to him.
牙买加可能会说没有诸如“事实”这样的事, 只有不同的版本。 人们总是讲述自己不同版本的故事, 他们所能承受的最佳版本。 每代人都建造了自己的知识结构, 这使得他们不情愿或者有时不能 拆解这些结构, 但是在我的写作中,我的故事版本 开始改变了, 它与我自身分离了, 我不再厌恶我父亲了。 我不再盼望着他去世或者想要谋杀他了, 而且我感觉到了一种解脱, 我以前从未感觉到如此自由。 并且我很好奇这种自由是否 能够传递给我的父亲。
In that initial reunion, I was struck by an idea that I had very few photographs of myself as a young child. This is a photograph of me, nine months old. In the original photograph, I'm being held up by my father, Bageye, but when my parents separated, my mother excised him from all aspects of our lives. She took a pair of scissors and cut him out of every photograph, and for years, I told myself the truth of this photograph was that you are alone, you are unsupported. But there's another way of looking at this photograph. This is a photograph that has the potential for a reunion, a potential to be reunited with my father, and in my yearning to be held up by my father, I held him up to the light.
在最初的重聚中, 我突然想到, 我小的时候 很少有自己的独照。 这是一张我的照片, 是九个月大时的我。 在原始的照片中, 我是被我父亲“泡泡眼”高高举起的, 但是在我父母分开后,我母亲 将他从我们生活中的各方面都剔除了。 她拿剪刀把每张照片中的父亲都减掉了, 许多年来,我告诉自己, 这些照片的真相是: 我是孤单一人的, 我是不被支持的。 但是,还有另一种方式来看这些照片。 这是有着重聚潜质 的照片, 和我父亲重聚的潜质, 在我希望被父亲高高举起的渴望中, 我将他举向了聚光灯前。
In that first reunion, it was very awkward and tense moments, and to lessen the tension, we decided to go for a walk. And as we walked, I was struck that I had reverted to being the child even though I was now towering above my father. I was almost a foot taller than my father. He was still the big man, and I tried to match his step. And I realized that he was walking as if he was still under observation, but I admired his walk. He walked like a man on the losing side of the F.A. Cup Final mounting the steps to collect his condolence medal. There was dignity in defeat.
第一次的重聚时, 那是气氛既尴尬又紧张的时刻, 为了减缓紧张的氛围, 我们决定去散散步。 在我们散步的途中, 我突然发现,我又变回了孩子, 尽管我比父亲高了很多。 我几乎比父亲高一尺, 但他仍旧是个大人, 而我试图跟上他的步伐。 接着我意识到, 他正在以仍被人注视着的方式走路, 但我钦佩他的这种走路方式。 他像世界杯决赛失败的人 那样走着路, 一步步登上阶梯领取他的安慰奖。 在失败中流露出了尊严。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声...)