I remember the very first time I went to a nice restaurant, a really nice restaurant. It was for a law firm recruitment dinner, and I remember beforehand the waitress walked around and asked whether we wanted some wine, so I said, "Sure, I'll take some white wine."
我記得當我第一次 去一家不錯的餐廳的時候, 一家真的很不錯的餐廳, 我去那裡參加一間 律師事務所舉行的招聘晚餐, 我記得在開始之前 有一位女侍者在四處走動 並問我們是否需要酒, 我回答道:「好,我要白葡萄酒。」
And she immediately said, "Would you like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay?"
她立刻回答道: 「請問您想要白蘇維翁 還是夏多內呢?」
And I remember thinking, "Come on, lady, stop with the fancy French words and just give me some white wine." But I used my powers of deduction and recognized that chardonnay and sauvignon blanc were two separate types of white wine, and so I told her that I would take the chardonnay, because frankly that was the easiest one to pronounce for me.
我記得我當時在想, 「好了,小姐,別再和我 說這些花俏的法語了, 直接給我一些白葡萄酒就行了。」 但是我運用了我的演繹能力, 了解到夏內多和白蘇維翁 是兩種不同類型的白葡萄酒, 所以我告訴她我想要夏多內, 因為坦白說它對我來說 是最容易發音的。
So I had a lot of experiences like that during my first couple of years as a law student at Yale, because, despite all outward appearances, I'm a cultural outsider. I didn't come from the elites. I didn't come from the Northeast or from San Francisco. I came from a southern Ohio steel town, and it's a town that's really struggling in a lot of ways, ways that are indicative of the broader struggles of America's working class. Heroin has moved in, killing a lot of people, people I know. Family violence, domestic violence, and divorce have torn apart families. And there's a very unique sense of pessimism that's moved in. Think about rising mortality rates in these communities and recognize that for a lot of these folks, the problems that they're seeing are actually causing rising death rates in their own communities, so there's a very real sense of struggle.
我有很多種類似的經歷, 在我作為耶魯大學 法學生的開始幾年。 因為,儘管外表是這樣, 我其實是一名文化局外人。 我並不來自菁英階層。 我並不來自東北部或者舊金山。 我來自南部俄亥俄的一座鋼鐵城, 那是一座在很多方面 都存在掙扎的城市, 象徵著更廣層面上的 美國工薪階層的掙扎。 海洛英的進入, 殺害了很多人,很多我認識的人。 家庭暴力和離婚摧毀了很多家庭。 在那裡還瀰漫著一種 很獨特的悲觀情緒。 想想在這些社區中上升的死亡率, 並且知道這當中很多人, 他們眼中所看到的問題 就是促使他們的社區 死亡率上升的真實原因, 他們會由此產生一種 真實的掙扎感。
I had a very front-row seat to that struggle. My family has been part of that struggle for a very long time. I come from a family that doesn't have a whole lot of money. The addiction that plagued my community also plagued my family, and even, sadly, my own mom. There were a lot of problems that I saw in my own family, problems caused sometimes by a lack of money, problems caused sometimes by a lack of access to resources and social capital that really affected my life.
我一直有坐在最前排 觀看的那種掙扎。 我的家庭在很長的時間內 都是那種掙扎的一部份。 我來自一個並不富有的家庭。 折磨著我們社區的那種毒癮, 同時也折磨著我的家庭, 甚至是,可悲地,我的母親。 我在我的家裡 見過了非常多的問題, 有時候是缺錢所導致的問題, 有時候是缺乏資源 和社會資本所導致的問題, 它們深刻影響著我的生活。
If you had looked at my life when I was 14 years old and said, "Well, what's going to happen to this kid?" you would have concluded that I would have struggled with what academics call upward mobility. So upward mobility is an abstract term, but it strikes at something that's very core at the heart of the American Dream. It's the sense, and it measures whether kids like me who grow up in poor communities are going to live a better life, whether they're going to have a chance to live a materially better existence, or whether they're going to stay in the circumstances where they came from. And one of the things we've learned, unfortunately, is that upward mobility isn't as high as we'd like it to be in this country, and interestingly, it's very geographically distributed. So take Utah, for instance. In Utah a poor kid is actually doing OK, very likely to live their share and their part in the American Dream. But if you think of where I'm from, in the South, in Appalachia, in southern Ohio, it's very unlikely that kids like that will rise. The American Dream in those parts of the country is in a very real sense just a dream.
如果你能看到我 14 歲時的生活, 並說:「好吧,將來會有什麼 發生到這孩子身上呢?」 你會總結道我會為 學術上稱為向上社會流動而鬥爭。 向上社會流動是一個 很抽象的詞語, 但是它直擊了 美國夢的中心。 它是一種觀念, 而且它衡量著像我這樣的孩子, 成長在貧困地區的孩子 是否能過更好的生活, 他們是否有機會 過上物質更豐富的生活, 還是他們會繼續停留在 原有的狀況中。 我們學到的一件事情, 很不幸地, 就是我們國家的向上社會流動性 並沒有達到我們想要它達到的高度, 並且有趣的是,它是有地理分佈的。 舉猶他州作為一個例子。 在猶他州,窮孩子其實還不錯, 很有可能在美國夢中 享受自己的份額和角色。 但如果你想想我的故鄉, 在南方,在阿帕拉契, 在俄亥俄南部, 這樣的孩子是不大可能往上爬的。 美國夢對於這個部分地區來說 也真的僅僅是一個夢而已。
So why is that happening? So one reason is obviously economic or structural. So you think of these areas. They're beset by these terrible economic trends, built around industries like coal and steel that make it harder for folks to get ahead. That's certainly one problem. There's also the problem of brain drain, where the really talented people, because they can't find high-skilled work at home, end up moving elsewhere, so they don't build a business or non-profit where they're from, they end up going elsewhere and taking their talents with them. There are failing schools in a lot of these communities, failing to give kids the educational leg up that really makes it possible for kids to have opportunities later in life. These things are all important. I don't mean to discount these structural barriers. But when I look back at my life and my community, something else was going on, something else mattered. It's difficult to quantify, but it was no less real.
所以為什麼會發生那樣的事情呢? 經濟或結構是一個很明顯的原因。 你試想這些地方。 它們被糟糕的經濟趨勢所困擾, 建立在煤炭和鋼鐵之類的工業當中, 使得當地人們很難向前進。 這絕對是一個問題。 還有一個問題是人才外流, 在那裡有才華的人們, 因為無法在故鄉找到高技能的工作, 最終遷移到了別的地方, 他們沒有在故鄉建立 商業或者非營利的組織, 他們最終帶著他們的才華 離開去了別的地方。 這些社區當中有很多失敗的學校, 沒能夠給孩子提供教育上的幫助, 使得他們真的能夠 在將來的人生中獲得機會。 這些東西都非常的重要。 我並不是存心要貶損 這些結構上的障礙。 但是當我回顧我的人生 還有我的故鄉, 有別的事情正在發生, 重要的事情。 它無法用數量來顯示, 但是它是無比真實的。
So for starters, there was a very real sense of hopelessness in the community that I grew up in. There was a sense that kids had that their choices didn't matter. No matter what happened, no matter how hard they worked, no matter how hard they tried to get ahead, nothing good would happen. So that's a tough feeling to grow up around. That's a tough mindset to penetrate, and it leads sometimes to very conspiratorial places. So let's just take one political issue that's pretty hot, affirmative action. So depending on your politics, you might think that affirmative action is either a wise or an unwise way to promote diversity in the workplace or the classroom. But if you grow up in an area like this, you see affirmative action as a tool to hold people like you back. That's especially true if you're a member of the white working class. You see it as something that isn't just about good or bad policy. You see it as something that's actively conspiring, where people with political and financial power are working against you. And there are a lot of ways that you see that conspiracy against you -- perceived, real, but it's there, and it warps expectations.
首先,一股真實的無助感 充斥在我成長的地方。 那是一種孩子們認為 他們的選擇毫不重要的感覺。 無論有什麼發生, 無論他們有多用功, 無論他們怎麼努力向前進, 始終得不到好結果。 所以那是成長中一種艱難的感覺。 那是一種深入人心的艱難心態, 並且有時候它會 導致一些陰謀論的產生。 就舉一個相當 熱門的政治話題作為例子, 平權法案。 根據你的政治觀點, 你也許會視平權法案為 一種明智的或不明智的方法, 以促進工作場所 或者是教室內的多樣性。 但是如果你成長在這些地方, 你會視平權法案為一種 抑制同類的工具。 如果你是白人工人階級的一員, 這種感覺會尤其真實。 你不僅僅把它視為 一種好的或者不好的政策, 你把它視為一種強有力的合謀, 是那些擁有政治和財政權力的人 在妨礙著你。 並且你會通過很多方式 看到這種陰謀對你的妨礙— 感受到,真實的,它就在那裡, 並扭曲了你的期望。
So if you think about what do you do when you grow up in that world, you can respond in a couple of ways. One, you can say, "I'm not going to work hard, because no matter how hard I work, it's not going to matter." Another thing you might do is say, "Well, I'm not going to go after the traditional markers of success, like a university education or a prestigious job, because the people who care about those things are unlike me. They're never going to let me in." When I got admitted to Yale, a family member asked me if I had pretended to be a liberal to get by the admissions committee. Seriously. And it's obviously not the case that there was a liberal box to check on the application, but it speaks to a very real insecurity in these places that you have to pretend to be somebody you're not to get past these various social barriers. It's a very significant problem.
所以當你在那種世界中成長, 如果你思考一下你要做什麼, 你可以有幾種反應。 一種是,你可以說: 「我並不打算去努力奮鬥, 因為不管我怎麼努力,都沒有用。」 另一種你會做的就是說: 「好吧,我不會去追求 那些傳統的成功標誌, 例如大學教育或者受人尊重的工作, 因為在乎這些東西的人 和我並不一樣。 他們也永遠不會讓我加入他們。」 當我被耶魯錄取的時候, 我的家人問我 我是否裝成自由派 以獲得錄取委員會的認可。 說真的。 當然不是這樣, 申請表中並不存在著 自由派這個選項框, 但這證實了這些地方 存在著一種很真實的不安全感, 就是你必須假裝成另外一個人, 才能去越過各種各樣的社會障礙。 這是一個很重大的問題。
Even if you don't give in to that hopelessness, even if you think, let's say, that your choices matter and you want to make the good choices, you want to do better for yourself and for your family, it's sometimes hard to even know what those choices are when you grow up in a community like I did. I didn't know, for example, that you had to go to law school to be a lawyer. I didn't know that elite universities, as research consistently tells us, are cheaper for low-income kids because these universities have bigger endowments, can offer more generous financial aid. I remember I learned this when I got the financial aid letter from Yale for myself, tens of thousands of dollars in need-based aid, which is a term I had never heard before. But I turned to my aunt when I got that letter and said, "You know, I think this just means that for the first time in my life, being poor has paid really well."
即使你不對絕望屈服, 即使你認為,比如說, 你的選擇很要緊, 而且你想要做出好的選擇, 你想要為了自己、 為了家人做得更好, 有時候你很難知道到底有哪些選擇, 尤其當你成長在 我成長的這種社區中。 我不知道,舉例子, 你需要去法學院才能成為一名律師。 我不知道那些精英學校, 就如研究一貫地告訴我們, 對低收入家庭的孩子會更加便宜, 因為這些大學擁有 比別的學校更大的捐款, 能夠提供更加慷慨的助學金。 我記得我學到這個, 是在我收到耶魯的一封助學金信, 數萬美元的助學金, 是一個我從未聽過的詞語。 但是在我收到那封信後, 我去找了我的阿姨並和她說: 「你知道嗎,我覺得這代表著 這是我有生以來第一次 因為貧窮而得到了很好的補償。」
So I didn't have access to that information because the social networks around me didn't have access to that information. I learned from my community how to shoot a gun, how to shoot it well. I learned how to make a damn good biscuit recipe. The trick, by the way, is frozen butter, not warm butter. But I didn't learn how to get ahead. I didn't learn how to make the good decisions about education and opportunity that you need to make to actually have a chance in this 21st century knowledge economy. Economists call the value that we gain from our informal networks, from our friends and colleagues and family "social capital." The social capital that I had wasn't built for 21st century America, and it showed.
所以在過去我無法獲得那種情報, 因為我周圍的社交網絡 無法獲得那種情報。 我從我的社區裡學會了怎麼用槍, 怎樣才算用得好。 我學會了如何烤超棒小麵包的食譜。 順便一提,它的竅門就是 要用冷凍奶油,不是溫奶油。 但是我沒有學到怎麼去向前進。 我沒有學到怎麼為 教育和機會作出好的決定, 你需要做這樣的決定, 才能在 21 世紀 知識經濟中享有機會。 經濟學家把來源於 非正式的人際關係網絡, 來自我們的朋友、同事和家人的 價值觀稱為「社會資本」。 我過去所擁有的社會資本 並不是為了 21 世紀而構建的, 而它也顯示了出來。
There's something else that's really important that's going on that our community doesn't like to talk about, but it's very real. Working-class kids are much more likely to face what's called adverse childhood experiences, which is just a fancy word for childhood trauma: getting hit or yelled at, put down by a parent repeatedly, watching someone hit or beat your parent, watching someone do drugs or abuse alcohol. These are all instances of childhood trauma, and they're pretty commonplace in my family. Importantly, they're not just commonplace in my family right now. They're also multigenerational. So my grandparents, the very first time that they had kids, they expected that they were going to raise them in a way that was uniquely good. They were middle class, they were able to earn a good wage in a steel mill. But what ended up happening is that they exposed their kids to a lot of the childhood trauma that had gone back many generations. My mom was 12 when she saw my grandma set my grandfather on fire. His crime was that he came home drunk after she told him, "If you come home drunk, I'm gonna kill you." And she tried to do it. Think about the way that that affects a child's mind.
另外還有一件真的很重要的事情, 它是我們的社區不願提及的, 但卻是真實的。 工人階級的孩子更有可能 會遭遇到所謂的童年不良經歷, 它其實就是童年創傷 好聽點的代名詞: 經常性地被父母毆打、吼叫和貶低, 看著別人打或揍自己的父母, 看著別人吸毒或者酗酒。 這些都是童年創傷的例子, 而且在我家是相當常見的事情。 重要的是,這不僅僅是 「現在」在我家常見而已。 這還是多世代的。 所以我的祖父母, 在他們最初有孩子的時候, 他們期待用另外一種方式 撫養他們的孩子, 一種絕佳的方式。 他們是中產階級, 他們有能力在煉鋼廠 賺取不錯的工資。 但是最終發生的是 他們讓孩子遭受許多童年創傷, 一些上至多代的創傷。 我母親 12 歲的時候看到了 我的外婆要燒我的外公, 他的罪過在於他醉醺醺地回家 , 而她告訴過他: 「如果你醉著回來,我會殺了你。」 而她也真的試著做了。 試想一下這種方式 對孩子心靈造成的影響。
And we think of these things as especially rare, but a study by the Wisconsin Children's Trust Fund found that 40 percent of low-income kids face multiple instances of childhood trauma, compared to only 29 percent for upper-income kids. And think about what that really means. If you're a low-income kid, almost half of you face multiple instances of childhood trauma. This is not an isolated problem. This is a very significant issue.
我們認為這些事情是格外罕見的, 但是威斯康辛州 兒童信託基金的研究發現, 40% 的低收入家庭孩子 會面對各種各樣的童年創傷, 而僅有 20% 的高收入 家庭孩子會這樣。 想想那意味著什麼。 如果你們是低收入家庭的孩子, 那在座差不多有近半的人 會經歷各種各樣的童年創傷。 這不是一個單獨的問題。 這是一個重大的議題。
We know what happens to the kids who experience that life. They're more likely to do drugs, more likely to go to jail, more likely to drop out of high school, and most importantly, they're more likely to do to their children what their parents did to them. This trauma, this chaos in the home, is our culture's very worst gift to our children, and it's a gift that keeps on giving.
我們知道經歷那種生活的 孩子身上會發生什麼。 他們很有可能會吸毒, 很有可能會入獄, 很有可能會輟學, 還有最重要的, 他們很有可能會對自己的孩子 做出他們父母當初對他們做的事情。 這創傷,這家裡的混亂, 是我們的文化送給我們的孩子 一份最糟糕的禮物, 一份會一直送下去的禮物。
So you combine all that, the hopelessness, the despair, the cynicism about the future, the childhood trauma, the low social capital, and you begin to understand why me, at the age of 14, was ready to become just another statistic, another kid who failed to beat the odds.
所以當你結合了所有的這些, 無助,失望, 對未來的懷疑, 童年創傷, 低社會資本, 你開始明白為什麼我, 在 14 歲的年紀 已經預備著成為另一項統計數據, 另一個沒能夠戰勝困難的孩子。
But something unexpected happened. I did beat the odds. Things turned up for me. I graduated from high school, from college, I went to law school, and I have a pretty good job now. So what happened?
但預想不到的事情發生了。 我的確戰勝了困難。 好事情都出現在我面前了。 我從高中畢業、從大學畢業、 我去了法學院, 我現在擁有很好的工作。 所以發生了什麼事情呢?
Well, one thing that happened is that my grandparents, the same grandparents of setting someone on fire fame, they really shaped up by the time I came around. They provided me a stable home, a stable family. They made sure that when my parents weren't able to do the things that kids need, they stepped in and filled that role. My grandma especially did two things that really matter. One, she provided that peaceful home that allowed me to focus on homework and the things that kids should be focused on. But she was also this incredibly perceptive woman, despite not even having a middle school education. She recognized the message that my community had for me, that my choices didn't matter, that the deck was stacked against me. She once told me, "JD, never be like those losers who think the deck is stacked against them. You can do anything you want to."
其中一項是我的祖父母, 就是那對差點縱火燒人的祖父母, 我出生的時候 他們的關係進展得不錯。 他們提供給我一個安穩的家園, 一個安穩的家庭。 他們確保了 在我的父母無法滿足孩子的需求時, 他們會介入並且填補那個角色。 我的祖母做了兩件尤其重要的事情。 一件是,她給我一個寧靜的家, 讓我能夠把注意力集中在作業, 和孩子應該集中精神 做的其他事情上。 她是一位擁有驚人洞察力的女人, 儘管她甚至沒有中學教育經歷。 她認識到我所在的社區 傳遞給我的訊息, 那種我的選擇並不重要, 我的處境很不利的訊息。 她曾經告訴我: 「JD,永遠不要像那些失敗者 一樣認為自己的處境很不利。 你可以做任何你想做的事情。」
And yet she recognized that life wasn't fair. It's hard to strike that balance, to tell a kid that life isn't fair, but also recognize and enforce in them the reality that their choices matter. But mamaw was able to strike that balance.
然而她也認識到生活並不是公平的。 我們很難取得一種平衡, 既告訴孩子生活是不公平的, 又要讓他們認識並做到 選擇的確很重要的現實。 但是外婆能夠取得那種平衡。
The other thing that really helped was the United States Marine Corps. So we think of the Marine Corps as a military outfit, and of course it is, but for me, the US Marine Corps was a four-year crash course in character education. It taught me how to make a bed, how to do laundry, how to wake up early, how to manage my finances. These are things my community didn't teach me. I remember when I went to go buy a car for the very first time, I was offered a dealer's low, low interest rate of 21.9 percent, and I was ready to sign on the dotted line. But I didn't take that deal, because I went and took it to my officer who told me, "Stop being an idiot, go to the local credit union, and get a better deal." And so that's what I did. But without the Marine Corps, I would have never had access to that knowledge. I would have had a financial calamity, frankly.
另外一件很有幫助的事情是 美國海軍陸戰隊。 我們把海軍陸戰隊視為 一個軍事機構,當然它的確是的, 但是對我來說,美國海軍陸戰隊 是四年的品格教育速成班。 它教會我怎麼去整理床鋪, 怎麼去洗衣服, 怎麼早起,怎麼理財。 這些都是我的社區沒有教我的事情。 我記得當我第一次去買車的時候, 我從經銷商那裡拿到了 21.9% 「很低很低」的利率, 我當時也正準備著在虛線處簽名。 但是我沒有接受那筆交易, 因為我把它帶到了我的長官那裡, 他告訴我:「別再傻了, 去當地的信用合作社 去尋求一筆更實惠的交易吧。」 而那就是我後來所做的。 沒有海軍陸戰隊的話, 我永遠不會獲得那樣的知識。 我獲得的會是,坦白說, 一場財務災難。
The last thing I want to say is that I had a lot of good fortune in the mentors and people who have played an important role in my life. From the Marines, from Ohio State, from Yale, from other places, people have really stepped in and ensured that they filled that social capital gap that it was pretty obvious, apparently, that I had. That comes from good fortune, but a lot of children aren't going to have that good fortune, and I think that raises really important questions for all of us about how we're going to change that. We need to ask questions about how we're going to give low-income kids who come from a broken home access to a loving home. We need to ask questions about how we're going to teach low-income parents how to better interact with their children, with their partners. We need to ask questions about how we give social capital, mentorship to low-income kids who don't have it. We need to think about how we teach working class children about not just hard skills, like reading, mathematics, but also soft skills, like conflict resolution and financial management.
最後我想說的是 我獲得了很多的好運氣, 從我的導師和一些人身上, 一些在我生命中 扮演了重要角色的人得到。 他們來自海軍陸戰隊, 來自俄亥俄州,來自耶魯, 來自其它地方, 這些人走進了我的生活 並確保自己填補了 我的社會資本中的缺口, 那個在我過去生活中 很明顯的一個缺口。 那是因為好運, 但是有很多的孩子沒有那種好運, 而我認為這給我們 所有人提出了重要的問題, 我們如何去改變那種狀況。 我們需要提問, 我們怎麼給低收入家庭的孩子 提供一條途徑,讓他們 從破碎的家走到充滿愛的家? 我們需要提問, 我們如何去教育低收入的父母們 怎麼跟孩子, 跟他們的伴侶以更好的方式交流? 我們需要提問, 我們怎麼提供社會資本 還有導師,給沒有這些的 低收入家庭的孩子? 我們需要問怎麼 教育工人階級的孩子? 不僅僅硬技能, 像閱讀、數學, 還有軟技能, 像解決衝突和財務管理。
Now, I don't have all of the answers. I don't know all of the solutions to this problem, but I do know this: in southern Ohio right now, there's a kid who is anxiously awaiting their dad, wondering whether, when he comes through the door, he'll walk calmly or stumble drunkly. There's a kid whose mom sticks a needle in her arm and passes out, and he doesn't know why she doesn't cook him dinner, and he goes to bed hungry that night. There's a kid who has no hope for the future but desperately wants to live a better life. They just want somebody to show it to them. I don't have all the answers, but I know that unless our society starts asking better questions about why I was so lucky and about how to get that luck to more of our communities and our country's children, we're going to continue to have a very significant problem.
現在,我並沒有所有的答案。 我不知道這個問題的 所有解決方法, 但是我知道的是, 現在在俄亥俄南部, 有一個孩子很焦急地 等待著他的父親, 想知道是否,當他進門的時候, 是平靜地走著 還是醉醺醺地踉蹌著。 有一個孩子 他的母親把針刺入自己的手臂 並失去知覺, 而且他不知道 為什麼她不給他做晚餐, 那天晚上他餓著肚子睡覺。 有一個孩子對自己的將來不抱希望, 但卻迫切地想要過上更好的生活。 他們只想有人能夠教他們怎麼做。 我沒有所有的答案, 但是我知道除非我們的社會 開始提出更好的問題, 問為什麼我是如此幸運, 還有怎麼把那種幸運 送給更多我們社區 和我們國家的孩子, 我們將會繼續有著 一個很重大的問題。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)