罗伯特·肯尼迪 《山巅之城》演讲

1965年4月28日，罗伯特·肯尼迪参议员在伊利诺伊州芝加哥市的全国基督犹太教徒理事会上发表了本篇演说，呼吁人们关注黑人和穷人的悲惨生活，帮助他们改善生活境遇，并将美国比作万众瞩目的“山巅之城”，必须要为世人做出表率。

他的兄长约翰·肯尼迪于1961年1月9日，曾在马萨诸塞州波士顿市发表过同名演讲，可点击查看：肯尼迪 《山巅之城》演讲

The unfinished business at hand is the most difficult and dangerous that we have ever faced. Today’s problems of intolerance are harder than yesterday’s; tomorrow’s will be harder still.

我们当前正面临着空前艰巨的危机。现在，人们的思想愈加狭隘；且这种趋势还会持续下去。

One reason for this difficulty is that racial intolerance is harder to combat than religious intolerance. Most people, after all, have to be told whether the man they are talking to is a Catholic, or Protestant, or Jewish; none need instruction on which are the Negroes or the Puerto Ricans. Most of us can walk on each other’s street without arousing comment. If our children go to school together, few of us will know what religion their classmates practice.

这种情况出现的其中一个原因，就是种族问题，种族问题上的偏见比宗教问题要更加严重。毕竟你需要先认识一个人，才能知道他是天主教徒，还是新教徒，还是犹太教徒；但是一个人是不是黑人，是不是波多黎各人，一眼便能看出。我们中多数人走到街上，都不会招致他人议论。我们的孩子一起上学，也很少知道他们的同学信仰什么宗教。

But if a Negro walks down a quiet suburban street, or Negro children attend a school, all know it immediately. Simply by being more visible, the Negro is more vulnerable to prejudice…

但是当黑人走到街道上，当黑人孩子去上学，大家立刻就会注意到他们。因为他们不可能掩盖住自己的肤色，黑人更容易受到偏见伤害...

The Negro’s heightened visibility makes easier another kind of prejudice and intolerance: prejudice agains the poor, intolerance for the unsuccessful. Because Negroes are twice as likely to be unemployed, because their children are three times as likely to be slow in school, even to the point of mental retardation—because of these things, prejudice against Negroes often masquerades as adherence to principles of individual freedom and responsibility. “This is a free country,” says the new voice of intolerance. “They have the same chance as anyone else. If they don’t take advantage of what we offer, that’s their responsibility.” And these voices then use the continued extent of Negro poverty, Negro unemployment, and lack of education as an excuse for not doing more…

因为人们可以用肉眼识别出黑人，所以他们还更容易遭到另一种偏见和险隘思想的伤害：歧视他们贫穷，歧视他们失败。因为黑人的失业概率是普通人的两倍，黑人孩子跟不上学习进度，甚至被诊断为智力障碍的概率是普通孩子的三倍——因此，常常会有人假借个人自由、个人负责的名义歧视黑人。这些人说，“我们生活在自由国家。大家的机会是平等的。如果他们自己不珍惜机会，那他们当然需要自己负责”。经常有人有这种话术，说黑人穷、黑人失业、黑人受教育程度低，都是因为他们自己不够努力...

The brutalities of Selma, and its denial of elementary rights of citizenship, were condemned throughout the North; and thousands of white northerners went there to march to Montgomery.

塞尔玛悲剧之所以发生，就是因为黑人连基本人权都没有，北方对此普遍表示谴责；成千上万名北方白人前往塞尔玛，向蒙哥马利市示威游行。

But the many brutalities of the North receive no such attention. I have been in tenements in Harlem in the past several weeks where the smell of rats was so strong that it was difficult to stay there for five minutes, and while children slept with lights turned on their feet to discourage attacks…

但却无人在乎北方所发生的悲剧。过去几周，我访问了哈林区的贫民窟，那里到处都是老鼠粪便的味道，我在那里连五分钟都待不下去，而很多孩子却住在那里，晚上睡觉时还得特意留一盏灯照着脚，否则容易被老鼠咬...

Thousands do not flock to Harlem to protest these conditions—much less to change them…

然而并没有成千上万人涌入哈林区，为底层人民的生活条件发声——不要说以实际行动去改善了...

Action at home requires change in our own way of life. And—in a world already beset by change—to people whose lives are tragically insecure—further unsettling change is unacceptable…

我们想要在国内采取行动，就需要先改变生活方式。在这个飞速变化的世界——看着这些生活水平令人发指的人民——我们绝不能让他们再受伤害...

It is not enough, in these circumstances, to preach for fair employment, or even to pass a fair employment law. If there are not enough jobs for all, the elimination of Negro unemployment and poverty will be impossible.

当下，仅仅高喊平等就业的口号已经不够了，仅仅通过公平就业的法律已经不够了。如果我们没有充足的就业岗位，就不可能帮助黑人群体摆脱失业和贫穷。

Another example: We all know the importance of education for our children, and how severe is the competition for admission to college.

另一个问题：我们都关注孩子的教育，也知道现在大学有多难考。

It is not enough to tell a worried parent that prejudice against Negroes is undemocratic: if he hears that desegregation will handicap his child’s education, he will fight it almost to death.

我们单纯地告诉父母，歧视黑人不符合民主原则，是无法消除他们的担忧的：因为如果他认为，解除种族隔离会葬送自己孩子的学业，他哪怕死也要支持隔离。

If we wish to achieve peaceful desegregation of the schools—if we wish to improve the quality of education afforded Negro children-we must improve the quality of education throughout our schools, and assure every qualified child the chance for higher education…

如果我们想通过和平方式饥废除学校的种族隔离制度——如果我们希望让黑人孩子上得起的学校有更好的教育质量——我们就必须改善全国的教育质量，确保每一个努力学习的孩子都有机会接受高等教育...

Education, while vital, st no longer enough…We have gone as far as goodwill and even good legislation will take us, and…we must now act to bring about changes in the conditions which breed and reinforce intolerance and discrimination.

教育固然很重要，但是只有教育还不够...我们在道德方面和法律方面已经江郎才尽了，所以...现在我们必须靠行动来将狭隘和歧视连根拔起。

And if this is true for those who practice discrimination, it is even more true for its victims. If we are to meet our responsibilities—to them, to ourselves, to all our children—we must address ourselves to the difficult and dangerous problems of the urban North…

我们的目标直指歧视者，更旨在保护被歧视者。只有我们不遗余力地尝试解决北方城市的危机和难题——我们才不会亵渎对弱势群体、对我们自己。对我们子孙的责任。

To solve these problems, to ease this frustration, it is not enough to teach brotherhood in the schools; we must assure that they educate each child to the limit of his capacity. It is not enough, in this technological society, to hire qualified Negroes, nor even try to raise the number that are qualified; we must create new jobs for all that can work, regardless of their level of skill…

仅仅靠学校教育四海人类情同手足，无法解决这些问题，无法平息民众的不满；我们必须要让每个孩子明白自己能力的局限性。在这个技术飞速发展的社会，我们不能只雇佣掌握一定技能的黑人工人，帮助更多黑人工人学习技能也是不够的；我们必须创造更多就业岗位，让一切有工作能力的公民都工者有其岗，无论他们有没有专业技能...

These are not easy things to do. But the fulfillment of American ideals has never been easy, if only because they are so high.

我们要走的路还很长。但实现美国理想从来都不是易事，因为我们的理想一向远大。

Three hundred and thirty—four years ago, on a ship sailing to New England, John Winthrop gathered the Puritans on the deck and said, “We must consider that we shall be as a city, set upon a hill, and the eyes of all people will be upon us.”

334年前，一艘航向新英格兰的船上，约翰·温斯罗普船长将船上的清教徒召集到甲板上，告诉他们，“我们必须假设，我们即将建立的是一座山巅之城，全世界的眼睛都注视着我们。”

The Puritans were in the middle of the Atlantic when they shared that vision of the city upon the hill. We are still in the middle of our journey. As long as millions of Americans suffer indignity and punishment, and deprivation because of their color, their poverty, and our inaction, we know that we are only halfway to our goal—only halfway to the city upon the hill, a city in which we can all take pride, a city and a country in which the promises of our Constitution are at last fulfilled for all Americans.

当这些清教徒提出“山巅之城”的理想时，他们跨越大西洋的路途尚未结束。而我们的路途也尚未结束。只要这成百上千万美国人民还遭到侮辱和歧视，我们就永远抵达不了完成目标——我们就永远抵达不了山巅之城，我们应该全力以赴地前进，建成那座让我们感到骄傲的山巅之城，为全体美国人民兑现我们宪法中的承诺，把美国建成一座山巅之城。

声明：本人仅按照原文翻译内容，演讲内容不代表本人观点。此专栏仅供历史和英语交流学习使用，任何读者皆可引用本人的译本。

希望来学习英语的观众明白：我觉得这些专栏的主要精华在于英语原文，而并非我的译本，我的译本很大程度上只是供来学习历史的观众使用的。本人的英语水平一般，翻译得并不会多么精彩，只能在你看不懂时来帮助你了解这些演讲内容最基本的意思，而且翻译时难免会出现差错，切勿直接完全以我的译本为标准。如发现有翻译错误或者歧义内容，欢迎指正。

希望来学习历史的观众明白：任何历史人物都有一定的局限性，随着时代发展，很多观点看法可能已经不再适用今天的世界，西方的观点也不一定适用于我们。通过了解这些演讲，仅可给我们提供一个更全面了解过去和世界的渠道。我们可以从优秀的历史、当代人物身上学到很多，但是请保持独立思考，理性看待演讲内容，切勿全信或将其奉为真理。