THE END of summer in Chicago is near and the hope is that with it will come an end to–or at least a slowing of–the tragic increase in the number of murders and gun violence the city has seen over the past year.
芝加哥的夏天即将结束，希望随之而来的是这个城市在过去一年中发生的悲剧的谋杀和枪支暴力事件数量的的增加将会结束—或者至少是减缓增加。
In the last year, murders in the city have jumped by almost 40 percent, making Chicago one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Chicago’s murder rate is quadruple that of New York City and double that of Los Angeles.
在过去的一年里，该市的谋杀案增加了近40％，使芝加哥成为美国最危险的城市之一。 芝加哥的谋杀率是纽约市的四倍，是洛杉矶的两倍。
One recent comparison dramatized the danger in Chicago by pointing out that more people have been killed in Chicago this year than the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan during the same period. As of mid-June, 228 Chicagoans had been killed–compared to 144 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for the year to that point.
最近的一项比较戏剧化了芝加哥的危险程度，指出今年在芝加哥被杀死的人数多于同期在阿富汗遇害的美军人数。 截至6月中旬，已有228名芝加哥人被杀—相比之下，到目前为止，在阿富汗有144名美军被杀。
That is true over the past decade as well. Since 2001, 2,000 troops have been killed Afghanistan but more than 5,000 Chicagoans have been killed by gun violence in the same time span.
在过去十年也是如此。 自2001年以来，已有2,000名士兵在阿富汗被杀，但同一时期内有超过5,000名芝加哥人被枪支暴力杀害。
The escalating violence and murder in Chicago streets has become an embarrassing national news story for the city powers that be. After all, Chicago is the home of President Barack Obama, and powerful Democratic Party operative Rahm Emanuel is the city’s current mayor.
芝加哥街头的不断升级的暴力和谋杀已经成为一个令人尴尬的全国性新闻故事。 毕竟，芝加哥是美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马的故乡，强大的民主党执政官Rahm Emanuel是该市现任市长。
The bad press has prompted city officials to try and “get in front” of growing murder statistics and the macabre body count that the local newspapers engage in every Monday morning after neighborhood shootings spike over the weekends.
糟糕的媒体报道促使市政官员们试图“抓住”不断增加的谋杀统计数据和当地报纸每周一早上报道的在周末飙升的社区枪击事件的可怕的参与人数。
DESPITE THE media focus on the numbers of people killed, there is little in the way of serious discussions on how to address the violence that is shattering some Chicago neighborhoods. Perhaps if the violence were taking the lives of white children, there would be much more of an urgency to end the carnage. Instead, it is young African American and Latino bodies that are fueling Chicago growing murder rate.
尽管媒体关注的是被杀的人数，但关于如何解决撕裂芝加哥的一些社区的暴力行为的认真讨论几乎没有。 也许如果暴力夺走了白人儿童的生命，那么结束这场大屠杀的紧迫性就会更强。 相反，正是年轻的非裔美国人和拉美裔美国人正在助长芝加哥的不断增长的谋杀率。
More than half of the murders in the city happen in a handful of neighborhoods that are Black or Latino–and it is the kids in those communities that are paying the price with their lives. Since 2008, more than 530 young African Americans and Latinos have been killed, more than any other city in the country. Nearly 80 percent of youth homicides occurred in 22 Black or Latino communities on the city’s South, Southwest and West Sides.
超过一半的在这个城市发生的谋杀事件发生在少数几个黑人或拉美裔街区——这些街区的孩子们正在付出生命的代价。 自2008年以来，已有超过530名年轻的非洲裔美国人和拉美裔美国人被杀，超过美国其他任何城市。近80％的青少年凶杀案发生在该市南部，西南部和西部的22个黑人或拉美裔街区。
The daily tragedy of children and teenagers being murdered on the streets of the nation’s third-largest (and third most segregated) city have been reduced to the media fueled moniker of so-called “Black-on-Black crime.” The description of violence in Black communities and neighborhoods as “Black-on-Black” crime is a way pathologizing violence that is not actually intrinsic to the race or ethnicity of those engaged in it.
在这个国家第三大（和第三大隔离的）城市的街头被谋杀的儿童和青少年的日常悲剧已被沦为媒体推动的所谓“黑人对黑人的犯罪”的绰号。 将黑人街区和街区中的暴力描述为“黑人对黑人的”犯罪，是污名化暴力的一种方式，这种暴力实际上并不是参与其中的人的种族或民族所固有的。
In the deeply segregated U.S., most crime happens between people of the same race. Most crimes experienced by whites are committed by whites, but there is no such description as “white-on-white” crime. In other words, when a white person commits a crime, it is not seen as connected to that person’s race–it is seen as an act committed by an individual.
在被深深隔离的美国，大多数犯罪发生在同一种族的人之间。 白人经历的大多数犯罪都是由白人犯下的，但没有“白人对白人的”犯罪这样的描述。 换句话说，当一个白人犯罪时，它并不被视为与该人的种族有关—它被视为个人所做的行为。
Simplistic explanations for serious issues help to produce simplistic solutions that make for good sound bites but do nothing to actually address the real problem of crime and violence in poor and working-class communities of color. For example, a recent report made it clear that these murders are concentrated in the poorest and most-segregated neighborhoods in the city.
对严重问题的简化解释有助于产生简化的解决方案，这些解决方案可以产生良好的声音效果，但却无法真正解决贫困和工人阶级社区中真正的犯罪和暴力问题。例如，最近的一份报告清楚地表明，这些谋杀案集中在该市最贫穷的和最隔离的街区。
In fact, it would be more descriptive and accurate to describe the wave of violence in Chicago as “poverty-on-poverty” or “segregated-on-segregated” crime because that is the actual source of the tensions that have boiled over and led to the heightened murder rate in the city.
事实上，将芝加哥的暴力浪潮描述为“贫困对贫困”或“被隔离对被隔离”的犯罪将更具描述性和准确性，因为这是导致这个城市的紧张局势爆发和谋杀率上升的实际根源。
While Rahm Emanuel recently described the Chicago economy as “booming,” in the two-thirds of the city that is predominantly Black and Brown, there is an economic depression.
尽管Rahm Emanuel最近将芝加哥经济描述为“蓬勃发展”，但在该市三分之二的地区，主要是黑人和棕色人种，处在经济萧条中。
Over 30 percent of African Americans in Chicago live in poverty and more than 20 percent are out of work. More than 30 percent of Latinos in Chicago live in poverty. In the face of such obvious facts, one would assume that jobs and anti-poverty strategies would be a part of any attempt to curb the violence in these communities. Instead, repression and moralism are deployed as the only responses to what actually is a crisis of racism and poverty
超过30％的芝加哥非洲裔美国人生活在贫困中，以及超过20％的人失业。芝加哥的超过30％的拉美裔美国人生活在贫困中。 面对这些明显的事实，一个人会认为就业和反贫困策略将成为任何遏制这些社区暴力的企图的一部分。 恰恰相反，压制和道德主义是对实际上是种族主义和贫困造成的危机的唯一反应。
THE POLICE have pledged to flood the streets with police, conduct mass arrests and revoke bond for misdemeanor offenses for those they decide are members of gangs. Undoubtedly, this police gimmickry will only compound the existing problem–poverty and unemployment.
警方已承诺用警察淹没街头，进行大规模逮捕并撤销对他们认定为黑帮成员的轻罪保释。 毫无疑问，这种警察噱头只会加剧现有的问题—贫困和失业。
As Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow points out, in the Black neighborhood of North Lawndale, 70 percent of the men aged 18 to 45 have a criminal record–making employment in an already tight market almost an impossibility.
正如Michelle Alexander的《新吉姆克劳》所指出的那样，在North Lawndale的黑人街区，70％的18至45岁的男性有犯罪记录——这使得他们几乎不可能在一个本已紧张的市场中就业。
Where more policing and imprisoning will not suffice, public officials and others have offered up dumbed-down responses to what seem like the more obvious strategies. For example, when President Obama was recently in Chicago for a series of fundraisers, he gave a taped statement commenting on the murders and violence. His solution? “We need better role models…we have to provide stronger role models than the gang-banger on the corner.”
如果更多的警务和监禁是不够的，那么公职人员和其他人就会对看起来更明显的策略提出愚蠢的回应。 例如，当奥巴马总统最近在芝加哥进行一系列筹款活动时，他发表了一份评论谋杀和暴力的录音声明。 他的解决方案？ “我们需要更好的榜样……我们必须提供更强大的榜样，而不是角落里的黑帮。”（说这种屁话，奥巴马不愧是右派啊，呵呵。）
Weeks earlier Emanuel made a similarly vague comment: “It’s not about crime, it’s about values.”
几个星期前，Emanuel发表同样模糊的评论：“这不是关于犯罪，而是关于价值观。”
In a breathtaking display of arrogance and delusion, heir to the multibillion-dollar Pritzker family fortune and charter school mogul Margot Pritzker suggested that the city collect a penny from each citizen “…including children. Let’s use the money toward equipping community centers, security cameras, neighborhood watches. It won’t be enough, but it will help our broken city and show we are serious.”
在令人惊叹的傲慢和妄想的表演中，这位价值数十亿美元的Pritzker家族财产和特许学校大亨mogul Margot Pritzke的继承人建议，该城市向每位公民收取一分钱“……包括儿童。让我们用钱来装备社区中心， 安全摄像头，街区监控。这还不够，但它会帮助我们破碎的城市并显示我们是认真的。“（靠监控来“解决”问题，和共匪一样的思路啊，而且都不肯自己出钱，呵呵。）
Popular Chicago Catholic priest, Father Michael Pfleger, at least, identified what he called, “a perfect storm of unemployment, failing schools and program cutbacks,” but Pfleger also collapsed into patronizing cliché when he suggested as the cure: “Parents have to step up. Neighbors have to step up. Communities have to step up.”
至少，广受欢迎的芝加哥天主教神父Michael Pfleger确认了他所谓的“完美的失业风暴，失败的学校和项目削减”，但当他提出治疗时，Pfleger也陷入了陈词滥调中：“父母必须迈出一步。 邻居必须迈出一步。社区必须卖出一步。“
Moreover, Pfleger invited police chief Garry McCarthy to march with him through a South Side neighborhood as a gesture of solidarity with the police.
此外，Pfleger邀请警察局长Garry McCarthy与他一起行军通过南边街区，作为与警方团结一致的姿态。
In New York City, which has its own crime issues, Obama adviser and talk show host, Rev. Al Sharpton, has suggested that people “occupy the corners” to diffuse flashpoints of tension and stop violence before it starts.
在纽约市有自己的犯罪问题，奥巴马的顾问和脱口秀节目主持人Al Sharpton牧师曾建议人们“占据角落”以分散局势紧张的关键点并在暴力开始前制止暴力。
Dozens of other pundits, politicians and commentators have suggested parents do more, have called on celebrities to speak out against violence and offered many other prescriptions against the violence–except for the painfully obvious.
许多其他权威人士，政治家和评论员都建议父母做得更多，呼吁名人大声反对暴力，并提出许多其他处方来反对暴力—除了痛苦的显而易见的那个。
Where is the demand, just as a starting point, for meaningful jobs in these economically depressed communities, full funding for all public schools, a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and the restoration of budgets for the array of social and welfare services that have made poverty much harsher in the U.S.?
在这些经济萧条的社区为所有公立学校提供全额资金，暂停驱逐和丧失抵押品赎回权，以及恢复提供一系列使得美国的贫困程度更严重的社会和福利服务的预算，这些需求的起点在哪里？
IN THE political age of budget cuts and shrinking government services, politicians of all stripes, and the people who support their agendas, have a vested interest in blaming a “lack of values and morality” for the problems of crime and violence in communities of color. It makes it a “personal” problem and not one produced by a system of economic and racial inequality at its root.
在一个预算削减和政府服务缩减的政治年代，各种各样的政治家和支持他们议程的人都有动机将有色人种社区的犯罪和暴力问题归咎于“缺乏价值观和道德”。它使犯罪成为一个“个人”问题，而不是一个由经济和种族不平等的系统产生的问题。
Crime and violence are not mysterious nor are they diseases; they are the predictable outcomes of the economic violence that provides the ravaging context within which the gun violence and murders are happening in Chicago.
犯罪和暴力不是神秘的，也不是疾病; 它们是经济暴力带来的可预测的结果，经济暴力提供了在芝加哥发生枪支暴力和谋杀的肆虐环境。
When people have no realistic possibility of meaningful employment because of either a criminal record or just the simple absence of jobs, then joining a gang becomes a viable alternative, if not a necessity, for economic survival.
当人们由于犯罪记录或者只是简单因为地缺乏工作而没有实际就业的可能性时，加入黑帮成为经济生存的可行替代方案，如果不是必需的话。
Minority neighborhoods in Chicago have been devastated by budget cuts, unemployment, entrenched poverty and a despondent hopelessness that the future will ever be different.
芝加哥的少数族群街区因预算削减，失业，根深蒂固的贫困以及对未来不会变得不同的沮丧的绝望而受到严重破坏。
Mayor Rahm Emanuel made the distinction between his own kids’ lives of privilege and luxury and those of Chicago’s Black and Brown children when, after an extravagant South American vacation, he quipped to a local newspaper, “Every year, we try to take the kids to a different part of the world to see. When you…grow up…you want to be an Emanuel child. It’s unbelievable.”
Rahm Emanuel市长将他自己孩子的特权和奢侈生活与芝加哥的黑人和棕色儿童的生活区分开来，当在一次奢侈的南美假期后，他在当地一家报纸上开玩笑说：“每年，我们都会尝试带孩子们到世界的另一个角落看。当你……长大……你想成为一个 Emanuel的孩子。这真是令人难以置信。“
Truer words have never been spoken when compared to the poverty and segregation in which most Black and Latino kids in Chicago grow up. In the ghettos of Chicago, public schools are starved of resources and shuttered, desperately needed mental health clinics are shut down and thousands of home and building foreclosures perpetuate an atmosphere of insecurity, anxiety and unpredictability that compounds the tensions that give way to violence.
与芝加哥的大多数成长在贫困和隔离中的黑人和拉丁裔孩子相比，真实的话语从未被说出过。在芝加哥的贫民区，公立学校缺乏资源和被关闭，迫切需要的精神卫生诊所被关闭，成千上万的家庭和建筑处在丧失抵押品赎回权导致的不安全的，焦虑的和不可预测的长期持续的气氛中，加剧了导致暴力的紧张局势。
Violence in poor and working-class communities is a serious issue for those who live there, to be sure. But all too often the “solutions” offered are more police and relying on the racist criminal justice system that has created many of these problems in the first place–or self-blame.
对于那些住在那里的人来说，贫困和工人阶级社区的暴力当然是一个严重的问题。 但是，提供的“解决方案”往往更多是警察，并依赖于种族主义的刑事司法系统，这种系统首先造成了这些问题中的许多问题—或者是自责。
But crime and violence do not exist or take place in a vacuum. Martin Luther King Jr. said more than 40 years ago that the U.S. government was the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world” and that as long as that reality existed, he could not condemn the poorest people who committed violence in this country–because they are the actual victims of American greed, racism and corruption:
但犯罪和暴力不会存在或发生在真空中。40多年前，马丁·路德·金说，美国政府是“世界上最大的暴力传播者”，只要存在这种现实，他就不能谴责在这个国家犯下暴力的最贫穷的人—因为他们是美国的贪婪，种族主义和腐败的实际受害者：
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked–and rightly so–what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today–my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
当我走进那些绝望的，被拒绝和愤怒的年轻人时，我告诉他们莫洛托夫鸡尾酒和步枪不会解决他们的问题。 我一直试图向他们提供最深切的同情，同时坚持我的信念，即通过非暴力行动导致的社会变革是最有意义的。 但他们问—而且是正确的问—越南呢？ 他们问我们自己的国家是不是在使用大量暴力来解决问题，以实现它想要的改变。 他们的问题击中了家里，我知道如果没有首先明确地向当今世界最大的暴力传播者—我自己的政府说话，我再也无法反对贫民区中被压迫者的暴力行为。为了这些男孩们，为了这个政府，为了数十万在我们的暴力事件中颤抖的人，我不能保持沉默。
Poor and working-class communities that suffer violence are looked at as exceptional or aberrations to the “mainstream,” when, in fact, the violence acted out in neighborhoods is only a reflection of the violence that is often glorified and celebrated throughout American politics and culture. From Hollywood bloodbath movies, to the death penalty, to wars and occupations, to the criminal support and subsidization of the genocidal state of Israel, the U.S. ruling class worships at the alter of violence, mass murder and mayhem.
遭受暴力的贫困和工人阶级社区被视为相对“主流”的特殊或异常，事实上，社区中发生的暴力事件是对在整个美国政治和文化中经常被美化和庆祝的暴力事件的反射。从好莱坞的血腥电影到死刑，再到战争和占领，再到对以色列这种种族灭绝国家的犯罪支持和补贴，美国的统治阶级都崇拜暴力，大规模谋杀和混乱的祭坛。
Is it any wonder then that when deep cynicism replaces hope for the future that some act out in a way that is completely consistent with many of the values promoted by those who rule this country: brutality, vengeance and destruction?
当深深的犬儒主义取代对未来的希望时，有些人会以一种与统治这个国家的人所宣扬的许多价值观完全一致的方式行事：残忍，复仇和毁灭，这有什么疑问吗？
Of course, the violence acted out by the oppressed against each other is an expression of powerlessness, desperation and profound social alienation–but it also reflects the absorption and influence of ruling-class mores.
当然，被压迫者互相针对的暴力行为是无能为力，绝望和深刻的社会异化的表现—但它也反映了对统治阶级的习俗的吸收和影响。
The alternative to this is not more police, and it is not debates about morality and values, it is about giving the young people of this country hope that there is a future worth living for. It means not closing their schools, stealing their homes, or brutalizing, arresting and imprisoning them.
替代方案不是更多警察，也不是关于道德和价值观的争论，而是给予这个国家的年轻人希望的一个值得生存的未来。这意味着不要关闭他们的学校，偷窃他们的家园，或者暴力，逮捕和监禁他们。
“Hope,” in this context, is the simple belief that another world, free of racism, poverty and repression is possible. It is a future worth fighting for.
在这种情况下，“希望”是一种简单的信念，即没有种族主义，贫穷和镇压的另一个世界是可能的。 这是一个值得为之战斗的未来。
https://socialistworker.org/2012/08/20/poverty-pulls-the-trigger