The Idea of America (Excerpt)美國新論（節選）

妮科爾·漢娜–瓊斯 季釗晨 孫會軍

My dad always flew an American flag in our front yard. The blue paint on our two-story house was perennially chipping; the fence， or the rail by the stairs， or the front door， existed in a perpetual state of disrepair， but that flag always flew pristine.

My dad was born into a family of sharecroppers on a white plantation in Greenwood， Miss.， where black people bent over cotton from cant-see-in-the-morning to cant-see-at-night， just as their enslaved ancestors had done not long before. The Mississippi of my dads youth was an apartheid state that subjugated its near-majority black population through breathtaking acts of violence. White residents in Mississippi lynched more black people than those in any other state in the country， often for such “crimes” as entering a room occupied by white women， bumping into a white girl or trying to start a sharecroppers union.

So when I was young， that flag outside our home never made sense to me. How could this black man， having seen firsthand the way his country abused black Americans， how it refused to treat us as full citizens， proudly fly its banner？

Like most young people， I thought I understood so much， when in fact I understood so little. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he raised that flag. He knew that our peoples contributions to building the richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible， that the United States simply would not exist without us.

In August 1619， the Jamestown colonists bought 20 to 30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. Those men and women who came ashore on that August day were the beginning of American slavery.

Before the abolishment of the international slave trade， 400，000 enslaved Africans would be sold into America. Those individuals and their descendants transformed the lands to which theyd been brought into some of the most successful colonies in the British Empire. Through backbreaking labor， they cleared the land across the Southeast. They taught the colonists to grow rice. They grew and picked the cotton that at the height of slavery was the nations most valuable commodity， accounting for half of all American exports and 66 percent of the worlds supply. They lugged the heavy wooden tracks of the railroads that crisscrossed the South and that helped take the cotton they picked to the Northern textile mills， fueling the Industrial Revolution.

But it would be historically inaccurate to reduce the contributions of black people to the vast material wealth created by our bondage.

The very first person to die for this country in the American Revolution was a black man who himself was not free. Crispus Attucks was a fugitive from slavery， yet he gave his life for a new nation in which his own people would not enjoy the liberties laid out in the Declaration for another century. In every war this nation has waged since that first one， black Americans have fought—today we are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the United States military.

The shameful paradox of continuing chattel slavery in a nation founded on individual freedom， scholars today assert， led to a hardening of the racial caste system. This ideology， reinforced not just by laws but by racist science and literature， maintained that black people were subhuman， a belief that allowed white Americans to live with their betrayal. While liberty was the inalienable right of the people who would be considered white， enslavement and subjugation became the natural station of people who had any discernible drop of “black” blood.

The Supreme Court enshrined this thinking in the law in its 1857 Dred Scott decision1， ruling that black people， whether enslaved or free， came from a “slave” race. If black people could not ever be citizens， if they were a caste apart from all other humans， then they did not require the rights bestowed by the Constitution， and the “we” in the “We the People”2 was not a lie.

On Aug. 14， 1862， President Abraham Lincoln called a group of five esteemed free black men to the White House for a meeting. The Civil War had been raging for more than a year， and black abolitionists， who had been increasingly pressuring Lincoln to end slavery， must have felt a sense of great anticipation and pride.

The war was not going well for Lincoln. Britain was contemplating whether to intervene on the Confederacys behalf， and Lincoln， unable to draw enough new white volunteers for the war， was forced to reconsider his opposition to allowing black Americans to fight for their own liberation. That August day， as the men arrived at the White House， they were greeted by the towering Lincoln. After exchanging a few niceties， Lincoln got right to it. He informed his guests that he had gotten Congress to appropriate funds to ship black people， once freed， to another country.

You can imagine the heavy silence in that room， as the weight of what the president said momentarily stole the breath of these five black men. It was 243 years to the month since the first of their ancestors had arrived on these shores， before Lincolns family， long before most of the white people insisting that this was not their country. “Without the institution of slavery and the colored race as a basis， the war could not have an existence，” the president told them. “It is better for us both， therefore， to be separated.”

Nearly three years after that White House meeting， Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. By summer， the Civil War was over， and four million black Americans were suddenly free. Contrary to Lincolns view， most were not inclined to leave， agreeing with the sentiment of a resolution against black colonization put forward at a convention of black leaders in New York some decades before：

“This is our home， and this is our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers. ... Here we were born， and here we will die.”

在我們家前院，始終飄揚著一面美國國旗，是爸爸掛上去的。我家兩層小樓外墻涂的藍色面漆年復一年地剝落，無論是籬笆、樓梯的扶手還是前門，都是一副年久失修的模樣，只有那面飄揚的旗子，永遠都是嶄新的。

我的爸爸出生于一戶佃農家庭，生活在密西西比州格林伍德的一個白人種植園。在那兒，黑人就像不久前還遭受奴役的祖輩一樣，彎著腰采摘棉花，天沒亮就開始，夜色沉沉才收工。爸爸年輕時，密西西比州依舊實行種族隔離，以令人窒息的暴力行徑鎮壓著已近多數的黑人。美國哪個州都沒有比密西西比州的白人用私刑處死的黑人多，他們經常宣稱的“罪行”包括黑人闖進一間白人女性居住的屋子、撞到一個白人姑娘或是意圖建立佃農工會等等。

因此，年輕的時候我一直覺得屋外的這面旗子毫無意義。作為一個黑人，爸爸親眼目睹了他的祖國怎樣虐待黑人，怎樣拒把黑人當成享有完整權利的公民，他怎么還能自豪地懸掛著它的旗幟？

我像大部分年輕人一樣，自以為懂得很多，其實幾乎什么也不明白。父親升起那面國旗的時候，他清楚地知道自己在做什么。他知道，我們黑人對這個財富與國力舉世無雙的國家所做出的貢獻是無法抹去的，沒有我們，美國根本不會存在。

1619年8月，詹姆斯敦的殖民地居民從英國海盜那兒買來了二三十個非洲奴隸。這些非洲奴隸上岸的那天，便是美國奴隸制的起點。

在廢除全球性奴隸貿易之前，有40萬非洲奴隸被販賣到了美國。這些黑人和他們的后代將這片他們被迫來到的異鄉改造成大英帝國最為成功的殖民地之一。他們從事著繁重的體力勞動，開墾了美國東南部的土地。他們教會殖民地居民種植水稻。他們種植、采摘棉花;這是美國奴隸制度鼎盛時期最富價值的商品，其出口占全美商品出口的一半，其產出占世界總產出的66%。他們還拖著沉重的木軌，搭建起縱橫交錯的南方鐵路;他們采摘的棉花沿著鐵路運往北方的紡織廠，為工業革命添柴加薪。

但是，如果認為黑人做出的貢獻僅僅包括黑人受到奴役期間所創造的大量物質財富，就并沒有了解歷史的真實全貌。

在美國獨立戰爭中，為這個國家犧牲的第一個人是黑人，可他卻不是一個自由人。他是克里斯珀斯·阿塔克斯，一個逃奴，他為一個新生國家獻出了自己的生命，可在這個國家，他的同胞在往后一個世紀的時間里，依然沒能享受到《獨立宣言》中所描述的自由權。從美國獨立戰爭肇始，這個國家發動的每一場戰爭中，非裔美國人無不在列——如今，我們黑人是美國所有種族中最可能參軍入伍的。

如今的學者確信，一個建立在個人自由基礎上的國家卻繼續實行奴隸制，這個可鄙的悖論導致了種族等級制度的固化。這種意識形態不僅因法律，也因科學與文學種族主義而強化，認定黑人是次等人種。這種觀念縱容了美國白人對自己背離立國理念的行為裝聾作啞。自由權是白人不可剝奪的權利，然而，擁有哪怕一滴明顯“黑人”血統的人，都自然而然被歸入奴隸階層和次等種族。

美國最高法院在1857年對德雷德·斯科特的裁決中將這一思想載入法律：黑人，無論是奴隸還是自由人，都來自“奴隸”種族。假如黑人永遠無法成為公民，假如黑人是一個有別于所有其他人種的種族，那么他們就不能要求獲得憲法給予的權利，這樣，“我們合眾國人民”中的“我們”就不是一個謊言。

1862年8月14日，亞伯拉罕·林肯總統召集了5名備受尊敬的黑人自由民到白宮開會。內戰已經持續一年多，黑人廢奴主義者一直在向林肯施壓，要求他結束奴隸制，他們肯定非常期待、滿懷自豪。

對林肯來說，戰事并不順利。英國正在考慮是否要支持南部邦聯而出面干預，而林肯由于無法征召足夠多新的白人志愿者參戰，被迫重新考慮是否繼續反對征召美國黑人為他們自己的解放而戰。8月的那天，5名黑人自由民到達白宮，高大的林肯迎接了他們。禮節性地交談幾句之后，林肯直奔主題，告訴客人們他已經讓國會撥款，一旦黑人獲得自由后，就把他們運送到另一個國家。

可以想象房間里沉重的靜默，總統這番話一時間讓5名黑人張口結舌、目瞪口呆。從黑人的第一批祖先到達這片海岸，到這一年的8月，已有243年，他們比林肯的家族來得早，比大多數堅持認為黑人不屬于這個國家的白人要早得多。總統告訴他們：“要不是因為奴隸制度和有色種族，這場戰爭不可能會發生。所以我們兩個種族分開，對雙方都更好。”

在那次白宮會議近3年之后，羅伯特·愛德華·李將軍在阿波馬托克斯投降。到了夏天，內戰結束，400萬美國黑人突然獲得了自由。與林肯的想法不同，大多數黑人并不愿意離開。他們認同的觀點，是數十年前，在紐約的一場黑人領袖大會上提出的反對“黑人殖民”政策的決議：

“這是我們的家園，這是我們的國家。這片土地下面，掩埋著我們父輩的尸骨……我們在這里出生，也將在這里死去。”