还差300只鸭子
Martin Luther King, “A Letter from Birmingham Jail.” 310 words.
“But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”
然而，当你目睹过凶猛的暴徒任意加刑于你的父母、兴之所致能淹死你的兄弟姐妹；当你见过充满仇恨的警察咒骂、踢打、甚至杀死你的非裔族人；当你看到一个富裕的社会中，你两千万黑人弟兄们中的绝大部分在贫苦的囚笼里苦苦挣扎；当六岁的女儿问起为什么她不能去电视新广告宣传的儿童乐园时，你试图解释却张口结舌，吞吐着告诉她有色人种小孩不能去欢乐世界后，眼巴巴看着她泪水一涌而出，幼小的心田恐怕已经种下自卑的种子，潜意识里对白人产生的怨恨开始扭曲她的人格；当五岁的儿子问你“为什么白人警察对有色人这么坏”时，你必须搜肠刮肚方能编出一个答案；当你开车穿州过省而晚上却没有汽车旅馆肯收留你，必须辛苦地卷缩在车角过夜；当无处不在的“白人”“有色人”标签令你无时无刻不感到无地自容；当人家不管你年纪多大都只叫你“小黑鬼约翰”，而且你的母亲和妻子从来都没被人尊称过“太太”；当身为黑人这个事实让你日夜饱受担忧，祸福难料的未来让你活得如履薄冰，来自惶恐内心的愤恨让你倍感折磨；当你必须随时随刻抗击那种被人弱化的“无名小卒”感觉 —— 你就会明白，我们为何无法等待。
