（雅思課外精讀）非裔美國人的上流社會

雅思托福考試是一個非常有難度的考試，相信很多在備考階段的小伙伴們，每天都在關注一些雅思相關的消息。有同學問：【雅思課外精讀】非裔美國人的上流社會？今天，一起來看看吧。

Americas black elite

美國黑人精英

Our kind of people

我們這樣的人

How does the black upper class respond to Black Lives Matter?

美國黑人上流社會對Black Lives Matter活動看法為何？

1. Lawrence Otis Graham recalls where he first met Kamala Harris, last summer, in Marthas Vineyard. It was at the holiday home of Spike Lee, a film director, who held a $1,500-a-headfundraiser for the woman who is now number two on the Democratic ticket. She is the new Barack Obama for us, says the thrilled Mr Graham, an author and property lawyer from New York. By us Mr Graham means African-Americans, and in particular the glitziest end of African-American high society.

勞倫斯奧蒂斯格雷厄姆想起去年夏天他在瑪莎葡萄園島第一次見到卡瑪拉哈里斯的情景。他是在電影導演斯派克李的度假屋見到她的，斯派克李為這位如今在民主黨內排行第二的候選人卡馬拉哈里斯舉辦了每人1500美元的籌款活動。格雷厄姆是紐約一家房地產律師兼作家，他激動地說：對我們來說，她就是下一個巴拉克奧巴馬。 格雷厄姆所說的我們指的是非洲裔美國人，特別是那些處于上流社會頂端的非裔美國人。

2. He knows of whom he speaks. He made a name in 1999 by publishing Our Kind of People, asympathetic insider account of the habits, clubs and lifestyles of Americas wealthiest black families. Early on the book, now in its 37th printing, proved controversial. Some whites were ignorant of how black millionaires had thrived, a few of them since the 1870s. People often dont think of blacks having different socioeconomic classes, he says. Some fumed at being publicly named as part of a black aristocracy; others were furious for being left out. Some poorer black readers, in turn, raged at the wealthy.

他知道他在說誰。1999年，他出版了《我們這種人》一書，這是一部講述富有的非裔美國家庭的生活習慣，社團和生活方式的書，格雷厄姆因為本書一舉成名。這本書現在已經出版了第37版，早期的時候，這本書還引起了一些爭議。一些白人不知道黑人百萬富翁是如何發家致富的，其中有幾個黑人19世紀70年代就已經家財萬貫了。人們通常不會認為黑人有不同的社會經濟階層，他說。一些人對被公開指名為黑人貴族感到憤怒;其他人則因為沒有被列入美國黑人貴族名單而憤怒。反過來，一些較窮的黑人讀者也對這些黑人巨富大為光火。

3. On average black Americans remain significantly less well-off than whites, including among the richest. Among the top 10% of black earners, for example, the median family hasaccumulated assets worth $343,160, said a Brookings Institution report in February. For theequivalent top 10% of white families it was more than five times higher, at $1,789,300. By one Federal Reserve measure, around 2% of black families have assets worth more than $1m; over 15% of white ones do.

總的來看，美國黑人仍遠不如白人富裕，即使是最富有的非裔美國人也比不上白人。布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)今年2月發布的一份報告顯示，美國收入最高的10%黑人家庭資產中值為343,160美元。而美國收入最高的10%白人家庭則高出五倍多，為1,789,300美元。根據美聯儲的一項數據，大約2%的黑人家庭資產超過100萬美元，而白人則是15%。

4. Yet even if the African-American elite is not huge, it is influential, as a planned televisedserialization of Mr Grahams book will show. The most prominent black families long formed invitation-only clubs where they socialised, created professional networks and presented their children at debutante balls. A prime example is Jack and Jill of America, founded in 1938, a society which claims 40,000 members in 247 chapters, and which is devoted to shaping children into future leaders in business, society and politics.

然而，即使非裔美國人精英人數不多，他們的影響力卻很大，正如格雷厄姆的書中所顯示的那樣，這本書將會在電視上連載。最顯赫的黑人家庭長期以來都成立了僅限受邀者參加的俱樂部，在那里他們進行社交活動，建立職業關系網，并在初次社交舞會上介紹他們的孩子。最典型的例子就是1938年成立的美國杰克和吉爾協會(Jack and Jill of America)，該協會據稱有247個分會，4萬名成員，致力于將孩子培養為未來商業、社會和政治領域的領袖。

5. It continues to go strong. This week it held its 44th national conventiona fourday, virtualshindig. It is unabashedly for the most successful. Danielle Brown, its president, dislikes the word elite, but says 98% of members children attend university. (That matters: rising higher-education rates best explain why the earnings of top-paid African-Americans have kept climbing in the past half century, even as those of most black workers steadily fell.) Almost everyone goes on to thrive professionally. They are pretty much at the top of wherever they go, she says.

該協會繼續發展。本周，該協會舉行了第44屆全國大會為期4天的遠程盛會。對于最成功的人來說，這是不加掩飾的。委員會主席Danielle Brown不喜歡精英這個詞，但她說委員會98%的孩子都會上大學。(這一點很重要:高等教育比例的上升，很好地解釋了為什么在過去半個世紀里，收入最高的非洲裔美國人的收入一直在上升，而大多數黑人工人的收入卻在穩步下降。)幾乎每個人都會在職業上取得成功。無論他們去哪里，都是最棒的，她說。

6. Her outfit, as any rich club must, does plenty of charity work. This year its members helped to pay for 247 needy students to finish college, she says. It also promotes civic duties, the virtue of voting and the benefits of a sound financial education. That is all worthybut in contrast to the occasionally riotous efforts of Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists, it can look terrifically staid. At its cotillion dances demure teenagers, in white Cinderella ball gowns, vie to deliver the deepest curtsy as pearlwearing older ladies look on.

和其他富人俱樂部一樣，該俱樂部也做了大量的慈善工作。她說，今年俱樂部成員資助247名貧困學生完成了學業。協會還大力宣傳公民義務、投票和健全的金融教育的好處。這一切都是有價值的，但是和Black Lives Matter （BLM）活動比起來，這就顯得很古板了。在俱樂部舞會上，端莊的年輕人穿著灰姑娘的白色禮服，爭先恐后地行最深的屈膝禮，而身穿珍珠首飾的年長女士們則在一旁觀看。

7. Not all alumni are relaxed talking of their past. Few politicians brag of belonging to an elite group. Cory Booker, a senator from New Jersey, rarely brings up his youthful time in Jack and Jill. Dont expect Ms Harris, member of a similarly august group of women volunteers, The Links Inc, to mention it on the stump. Yet many of the most radical leaders or their childrenincluding those of Malcolm x and of Mr Lee had links to Jack and Jill or similar outfits.

并不是所有的人都愿意談論他們的過去。很少有政客吹噓自己屬于某精英俱樂部。來自新澤西州的參議員科里布克很少提及他在杰克與杰爾的時光，更不要說哈里斯女士了。哈里斯是Links俱樂部的成員。然而，許多最激進的領導人或他們的子女包括馬爾科姆艾克斯和李的子女都與杰克和吉爾或類似的組織有聯系。

8. How do high-society African-Americans respond to upheavals from the covid-19 pandemic, killings by police, and BLM protests of recent months? For Mrs Brown, BLM is representative of the civilrights movement, with a new name. She praises protesters for their vigilance and for stirring publicincluding whiteconcern over matters that were previously ignored. But BLM, in her view, is just one of a wonderful plethora of groups, clubs, sororities, voter-registration outfits and charities: We need different people doing different things.

上流社會的非洲裔美國人如何應對新冠大流行、警察殺人和近幾個月的BLM抗議活動帶來的劇變?對布朗夫人來說，BLM是有了新名字的民權運動。她贊揚抗議者的警惕，該活動激起了包括白人在內的人們去關注之前一直被忽視的東西。但在她看來，BLM只是眾多團體、俱樂部、姐妹會、選民登記機構和慈善機構中的一員:我們需要不同的人做不同的事。

9. Lerry Knox, a wealthy Chicagoan who runs an international infrastructure-investment fund, and Farissa Knox, who runs an ad agency, also in Chicago, see it in a similar light. The ongoing BLM debate over white supremacy is welcome. I support what BLM is doing. Its a narrative that needs to be spoken, says Mrs Knox. But the couple prefer to invest their personal funds and time in local groups that educate black residents on the benefits of completing census forms, sitting for jury duty and, especially, registering to vote. Structural changes, they say, will come from institutions, including the companies they lead, or from judicial reform and getting new people elected to office. Rage voiced on the streets can dissipate fast.

Lerry Knox是芝加哥一位富人，他經營著一家國際基礎設施投資基金，其夫人Farissa Knox經營著一家廣告公司，他們對此持同樣的看法。BLM活動 白人至上的辯論是很好的。我支持BLM活動的做法。這些需要說出來，諾克斯夫人說。但這對夫婦更愿意將他們的個人資金和時間投入到當地的一些團體中，這些團體在像黑人居民普及填寫人口普查表、擔任陪審員, 尤其是參加投票的好處。他們說，根本的改變得是制度上的改變，這包括他們領導的公司制度的改變，司法改革以及推舉新的人當選, 而游行抗議活動很快就會結束。

10. Yet even the wealthiest align with street protesters in their fury over threats and harassment from police. Mr Knox is blunt about the risks any African-American man faces in public. Mr Graham recounts being stopped and hounded by a plainclothes policeman near his home, while collecting his daughter from schooleven though he was the chairman of his county police board. He describes how rich black families, on moving into mostly white neighbourhoods, learn to visit local police stations to hand out photos of their families, in an effort to stave off trouble. We have to be proactive, he says. It is absolutely demeaning to act in this way, but we have too many stories of what happens when you dont. Dont assume weve bought our way out of this treatment.

然而，即使是最富有的黑人，也會因為警察的威脅和騷擾而憤怒地與街頭抗議者結盟。對于任何一個非裔美國人在公共場合可能面臨的風險，諾克斯直言不諱。格拉漢姆先生回憶說，他是縣警察委員會的主席，但在接女兒放學時，他在家附近被一名便衣警察攔截跟蹤。他描述了富有的黑人家庭如何在搬進白人居多的社區后，學會去當地警察局分發他們家庭的照片，以避免麻煩。我們必須積極主動，他說。這樣做肯定有損人格，但不這樣做會發生什么我們太清楚了。不要以為我們有錢就不會遭遇這些了。

精讀解析

篇章結構

P1：引出主題：非裔美國人中的上流社會

P2：介紹了格雷厄姆的相關著作Our Kind of People (標題與之相呼應)

P3：美國黑人上等階層和白人的對比，前者目前還遠不如后者

P4：但美國黑人上等階層在各個領域都有不小的影響力，建立了許多社交俱樂部

P5P6：詳細介紹了其中一個名為Jack and Jill of America的協會。

P7：然而政客們卻往往不愿提及自己加入過這類上流協會

P8P10：而面對現在的 BLM 運動，這類協會成員的看法大部分是支持和贊成，因為他們自己也經常遭到莫名的攔截審查；但他們更偏向于以自己的方式（例如：向黑人推廣人口普查、選票等好處）來提升黑人地位

重點單詞

fundraiser/f?nd,reiz?/ n. 募捐者

【例句】

The companys chief operating officer was the numero-uno fund-raiser for the event。

該公司的首席運營官曾是這個活動的最佳募捐者。

glitzy/gl?ts?/ adj. 閃光的,耀眼的,眩目的

【例句】

A glitzy new exhibition centre dedicated to the Titanic (a ship built in Belfast) opened last spring.

去年春天紀念泰坦尼克號的一個耀眼的展覽中心開放了，因為這艘船是在貝爾法斯特建造的。

sympathetic /s?mp?et?k/ adj. 表示同情的；贊同的, 支持的

【短語】

sympathetic with 對同情

sympathetic consideration 體恤處理，同情之考慮

【例句】

Her eyes brimmed over with sympathetic tears.

她的眼睛里充滿了同情的淚水。

millionaire/m?lj?ne?/ n. 百萬富翁, 大富翁；大財主, 有錢人

【例句】

He became a millionaire when he was still young.

他還年輕時就成了百萬富翁。

socioeconomic/s??s???,i?k?n?m?k/ adj. 社會經濟學的

【例句】

Infant mortality is a highly sensitive barometer of socio-economic conditions.

嬰兒死亡率能夠充分反映社會經濟狀況。

fume at 對生氣，對感到惱火

【例句】

The air component isnt influenced by the residual fume at the switching moment.

高溫空氣成份幾乎不受四通閥切換瞬間發生器內滯留煙氣的影響。

aristocracy/?r?st?kr?s?/ n. 貴族,統治階級；貴族統治的國家；一批杰出代表,一批優秀人物；貴族品質；貴族精神；貴族氣派

【例句】

TheLordsare members of the old aristocracy, bishops, lawyers, and retired politicians.

上議院議員是由舊貴族、主教、律師以及退休的政治家組成。

well-off/?wel??:f/ adj. 順利的,走運的,手頭寬裕的,繁榮昌盛的

【拓展】

well off 富裕的；處境好的

be well off 生活過得好，處境良好

come off well 運氣好，走運；（事情）有滿意的結果

【例句】

My grandparents were quite well-off.

我的祖父母生活很富裕。

median/mi?d??n/ n. 中值，中位數；中線adj. 中央的；中值的

【例句】

The median age on the African continent is 17.

非洲大陸的年齡中位數是17歲。

accumulate/?kju?mj?le?t/ vt.vi. 堆積; 積累

【同根】

accumulative adj. 累計的；累積的；積聚而成的

accumulation n. 積聚，累積；堆積物

accumulation of 積累

【例句】

Her only interest was the accumulation of money.

她唯一的興趣是攢錢。

equivalent /?kw?v(?)l(?)nt/ adj. 相等的, 相當的

【例句】

The gangsters offered him a sum equivalent to a whole years earnings.

歹徒提出要給他一筆相當于他一年收入的錢。

serialization /?s??r??l?ze??n/ n. 序列化；串行化；連載長篇

【例句】

It was first written for serialization in a magazine.

那是原來為在雜志上連載而寫的。

socialise/s?u??laiz/ v. 使適于社會生活；使符合群體生活之需要；社會主義化

【例句】

And he said a good place for the community to come together is at the pub - thats a very British place where you can socialise over a drink or two.

他說團體一起去的好地方就是酒吧--這是很具有英國特色的地方，你可以一邊喝酒一邊社交。

debutante/debj?tɑ?nt/ n. 初次參加上層社會社交活動的少女

【例句】

But those familiar with the history of debutante balls feel confident that they will not suffer permanent demise.

但是那些熟悉初次社交舞會歷史的人堅信這樣的舞會不會永遠消失。

shindig/??nd?g/ n. 狂歡會,舞會,吵鬧,騷動

【例句】

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a three-day shindig attracting big-name Republicans that ended on March 8th, Dr Carson was given a prominent speaking slot.

3月8號結束的，連續舉辦三天，吸引眾多共和黨大人物保守黨政治活動會議（CPAC）上，

Carson醫生成為重要的致辭者。

unabashed/?n?be?t?d/ adj. 不減弱的，不衰退的

【例句】

It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest.

只有女性才能以不息的熱情把同一件事重復三遍。

demure/d?mj??/ adj. 嚴肅的；端莊的；嫻靜的；假裝正直的

【例句】

Rose Waterford cast down her eyes demurely to give greater effect to her reply.

為了使自己的答話給我更深的印象，瓦特爾芙德故意把眼皮一低，做出一副一本正經的樣子。

riotous/ra??t?s/ adj. 暴亂的；狂歡的；不受約束的；放蕩的；茂盛的

【例句】

He was expelled from college for riotous conduct.

他因行為放蕩而被勒令退學。

cotillion/k?t?lj?n/ n. 沙龍舞(19世紀流行的一種不斷交換舞伴,穿插各種花樣的輕快交誼舞)

【例句】

The cotillion teaches the good graces that women should always have in their Arsenal.

交誼舞的老師所教的禮節能讓女孩子變得高雅。

vie to爭奪；競爭

【例句】

He is vying to remain a leading progressive voice on the world stage.

他渴望繼續在世界舞臺發出領導性的進步聲音。

on the stump 做巡回政治演說

alumni/?l?mna?/ n. (男)校友；(男)畢業生

alumnus n. 男校友；男畢業生

【短語】

alumni association 校友會

【例句】

Several alumni have agreed to help raise money.

幾位校友已同意幫助籌資。

august /???ɡ?st/ n. 八月（簡寫為Aug）adj. 威嚴的；令人敬畏的

【例句】

Being so near the august person of the Empress, he was overcome with awe.

如此靠近威嚴的女皇，他心中充滿了敬畏。

upheaval/?phi?v(?)l/ n. 劇變；隆起；舉起

【例句】

It was faced with the greatest social upheaval since World War Ⅱ.

它面臨第二次世界大戰以來最大的社會動亂。

vigilance /v?d??l(?)ns/ n. 警覺;警惕;警戒；失眠癥;驚醒癥

【例句】

We shouldnt relax our vigilance at any time.

任何時候我們都不應該放松警惕。

plethora/ple(?)r?/ n. 過剩；過多；多血癥

【短語】

plethora of 過剩的

【例句】

But Dr Goldacre illustrates his points with a plethora of real-world stories and examples.

戈爾達克爾博士很好地避免了這一問題，他使用了大量的事實論據來例證他的觀點。

sorority/s?r?r?t?/ n. 婦女聯誼會；女學生聯誼會

【例句】

A sorority member offered a rushee a cigarette.

一個聯誼會成員給一位新生一支煙。

sit for 參加，坐著

supremacy/s(j)u?prem?s?/ n. 至高, 無上;最高權力【例句】No one could challenge her supremacy in gymnastics.她是最優秀的體操運動員,無人能勝過她。

dissipate/d?s?pe?t/ vt.vi. 驅散; 消失【同根】dissipative adj. 浪費的；消耗的；消散的dissipated adj. 消散的；沉迷于酒色的；閑游浪蕩的；放蕩的; dissipation n. 浪費；消散；[物] 損耗【例句】He often dissipated his energies in trivial matters.他常在無關緊要的小事上浪費精力。

align with v. 與結盟

【例句】

A militant group aligned with ISIS has claimed responsibility.

一個與ISIS結盟的武裝組織宣稱為此次襲擊負責。

plainclothes /ple?nkl??z/ adj. 便衣(尤指不穿制服的警察)的

【例句】

Riot squads joined plainclothes policemen to move the protesters away from the square.

防爆人員同便衣警察將抗議者帶出廣場。

stave off v. 避開,擋開,延遲

【例句】

Some executives want to meet Mr. Trump to try to stave off the tariffs.

一些高管想與特朗普會面，試圖阻止關稅壁壘的實施。

proactive/pr??kt?v/ adj. 前攝的

【例句】

Companies need to supplement prudence with something more proactive.

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