老美看美国：：种族主义的数学之“与村民探讨篇”

文/ 他爹 翻译 / 他娘

我的第一篇文章引起这么热烈的讨论，实在令我惊讶。让我有了就同样的话题再写一篇的冲动。许多人问我数据引用的出处，或者到哪里找这些信息。以下是相关链接：

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/64

许多评论直接就在继续我们这个社会里种族分子的倾向，即使统计数字已经显示了明显的不公。对此我并不惊讶。

记得我小时候，大概七八岁吧。母亲提醒我不要谈论或提自己父亲的犹太人血统。虽然我从小当基督徒养育的，我父亲的家族祖先是德国犹太人。事实上，我父亲自己的朋友甚至都不知道他的家族是犹太人。

很多年后，我才懂得我母亲为啥让我们隐瞒这部分家史。因为当时社会不喜欢犹太人。即使我自己不是犹太人（犹太人只有通过母亲传承），我仍然很好奇。长大一些后，我才看到和听到犹太人作为整体是如何被当时的社会对待和看待的。

记得我十五，六岁的时候，我和父亲及父亲的朋友一起去打猎。一天晚上，在我们的帐篷里，所有的大人们都在谈论他们在第二次世界大战和德国集中营时期的经历。令人惊诧地是，他们中大部分人居然对纳粹杀害犹太人的事情并没有介意。他们万万没有想到，他们自己身边的好朋友，同事，我的父亲，就是一个犹太人。对他们来讲，他就是ROY。如果他继续保留他原来的姓氏“Schienermann”,他们可能能猜到他是犹太人。但是，我的家族近100年前就放弃了那个家族姓氏以便更 “美国化”。

如果他们知道了我父亲的身份，他们对我父亲的看法会不一样吗？绝对会。

这里的问题是我父亲的朋友们只了解那个时候教给他们的东西。他们没有一个人认识犹太人也从来不认识犹太人。他们都是在乡下小镇上或者是农村里或俄勒冈州的农场长大的。但是，他们的种族歧视（如果你也和我一样认为犹太人是一个族裔而不是一个宗教的话）是很明显的。他们了解犹太人是多么多么坏，以及他们都干些什么坏事的故事，但是，他们从来没亲眼见过。他们所知道的都是听来的---从哪些和他们一样的人那里听来的，而那些人也没有亲眼见过任何这些所谓的坏事。

我父亲与他们一起打猎有近20年直到他们一个个都老的打不动猎了。他们现在都已不在人世，我的父亲，也已离去。他们的故事属于他们的历史和他们那个时代。

但是，我父亲的每个朋友到了坟墓都还是想着我的父亲是一个多么了不起的人，一个诚实的人，一个以家庭为重的人，一个努力工作的人。他有着那些优点，但是，他还是一个犹太人，但是他们都不知道这一点。

种族歧视和不容忍以许多形式在许多不同类型的人中间存在。当黑人遭受我们的文化中已经制度化的种族歧视时，亚裔也开始受到攻击。过去一年乃至最近就有两个亚裔美军士兵因为不堪忍受同事的嘲笑奚落以及骚扰而自杀。

从1996到2006十年间，有所美国大学--康奈尔大学就有21件学生自杀案。 (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2009-10/19/content_11005682.htm ) 这21个自杀的学生中，13个是亚裔！亚裔学生只有全校学生总数的百分之十四，但是自杀率却是百分之四十！为什么？我不认为亚裔比其他族裔更频繁自杀。他们自杀是因为受到同事的压力。

就像黑人与白人相比，犯同样的罪，入狱比率是白人的10倍一样，是社会舆论和看法认为黑人人均比白人犯罪率更高。也许是。但是，事实就是事实----犯同样的罪，黑人被扔进监狱的比率与白人入狱的比率是10比1。这就是不公平。

你们每一个看来我的上一篇文章并发表评论的朋友，我强烈建议你们考虑一下问题，并自己做点研究，挑战你在以下方面的看法：

1.      享受社会福利的是黑人多还是白人更多？

2.      享用食物券的黑人多还是白人多？

3.      如果你拥有一家公司，收到一份简历，上面的姓氏是 “Lateka”, 你会打电话叫那个人来面试吗？

4.      犯有同样罪，获死刑的是黑人多，还是白人多？

我知道答案。但是，我的看法是：只有亲自寻找，而非道听途说，你才能了解事实真相。道听途说只会延续一个没有事实根据的故事。

正如我前段时间写的文章—那些人来抓其他人的时候，不要无动于衷，不施援手，因为不知道哪一天，你会发现自己已经成为孤家寡人，孤立无援。

(原文)                          THE MATHEMATICS OF RACISM

PART II

I am  surprised by many of the comments posted regarding the first article – which has inspired me to write PART II. Many of you asked for the notations or where to find the info, see link:

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/64

What does not surprise me is that many of the comments play directly into continuing the racist tendencies of our society even though statistics show a distinct unfairness.

I recall as a young boy, perhaps when I was 7 or 8 years old – being reminded by my mother not to talk about or mention my own fathers Jewish heritage. Although I was raised as a Christian – my fathers side of the family had a Jewish ancestry from Germany. In fact, none of my own fathers friends even knew of his families “Jewishness”.

It took me some years to understand why my mother wanted me to “hide” this part of our family. Society didn’t like Jews. Even though I wasn’t Jewish ( you can only be Jewish through your maternal parentage ) I was still curious. As I grew older I could see and hear how Jews were treated and thought of by society as a whole.

I remember a time when I was about 15 or 16 years old and I was on a hunting trip with my father and his friends. One evening in our camp all the older men were talking about their experience during World War II and the concentration camps in Germany. Surprisingly, most of the men their weren’t bothered by the Nazi’s efforts to kill all the Jews. They had no idea that their good friend and co-worker, my father, was a Jew. To them he was Roy Snyder. They may have guessed he was Jewish if he still carried the old family name – Schniedermann. But, our family had disposed of that name decades before to become “Americanized”. 

Would their view of my father been different if they had known? Absolutely.

The point here is that my fathers friends only knew what society had taught them. None of them knew a Jew or had ever known a Jew. They had all grown up in rural towns and farm communities or on farms in the state of Oregon. But, their racism ( if you consider Jews a race rather than a religion as I do ) was obvious. They knew all the “stories” about how bad Jews were and what they do – but, they had never seen it for themselves. All they knew is what they had been told – which came from people who like them had probably been told the same thing but also had never seen any of these “bad” things for themselves.

For over 20 years my father and his friends gathered every fall for their annual hunting trip until one by one they all became too old to go hunting any longer. They are all gone now, my father too, long dead and their own stories belong to history and the ages.

But, each of my fathers friends went to their graves thinking my father was a wonderful man, an honest man, a family man, a hard worker. And he was all of those things. But, he was also a Jew and they never knew that.

Racism and intolerance come in many forms directed at many types of people. While blacks suffer from a systemic racism in our culture Asians are now coming under attack. In the past year and just recently 2 U.S. military young men both Asians committed suicide because of the taunting and harassment they suffered at the hands of their peers.

At one U.S. university--Cornell University (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2009-10/19/content_11005682.htm ) in the years from 1996 to 2006 there were 21 suicides by students. Of those 21 students who killed themselves 13 were Asian! While Asians were only 14% of the students at the school they represented 62% of the suicides ! Why? I don’t think Asians commit suicide any more often than any other group. They committed suicide because of pressure from their peers.

Just like black men are 10 times more likely to be put in prison than a white man for the same crime it is the society opinion and view that blacks commit more crimes than whites per capita. Perhaps they do. But, the fact is still a fact – for the same exact crime a black man will be put in prison by a ration of 10:1 as compared to a white man. That’s not fair.

To each of you who read the article and commented I urge you to consider the following and do your own research to challenge what your own views are on the following:

1.      Are there more white people or black people on welfare?

2.      Are there more white people or black people receiving food stamps

3.      If you owned a company and were reviewing a resume and the name on it was “Lateka” would you call that person in for an interview?

4.      What percentage of black men are executed for crimes as compared to white men for the same exact crime?

I know the answers. But, my view is that you only learn something when you find it for yourself rather than being told. Being told something more often than not only perpetuates a story that often times has no basis in fact.

As I wrote in an earlier article – don’t let them come for all the others and not stand up for them, someday you may find yourself standing all alone.