My father was a middle-class black. Though he was born poor, he achieved middle-class standing through much hard work and sacrifice (one of his favorite words) and by identifying fully with solid middle-class values—mainly hard work, family life, property ownership, and education for his children (all four of whom have advanced degrees). In his mind these were not so much values as laws of nature. People who embodied them made up the positive images in his class identification. The negative images came largely from the blacks he had left behind because they were “going nowhere.”
我父亲是一名中产阶级黑人。尽管他出身贫穷，但是他通过勤奋、牺牲（他的口头禅之一）和恪守中产阶级价值观念其主要内容包括：努力工作，注重家庭生活，拥有财产，让孩子接受良好教育(现在他的四个孩子都拥有硕士以上学位），取得了中产阶级社会地位。并且在我父亲看来，与其说这些是价值观念倒不如说它们是自然法则。在父亲的价值观认同上，履行这些价值观念的人构成了他积极效仿的正面形象；他批评的反面形象则大部分来自于底层黑人，因为他们在社会中碌碌无为。
Whether I live up to these values or not, I know that my acceptance of them is the result of lifelong conditioning. I know also that I share this conditioning with middle-class people of all races and that I can no more easily be free of it than I can be free of my race. For the middle-class black, conditioned by these values from birth, the sense of meaning they provide is as immutable as the color of his skin.
无论我自己是否践行这些价值观念，可是我知道我对它们的接受是长期熏陶教育的结果。而且我也知道全世界所有的中产阶级都和我一样被熏陶教育。我不能脱离这样的教育，
如同我不能脱离自己的黑人种族身份。对于黑人中产阶级来说，出生伊始便开始接受这些价值观念的教育，这些价值观念所具有的重大意义和我的种族肤色一样永远不会改变。
It has always annoyed me to hear from the mouths of certain arbiters of blackness that middle-class blacks should “reach back” and pull up those blacks less fortunate than they—as though middle-class status were an unearned and essentially passive condition in which one needed a large measure of noblesse oblige to occupy one’s time. My own image is of reaching back from a moving train to lift on board those who have no tickets. A nobel enough sentiment—but might it not be wiser to show them the entire structure of principles, effort, and sacrifice that puts one in a position to buy a ticket any time one likes? This, I think, is something members of the black middle class can realistically offer to other blacks.
常听到一些黑人事务评论家说：中产阶级黑人应该伸出援手，把底层贫穷不幸的黑人拉上来，似乎中产阶级社会身份是一个不劳而获和从本质上被动的身份，中产阶级黑人只要花些时间尽一下崇高的义务就可以让底层黑人跻身于中产阶级行列。对于这样的言论我非常生气。在我看来，这如同在奔驰的火车上，中产阶级黑人尽力伸出手去，把那些没买票的底层黑人拉到火车上来。这是一种非常高贵的情感，但是示范他们整套价值观念，勤奋和牺牲精神，这些会让他们具有随时想买票就可以去买票的能力，不是更好吗？我认为，从现实意义上说，这才是中产阶级黑人能够真正帮助底层黑人的东西。
Their example is not only a testament to possibility but also a lesson in method. But they cannot lead by example until they are released from a black identity that regards that example as suspect, that sees them as “marginally”
black, indeed that holds them back by catching them in a double bind.
中产阶级的成功例子不仅是黑人能力的证明，而且也是方法的示范。可是要想发挥中产阶级的榜样力量，我们必须不能怀疑他们的成功，不能把他们看做“边缘黑人”，这样做确实使他们陷入了“两难处境”，也因此阻碍了他们自身的进步。
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