體育世界 NBA明星的高超演講
The world of sport, we are often told (though always to inward laughter), is “above politics”. So there was an electric moment when, at the beginning of this year’s ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) awards last week, four black basketball stars stood shoulder to shoulder to deliver a speech about just that.
我們經常被告知（儘管總是伴隨着內心的暗笑），體育世界是“超越政治”的。不久前舉行的ESPY（年度卓越體育表現獎）頒獎典禮開始時，4名黑人籃球明星並肩站立，發表了一場關乎政治的演講。這一幕因此令人振奮。
They called for an end to racial profiling by the police and gun violence in black communities — and for athletes and other leaders to lead the way in putting aside retaliatory anger and instead work on rebuilding trust.
他們呼籲終結警察的種族定性和黑人社區的槍支暴力，並號召運動員和其他領袖帶頭放下尋求報復的憤怒情緒，轉而致力於重建信任。
LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade stood in sombre black suits and delivered a four-part speech addressing the anger over gun violence and racial profiling that has sparked violence on US streets. They did not mention, I suspect deliberately, “Black Lives Matter” or any other single protest movement. That — like the black power salutes from the podium that scandalised the 1968 Olympics — might have played into the hands of political opponents.
勒布朗•詹姆斯(LeBron James)、卡梅洛•安東尼(Carmelo Anthony)、克里斯•保羅(Chris Paul)、德維恩•韋德(Dwyane Wade)穿着暗色的黑西裝，發表了由4個部分組成的演講，針對近來在美國街頭引發暴力的對槍支暴力和種族定性的憤怒。他們沒有提到“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)或者其他任何抗議運動，我懷疑這是有意爲之。就像1968年奧運會的領獎臺上某些運動員作出黑人力量敬禮、給那屆奧運會留下污名一樣，肯定那些激進的運動可能正中政治對手的下懷。
But the message they delivered was all the more effective for being so general. And in terms of technique, here was an unusual and very striking move: to divide up a single speech between four speakers.
但是，他們所傳達的信息恰恰因爲籠統而有效。就演講技巧而言，他們採取了一種不尋常，但十分引人注目的舉動，將一篇演講分配給4名演講者。
It literalised the idea that these athletes — “the four of us talking to our fellow athletes with the country watching” — were speaking with one voice; offering a united front. And they were, very consciously, “representing”.
這體現出了這些運動員在用同一個聲音說話；他們站在統一的戰線上——“我們四個人向其他運動員喊話，而全國觀衆都在看着”。而且他們很有“代表”意識。
As Mr Paul said: “We stand before you as fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, uncles — and in my case, as an African-American man and the nephew of a police officer.” Again, careful positioning: to foreground being the nephew of a police officer is to state that your fight is not with the police.
就如保羅所說的：“我們以父親、兒子、丈夫、兄弟、叔伯的身份站在你們面前——就我個人而言，我是一個非裔美國人，也是一名警官的侄子。”再一次，這體現出他們的精心定位：首先擺明自己是一名警官的侄子，說明你無意與警察爲敵。
The speeches deftly deployed the classic figures of oratory. Mr Anthony used an epistrophic tricolon when he said: “The problems are not new. The violence is not new. And the racial divide definitely is not new.” So did Mr Wade when he said: “The racial profiling has to stop. The shoot-to-kill mentality has to stop. Not seeing the value of black and brown bodies has to stop.” Mr James used anaphora when he said it was the duty of athletes to “help rebuild [communities], help strengthen them, help change them”.
他們的演講嫺熟地運用了經典的演講術。安東尼使用了結句反覆的三行平行結構，他說：“這些問題不是新的。這些暴力不是新的。而種族隔閡當然也不是新的。”韋德也運用了這一手法，他說：“種族定性必須停止。動輒開槍而且往死裏打的心態必須停止。忽視黑人和棕色人士價值的做法必須停止。”詹姆斯運用了首語重複的手法，他說，“幫助重建（社區），幫助加強它們，幫助改變它們”是運動員的責任。
By echoing each other stylistically, they gave an impression of unity at the level of the language itself.
通過在風格上相互呼應，他們在語言本身的層面上給人一種統一的印象。
They did something else clever, too. They used the incantatory power of a bare list of names. In Mr Paul’s section of the speech he named the victims of violence. “Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Eric Garner. Laquan McDonald. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile.”
他們還幹了一些聰明的事情。他們羅列了一串人名，從中汲取了一種咒語般的力量。在保羅演講的部分，他列出了暴力的受害者的姓名。“特雷文•馬丁(Trayvon Martin)、邁克爾•布朗(Michael Brown)、塔米爾•賴斯(Tamir Rice)、埃裏克•加納(Eric Garner)、拉坎•麥克唐納(Laquan McDonald)、奧爾頓•斯特林(Alton Sterling)、菲蘭多•卡斯蒂爾(Philando Castile)。”
A list of names can be a very powerful way of invoking pathos and solidarity. On the first anniversary of the terror attacks on the US in 2001, for instance, the ceremony at Ground Zero consisted of a solemn recitation of the names of the dead; it took two-and-a-half hours. Marble war memorials, from the battlefields of France to the National Mall in Washington, draw power from the same thing.
羅列一串人名是激發感染力、促使衆人同心的非常有力的方式。比如，2001年“9/11”恐怖襲擊一週年紀念時，在世貿中心遺址(Ground Zero)舉行的儀式就包含了莊嚴地念出每一名死者的姓名的環節；這個過程持續了兩個半小時。從法國的戰場到華盛頓的國家廣場，大理石戰爭紀念碑也通過同樣的方法汲取力量。
Mr Paul then went on to name — co-opting them to the cause — previous luminaries of sport who had some emancipatory role: “Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jim Brown, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe”. Those names resonate and command respect: they also include a gay white woman. Here, with care and precision and judiciousness, was an attempt to make the broadest possible appeal to human fraternity and tolerance.
保羅接着羅列了此前曾在一定程度上推進解放事業的體育明星的名字——目的是將這些人納入到這項事業中：“傑西•歐文斯(Jesse Owens)、傑基•魯濱遜(Jackie Robinson)、穆罕默德•阿里(Muhammad Ali)、約翰•卡洛斯(John Carlos)和湯米•史密斯(Tommie Smith)、卡里姆•阿卜杜勒-賈巴爾(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)、吉姆•布朗(Jim Brown)、比利•瓊•金(Billie Jean King)、阿瑟•阿什(Arthur Ashe)”。這些名字讓人產生共鳴，並且令人肅然起敬：其中還包括一位同性戀白人女性。在這裏，他們以一種謹慎、精準和睿智的方式，嘗試最大範圍地激發人類的博愛和寬容。
The speech enacted, then, what all speeches at some level are trying to do. It said: this is who we the speakers are, and this is who you, the audience, are. We are not divided.
因此，這篇演講所做的正是所有的演講在某種層面上都試圖實現的事情。它在說：這就是我們這些演講者的本色，也是你們作爲觀衆的本色。我們之間並無隔閡。
