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重新认识贫穷:弱势群体的真实力量与创新智慧

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本文通过多个真实故事,展示了弱势群体在面对贫穷时的创造力、坚韧与集体智慧。作者强调,社会往往忽视贫困人群自身的力量,而真正的解决方案应当从倾听和支持这些群体的努力出发。

小技巧:选中单词后按放大器可以翻译单词哦

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精选100篇经典TED演讲,时长8-15分钟,内容涵盖创新、成长与未来趋势。提供MP3在线播放、下载及英文文本,助你提升听力与口语。用思想的力量,点燃学习热情!下面是本期【TED】100篇经典演讲口语听力素材合集的内容,坚持积累,让你的英语更贴近生活!

For the last 50 years, a lot of smart, well-resourced people, some of you know doubt, have been trying to figure out how to reduce poverty in the United States. People have created and invested millions of dollars into nonprofit organizations with the mission of helping people who are poor. They've created think tanks that study issues like education, job creation, and asset building, and then advocated for policies to support our most marginalized communities. They've written books and columns and given passionate speeches decrying the well-scab that is leaving more and more people entrenched at the bottom end of the income scale. And that effort has helped, but it's not enough. Our poverty rates haven't changed that much in the last 50 years since the war on poverty was launched. I'm here to tell you that we have overlooked the most powerful and practical resource.

Here it is. People who are poor, up in the left-hand corner, is Giovanna Sintia and Bertha. They met when they all had small children through a parenting class at a family resource center in San Francisco. As they grew together as parents and friends, they talked a lot about how hard it was to make money when your kids are little. Child care is expensive more than they'd earn at a job. Their husbands worked, but they wanted to contribute financially too. They had to plan. They started a cleaning business. They plastered neighborhoods with flyers and handed business cards out to their family and friends and soon they had clients calling. Two of them would clean the office or house and one of them would watch the kids. They'd rotate, who cleaned, and who watched the kids. It's awesome, right? And they split the money three ways. It was not a full-time gig. No one can watch the little ones all day, but it made a difference for their families. Extra money to pay for bills when a husband's work hours were cut. Money to buy the kids' clothes as they were growing. A little extra money in their pockets to make them feel some independence.

Up in the top right corner is Teresa and her daughter, Brianna. Brianna is one of those kids with this sparkly, infectious, outgoing personality. For example, when Rosie, a little girl who spoke only Spanish moved in next door. Brianna, who spoke only English, borrowed her mother's tablet and found a translation app so the two of them could communicate. I know, right? Rosie's family credits Brianna was helping Rosie to learn English. A few years ago, Brianna started to struggle academically. She was growing frustrated and kind of withdrawn and acting out in class. Her mother was heartbroken over what was happening. Then they found out that she was going to have to repeat second grade and Brianna was devastated. Her mother felt hopeless and overwhelmed and alone because she knew that her daughter was not getting a support she needed and she did not know how to help her.

And afternoon, Teresa was catching up with a group of friends and one of them said, Teresa, how are you? And she burst into tears. After she shared her story, one of her friends said, you know, I went through the exact same thing with my son about a year ago and in that moment, Teresa realized that so much of her struggle was not having anybody to talk with about it. So she created a support group for parents like her. The first meeting was her and two other people, but word spread and soon 20 people, 30 people were showing up for these monthly meetings that she put together. She went from feeling helpless to realizing how capable she was of supporting her daughter with the support of other people who were going through the same struggle. And Brianna is doing fantastic. She's doing great academically and socially.

In the middle is my man, Vickiir, standing in front of Blackstar Books and Cafe, which he runs out of part of his house. As you walk in the door, Vickiir greets you with a welcome black home. Once inside, you can order some algears jerk chicken, perhaps a vegan walnut burger, or a jive turkey sandwich. And that's sandwich, not sandwich. You must finish your meal with a buttermilk drop, which is several steps above a donut hole and made from a very secret family recipe. For real, it's very secret. He won't tell you about it. But Blackstar is much more than a cafe. For the kids in the neighborhood, it's a place to go after school to get help with homework. For the grownups, it's where they go to find out what's going on in the neighborhood and catch up with friends. It's a performance venue. It's a home for poets, musicians, and artists. Vickiir and his partner, Nicole, with their baby girl strapped to her back, are there in the mix of it all, serving up a cup of coffee, teaching a child how to play mongcala, or painting a sign for an upcoming community event.

I have worked with and learned from people just like them for more than 20 years. I have organized against the prison system, which impacts poor folks, especially Black, Indigenous, and Latino folks at an alarming rate. I have worked with young people who manifest hope and promise despite being at the effect of racist discipline practices in their schools and police violence in their communities. I have learned from families who are unleashing their ingenuity and tenacity to collectively create their own solutions and they're not just focused on money. They're addressing education, housing, health, community, the things that we all care about. Everywhere I go, I see people who are broke but not broken. I see people who are struggling to realize their good ideas so that they can create a better life for themselves, their families, their communities.

Giovanna, Cynthia, Bertha, Teresa, and Bikir are the rule, not the shiny exception. I am the exception. I was raised by a quietly fierce single mother in Rochester, New York. I was bused to a school in the suburbs from a neighborhood that many of my classmates and their parents considered dangerous. At eight, I was a latch-kid kid. I'd get myself home after school every day and do homework and chores and wait for my mother to come home. After school, I'd go to the corner store and buy a can of Chef Boyard de Ravioli which I'd heat up on the stove as my afternoon snack. If I had a little extra money, I'd buy a hostess fruit pie. Cherry, not as good as a buttermilk drop. We were poor when I was a kid but now I own a home in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland, California. I've built a career. My husband is a business owner. I have a retirement account. My daughter is not even allowed to turn on the stove unless there's a grown-up at home and she doesn't have to because she does not have to have the same kind of self-reliance that I had at her age. My kids Ravioli are organic and full of things like spinach and ricotta because I have the luxury of choice when it comes to what my children eat. I am the exception. Not because I'm more talented than Bacchia or because my mother worked any harder than Giovanna Synthio or Bertha or cared any more than Teresa.

Marginalized communities are full of smart, talented people, hustling and working and innovating just like our most revered and most rewarded CEOs. They are full of people tapping into their resilience to get up every day, get the kids off to school and go to jobs that don't pay enough or get educations that are putting them in debt. They are full of people applying their savvy intelligence to stretch a minimum wage paycheck or balance a job and a side hustle to make ends meet. They are full of people doing for themselves and for others, whether it's picking up medication for an elderly neighbor or letting a sibling borrow some money to pay the phone bill or just watching out for the neighborhood kids from the front stoop. I am the exception because of luck and privilege, not hard work. And I'm not being modest or self deprecating. I'm amazing. But most people work hard. Hard work is the common denominator in this equation and I'm tired of the story we tell that hard work leads to success because that allowed.

Thank you. Because that story allows those of us who make it to believe we deserve it and by implication, those who don't make it don't deserve it. We tell ourselves in the back of our minds and sometimes in the front of our mouths, there must be something a little wrong with those poor people. We have a wide range of beliefs about what that something wrong is. Some people tell the story that poor folks are lazy freeloaders who would cheat and lie to get out of an honest day's work. Others prefer the story that poor people are helpless and probably had neglectful parents that didn't read to them enough and if they were just told what to do and show them the right path they could make it. For every story I hear demonizing low-income single mothers or absentee fathers, which is how people might think of my parents. I've got 50 that tell a different story about the same people showing up every day and doing their best. I'm not saying that some of the negative stories aren't true, but those stories allow us to not really see who people really are because they don't paint a full picture.

The court of truths and limited plotlines have us convinced that poor people are a problem that needs fixing. What if we recognized that what's working is the people and what's broken is our approach? What if we realized that the experts we are looking for, the experts we need to follow are poor people themselves? What if instead of imposing solutions, we just added fire to the already burning flame that they have? Not directing, not even empowering, but just fueling their initiative.

Just north of here we have an example of what this could look like. Silicon Valley. A whole venture capital industry has grown up around the belief that if people have good ideas and the desire to manifest them we should give them lots and lots and lots of money. Where is our strategy for Teresa and Bikir? There's no incubators for them, no accelerators, no fellowships. How are Giovanna, Cynthia and Bertha really all that different from the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world? Bikir has experienced in a track record. I put my money on him. So consider this an invitation to rethink a flawed strategy.

Let's grasp this opportunity to let go of a tired, faulty narrative and listen and look for true stories, more beautifully complex stories about who marginalized people and families and communities are. I'm going to take a minute to speak to my people. We cannot wait for somebody else to get it right. Let us remember what we are capable of. All that we have built with blood, sweat and dreams, all the cogs that keep turning and the people kept afloat because of our back breaking work. Let us remember that we are magic. If you need some inspiration to jog your memory, read Octavia Butler's parable of the Sower. Listen to Reverend King's letter from Birmingham, Jail. Listen to Seher Hamad recite first writing sense or Esperanza's spalding performed black gold. Set your gaze upon the art of Cajindiwile or Fabiana Rodriguez. Look at the hands of your grandmother or into the eyes of someone who loves you. We are magic. Individually we don't have a lot of wealth and power, but collectively we are unstoppable. And we spend a lot of our time and energy organizing to our power to demand change from systems that were not made for us. Instead of trying to alter the fabric of existing ways, let's weave and cut some fierce new cloth. Let's use some of our substantial collective power toward inventing and bringing to life new ways of being that work for us.

Desmond Tutu talks about the concept of Ubuntu in the context of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation process that they embarked on after apartheid. He says it means, my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours. We belong to a bundle of life. A bundle of life. The Truth and Reconciliation process started by elevating the voices of the unheard. If this country is going to live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all, then we need to elevate the voices of our unheard, of people like Giovanna, Cynthia, and Bertha, Teresa, and Bacchia. We must leverage their solutions and their ideas. We must listen to their true stories. They're more beautifully complex stories. Thank you.

部分单词释义

  • manifest

    及物动词显示,表明; 证明; 使显现

    形容词明白的,明显的

    名词货单,旅客名单

    1. 明显的;显而易见的
    If you say that something is manifest, you mean that it is clearly true and that nobody would disagree with it if they saw it or considered it.

    e.g. ...the manifest failure of the policies...
    政策明显的失败之处
    e.g. There may be unrecognised cases of manifest injustice of which we are unaware.
    也许还有一些我们不知道的明显不公平现象被忽视了。

    manifestly
    She manifestly failed to last the mile and a half of the race.
    显然她没能坚持跑完一英里半的赛程。
    ...the manifestly obvious health and social advantages of chastity.
    坚守贞操显而易见地合乎健康和社会利益
  • privilege

    名词特权; (因财富和社会地位而仅有部分人享有的)权益; 免责特权; 特殊荣幸

    及物动词给与…特权,特免

    1. (某人或某团体独享的)特权,优惠
    A privilege is a special right or advantage that only one person or group has.

    e.g. The Russian Federation has issued a decree abolishing special privileges for government officials.
    俄罗斯联邦已经颁布法令废除政府官员的特权。
    e.g. ...the ancient powers and privileges of the House of Commons.
    国会下议院古老的权力和特权

    2. (常指因财富、社会地位而享有的)特权,优惠
    If you talk about privilege, you are talking about the power and advantage that only a small group of people have, usually because of their wealth or their high social class.

    e.g. Pironi was the son of privilege and wealth, and it showed...
    皮罗尼出身于有钱有势的豪门,这看得出来。
    e.g. Having been born to privilege in old Hollywood, she was carrying on a family tradition by acting.
    她出身于过去好莱坞的名门,继承了当演员的家族传统。

    3. 荣幸;荣耀
    You can use privilege in expressions such as be a privilege or have the privilege when you want to show your appreciation of someone or something or to show your respect.

    e.g. It must be a privilege to know such a man...
    认识这样的人肯定很荣幸。
    e.g. I once had the privilege of meeting the late philosopher CLR James.
    我曾经有幸和已故的哲学家C.L.R.詹姆士会面。

    4. 特殊对待;给予…特权;给予…优待
    To privilege someone or something means to treat them better or differently than other people or things rather than treat them all equally.

    e.g. We want to privilege them because without the top graduate students, we can't remain a top university...
    我们希望给予这些最顶尖的研究生特别照顾,因为没有他们,我们就无法继续处于一流大学之列。
    e.g. They are privileging a tiny number to the disadvantage of the rest.
    他们优待少数几个人,使其他人处于不利的境地。

  • collective

    形容词集体的; 共同的; 集合的; 集体主义的

    名词[统]集体; [语]集合名词; 集团

    1. 集体的;共同的
    Collective actions, situations, or feelings involve or are shared by every member of a group of people.

    e.g. It was a collective decision...
    这是集体的决定。
    e.g. The country's politicians are already heaving a collective sigh of relief.
    该国的政界人士均已松了口气。

    collectively
    They collectively decided to recognize the changed situation...
    他们集体决定承认形势已经发生改变。
    The Cabinet is collectively responsible for policy.
    内阁集体对政策负责。
  • infectious

    形容词传染的; 有传染性的; 易传染的; 有感染力的

    1. 传染的;传染性的
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;A disease that is infectious can be caught by being near a person who has it.

    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;e.g. ...infectious diseases such as measles...
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;类似麻疹这样的传染病
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;e.g. These viruses affect children and are highly infectious.
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;这些病毒会侵袭儿童,而且具有很强的传染性。

    2. 有感染力的;易传播的
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;If a feeling is infectious, it spreads to other people.

    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;e.g. She radiates an infectious enthusiasm for everything she does...
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;她做任何事情都充满一种极富感染力的热情。
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;e.g. There was a peal of laughter down the phone, which Harry found infectious.
    […]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;[…]nbsp;电话里传来一阵响亮的笑声,哈里也不禁受其感染。

  • plaster

    名词石膏; 膏药; 灰泥,涂墙泥

    及物动词涂以灰泥; 在…上敷贴膏药; 减轻; 黏贴

    1. 灰泥;灰浆;熟石膏
    Plaster is a smooth paste made of sand, lime, and water which goes hard when it dries. Plaster is used to cover walls and ceilings and is also used to make sculptures.

    e.g. There were huge cracks in the plaster, and the green shutters were faded...
    灰泥上出现多条大裂缝,绿色百叶窗也褪色了。
    e.g. In the Mus d'Orsay in Paris is a sculpture in plaster by Rodin.
    巴黎的奥赛博物馆里有一件罗丹的石膏雕塑作品。

    2. 涂灰泥于;在…上抹灰浆
    If you plaster a wall or ceiling, you cover it with a layer of plaster.

    e.g. The ceiling he had just plastered fell in and knocked him off his ladder.
    他刚抹上灰泥的天花板塌了,把他从梯子上砸了下来。

    3. 在…上大量粘贴;贴满
    If you plaster a surface or a place with posters or pictures, you stick a lot of them all over it.

    e.g. They plastered the city with posters condemning her election...
    他们在城里到处张贴谴责她当选的海报。
    e.g. His room is plastered with pictures of Porsches and Ferraris.
    他的房间里贴满保时捷和法拉利车的图片。

    4. (给自己)涂上,抹上
    If you plaster yourself in some kind of sticky substance, you cover yourself in it.

    e.g. She plastered herself from head to toe in high factor sun lotion.
    她给自己从头到脚都抹上了强效防晒露。

    5. 膏药;橡皮膏;创可贴
    A plaster is a strip of sticky material used for covering small cuts or sores on your body.

    in AM, usually 美国英语通常用 Band-Aid
  • helpless

    形容词无助的; 无能的; 无用的; 六亲无靠

    1. 无助的;无力量的;无能力的;不由自主的
    If you are helpless, you do not have the strength or power to do anything useful or to control or protect yourself.

    e.g. Parents often feel helpless, knowing that all the cuddles in the world won't stop the tears...
    父母经常感到无能为力,因为他们知道无论多少次拥抱也无法止住眼泪。
    e.g. Children are dying, and I am helpless to do anything...
    孩子们已奄奄一息,而我却无力做任何事情。

    helplessly
    Their son watched helplessly as they vanished beneath the waves.
    他们的儿子无助地看着他们消失在大浪中。
  • resilience

    名词弹性; 回弹; 弹力; 快速恢复的能力

  • empowering

    授权( empower的现在分词 );准许;增加自主权;使控制局势;

  • incubators

    孵化器( incubator的名词复数 );恒温箱;

  • venue

    名词会场; 犯罪地点,案发地点; (尤指)体育比赛场所; 审判地

    1. (事件或活动的)发生地,举办地点;场地
    The venue for an event or activity is the place where it will happen.

    e.g. Birmingham's International Convention Centre is the venue for a three-day arts festival...
    为期3天的艺术节在伯明翰的国际会议中心举办。
    e.g. Peace talks failed to take place because of a dispute over the venue.
    由于在谈判地点上存在分歧,和平谈判未能举行。