美国国家公共电台 NPR Finding A Way Home Through 'The Door Of No Return'

Finding A Way Home Through 'The Door Of No Return'

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0000:00repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: 

NPR's Gene² Demby thought his recent trip to Ghana would be fun and uncomplicated. Instead it got him thinking about his family story.

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GENE DEMBY, BYLINE³: So the family lore⁴ goes something like this. My mother was getting a checkup before a trip to Ghana with her boyfriend, who was from Accra. Then her doctor told her that she was pregnant with twins. Her trip to the motherland was going to have to wait. I was in my early 20s the first time my mother told me that story. And for decades, she'd put much of her life on hold for my sister and me. We were those twins.

I said nothing about the passing mention of her old boyfriend, my father. And that story came to mind a few weeks ago when my girlfriend and I landed in Accra for a friend's wedding. At customs, an officer leafed through my passport. Welcome back, Mr. Afum, he said. He called me by the part of my last name I rarely use or think about, my father's name. My name is Gene Demby-Afum.

This is going to sound hard to believe. I know. But I hadn't really thought about the connection I had to Accra until that moment. I hadn't seen my father in decades. And I rarely mention him. So cards on the table - I hate talking about my father because of all the ways the story of fatherlessness has become synonymous with black family dysfunction.

And people pose questions to me all the time about what it was like growing up without a father. And they've seen that statistic⁵ that 72 percent of black children are born out of wedlock⁶. And they wonder how I fared. So here's what it was like.

My mom worked and fed us and tied my ties. My grandmother watched us after school and picked me up from Cub⁷ Scouts⁸. My aunt fussed at me about my grades. And my cousin taught me how to shoot free throws. It never occurred to me that all that fawning⁹ and all that fussiness¹⁰ was family dysfunction.

And so while I was in Ghana, we went to the Elmina Castle, a 500-year-old fortress¹¹ that sits on the Gulf¹² of Guinea. For centuries, that castle was a major hub of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. I'd heard stories from other black Americans about how traumatic tours like that could be. And I told myself that I was not about to become some blubbering American cliche¹³. But I felt a rising disquiet¹⁴ as the guy took us to a courtyard, where he said the Portuguese¹⁵ governor once lined up the captive African women and would choose one to rape¹⁶.

We went through a dark passage to reach the Door of No Return, a glorified¹⁷ hole in the castle's stone wall that led countless¹⁸ captive Africans to enslavement or death. And then we came to a dungeon¹⁹ with no windows. There was this painting of a skull²⁰ above its door. And we stood inside that dungeon in total darkness as our guide asked us to bow our heads.

He recited a prayer for the thousands of people who died on the castle grounds. And I could not hear what he was saying. I was crying. I felt connected not to Ghana at that moment or to the specter of my absent father but to the people who were wrenched²¹ from that part of the African coast and crammed²² into ships and sold on another continent like livestock²³ - those people, who were from far-flung tribes and villages, who arrived in a new land and cobbled together families that slavers and slave masters tried to shatter centuries before anyone uttered the words black family dysfunction. I felt the pull of that shared story, horrifying²⁴ and beautiful, that shaped the lives of millions of Americans, including a black woman, her daughter and me.

MCEVERS: Gene Demby is a correspondent for NPR's Code Switch.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 lore   

n.传说；学问，经验，知识

参考例句：

• I will seek and question him of his lore.我倒要找上他，向他讨教他的渊博的学问。
• Early peoples passed on plant and animal lore through legend.早期人类通过传说传递有关植物和动物的知识。

5 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

6 wedlock   

n.婚姻，已婚状态

参考例句：

• My wife likes our wedlock.我妻子喜欢我们的婚姻生活。
• The Fawleys were not made for wedlock.范立家的人就跟结婚没有缘。

7 cub   

n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人

参考例句：

• The lion cub's mother was hunting for what she needs. 这只幼师的母亲正在捕猎。
• The cub licked the milk from its mother's breast. 这头幼兽吸吮着它妈妈的奶水。

8 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

9 fawning   

adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好

参考例句：

• The servant worn a fawning smile. 仆人的脸上露出一种谄笑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! 好一个低眉垂首、阿谀逢迎、胁肩谄笑、卑躬屈膝的场面！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

10 fussiness   

[医]易激怒

参考例句：

• Everybody knows that this is not fussiness but a precaution against burglars. 大家知道，这不是为了多事，而是为了防贼。 来自互联网

11 fortress   

n.堡垒，防御工事

参考例句：

• They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
• The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。

12 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

13 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

14 disquiet   

n.担心，焦虑

参考例句：

• The disquiet will boil over in the long run.这种不安情绪终有一天会爆发的。
• Her disquiet made us uneasy too.她的忧虑使我们也很不安。

15 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

16 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

17 glorified   

美其名的，变荣耀的

参考例句：

• The restaurant was no more than a glorified fast-food cafe. 这地方美其名曰餐馆，其实只不过是个快餐店而已。
• The author glorified the life of the peasants. 那个作者赞美了农民的生活。

18 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

19 dungeon   

n.地牢，土牢

参考例句：

• They were driven into a dark dungeon.他们被人驱赶进入一个黑暗的地牢。
• He was just set free from a dungeon a few days ago.几天前，他刚从土牢里被放出来。

20 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

21 wrenched   

v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• The bag was wrenched from her grasp. 那只包从她紧握的手里被夺了出来。
• He wrenched the book from her hands. 他从她的手中把书拧抢了过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 crammed   

adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式)

参考例句：

• He crammed eight people into his car. 他往他的车里硬塞进八个人。
• All the shelves were crammed with books. 所有的架子上都堆满了书。

23 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

24 horrifying   

a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的

参考例句：

• He went to great pains to show how horrifying the war was. 他极力指出战争是多么的恐怖。
• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate. 战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。