美国国家公共电台 NPR Wisconsin Political Activists Hope A 'Silent Canvass' Will Win Back Black Voters

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

On Tuesday, Wisconsin goes to the polls. And the primary election will be an early test of voter enthusiasm ahead of the November midterms. Democrats¹ in the state are trying to hang onto their Senate seat, take back the governorship. To do that, they'll have to rebuild their relationship with black voters, many of whom sat out the 2016 election. We headed to Milwaukee and met Angela Lang, a local organizer who's come up with a novel way to make people in the community feel heard. She grew up here on the west side of Milwaukee.

ANGELA LANG: So, like, all of this is, like, the area that I know, that, like, feels very home and familiar.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lang is a charismatic 29-year-old who's showing us around the neighborhood.

LANG: This is, like, Merrill Park area.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is one of America's most segregated² cities. African-Americans face sky-high incarceration³ rates, strained relationships with police and inequalities in education.

LANG: I think this neighborhood, I think, is a place that's, like, kind of forgotten.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lang is the founder⁴ of BLOC⁵, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities. And she knows what politicians often think about neighborhoods like this one.

LANG: There's a lot of racial stereotypes⁶ that come out of our capital in Madison. And a lot of people think that Milwaukee is just full of murder and mayhem, which is quite literally⁷ what a state representative said some years ago.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It was a Republican lawmaker who said that, but Lang says Democrats made their own assumptions in 2016.

LANG: People take for granted the black vote. People just assume, black people turn out for Obama. They're Democrats. They're going to automatically turn out this time. And that wasn't the case.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Election experts have pointed⁸ to gerrymandering and strict voter ID laws that suppressed African-American votes. Lang says some people also chose to stay home.

LANG: What I saw this time was people not being apathetic⁹ but people choosing to not vote and using that as their power, as their political power, which was, I think, the first time I'd ever really seen that.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: She says there was too much blame placed on African-Americans for Hillary Clinton's loss.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Black turnout falls.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Had those people gone to the polls, who knows what could have happened in Wisconsin?

LANG: Implying that if black people would have just come out to vote, then this wouldn't have happened, instead of the conversation being, well, how about we had a candidate that actually earned our votes? And if we're going to blame anybody for electing Donald Trump¹⁰, we should blame the people that actually voted for him.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lang told me the challenge is not just to get black voters re-engaged in politics but to get politicians off the stump¹¹ and their checklist of Milwaukee photo ops.

LANG: You know, people go to black churches. They go to certain black restaurants. They go to black barbershops. And that's kind of like, OK. I did my little black Milwaukee tour.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: She says that's just not enough. African-Americans make up less than 10 percent of Wisconsin's population, but Democrats need as many of them as possible to turn out.

LANG: There is no way to win a statewide election without the city of Milwaukee, which is specifically black folks.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's why, Lang says, it's critical for Democrats to connect with neighborhoods like the one we're walking around in. If you know anything about politicians, you know this. They're constantly talking about themselves, right? Their story, their campaign, their talking points. But Angela Lang and her organization, BLOC, are asking them to do something different. It's called a silent canvass¹².

DAVID CROWLEY: Well, it forces me to shut up as an elected official. I think...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's state Representative David Crowley. He's the latest of more than a dozen elected officials who've been taken through this exercise. When we visit, he's doing a practice run in BLOC's basement office.

(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Yeah?

KEISHA ROBINSON: Hi, is Latoya (ph) home?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: In this silent canvass, Crowley pledges to stay quiet as an organizer engages with the voter.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: This is she.

ROBINSON: Hi, Latoya. My name is Keisha. I'm from BLOC. And this is my friend David.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: After the practice run, it's time for the real thing. Representative Crowley and BLOC organizer Keisha Robinson drive out to start knocking on doors in one of the most depressed¹³ neighborhoods in the city, the north side of Milwaukee.

ROBINSON: Hello. How y'all doing?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a neighborhood of detached homes with wooden porches and lawns, some well-tended, others strewn with children's toys and debris¹⁴. And in many ways, this silent canvass goes the way an old-fashioned canvass would.

ROBINSON: My name is Keisha. I'm from BLOC, Black...

(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)

ROBINSON: Hi. My name is Keisha. I'm from BLOC.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Some people have moved.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL CHIMING)

ROBINSON: Yeah, about four minutes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Others closed the door in her face.

(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There are dogs.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)

ROBINSON: Is there a better time I can reach her?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But Keisha Robinson does connect with a few people, like Avis Landrum, who's quick to share the challenges of daily life here.

AVIS LANDRUM: The abandoned buildings, the streets are a mess, the loud noise...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Robinson and the other organizers of BLOC come from the neighborhoods they're working in. And they understand the problems.

ROBINSON: OK. I know last night it was a lot of shootings and...

LANDRUM: I was asleep (laughter).

ROBINSON: ...Everything's - yeah, so over the city, it was about four killings¹⁵. So it's, like, yeah. As a community, we got to do better.

LANDRUM: Yeah. Our bedroom's right there, so I hear the music and the cussing and the fussing and the after-hours...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Around the corner, we meet Johnny Ewell, who's lived on the block for more than 50 years. He was the second African-American in the neighborhood when he moved in.

JOHNNY EWELL: And then the neighborhood sort of changed. It got pretty rough with these kids growing up, getting to be teenagers.

ROBINSON: Yeah. I hear you (laughter).

EWELL: Yeah.

ROBINSON: What do you think needs to be tackled?

EWELL: I know one thing. Something's got to change.

ROBINSON: That's right.

EWELL: You know, something's...

ROBINSON: And fast.

EWELL: ...Got to change quickly.

ROBINSON: Yes.

EWELL: We're losing too many young folk to violence, and that's bad. That's really bad.

ROBINSON: Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: All the while, Representative Crowley stands to the side, taking it all in. At every door, Robinson asks people if they're going to vote. And she hands out fliers about candidates their group has endorsed¹⁶.

ROBINSON: This is our Vote for Lucas. These are the sheriff's literature.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: BLOC claims this outreach is working. In a recent race, they say black turnout in the parts of the city they targeted went up by 3 percent. Back in the car, though, Robinson says it can be hard to mobilize people who felt neglected for so long.

ROBINSON: You see the defeat on some people. And I get this a lot from the older people. They'll congratulate us and, you know, tell us they admire the fight, but they're done, you know? And to see that is kind of, like, heartbreaking because it's like, where's the hope?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Reviving that hope may make the difference for Wisconsin Democrats come November.

(SOUNDBITE OF CITY OF THE SUN'S "EVERYTHING")

1 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

3 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

4 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

5 bloc   

n.集团；联盟

参考例句：

• A solid bloc of union members support the decision.工会会员团结起来支持该决定。
• There have been growing tensions within the trading bloc.贸易同盟国的关系越来越紧张。

6 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

8 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

9 apathetic   

adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的

参考例句：

• I realised I was becoming increasingly depressed and apathetic.我意识到自己越来越消沉、越来越冷漠了。
• You won't succeed if you are apathetic.要是你冷淡，你就不能成功。

10 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

11 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

12 canvass   

v.招徕顾客，兜售；游说；详细检查，讨论

参考例句：

• Mr. Airey Neave volunteered to set up an organisation to canvass votes.艾雷·尼夫先生自告奋勇建立了一个拉票组织。
• I will canvass the floors before I start painting the walls.开始粉刷墙壁之前，我会详细检查地板。

13 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

14 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

15 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

16 endorsed   

vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• The committee endorsed an initiative by the chairman to enter discussion about a possible merger. 委员会通过了主席提出的新方案，开始就可能进行的并购进行讨论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has broadly endorsed a research paper proposing new educational targets for 14-year-olds. 政府基本上支持建议对14 岁少年实行新教育目标的研究报告。 来自《简明英汉词典》