PBS高端访谈:来看看现实版美国梦（在线收听）

Judy Woodruff: More than 20 percent of African-Americans and 18 percent of Hispanics are living in poverty in this country. That's according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. While those numbers are on the wane, they remain roughly double the rate for whites. Achieving the so-called American dream is clearly harder for some than for others. Tonight, author and entrepreneur Casey Gerald shares his Humble Opinion on what he calls the myth of that dream and how its very notion can be destructive.

Casey Gerald: I was born on the wrong side of the tracks, or, as George W. Bush said of me, the other side of the river. We'd met on the buffet line at his presidential library, and he'd become fond of retelling his version of my story. And he was right: Most cities have railroad tracks to separate poor people of color from other citizens. In Dallas, there's a whole river between us, the Trinity. In all-black Oak Cliff, my neighborhood, I was raised by my grandmother, who worked as a domestic, and by my sister, who adopted me when our mother disappeared. I watched my father struggle with addiction, and watched my friends endure the same or worse. But that is not why Mr. Bush felt moved to share my story. At 18, I left my side of the river and traveled 1,600 miles away to Yale. I played varsity football. I interned on Wall Street.

I worked in Washington in the early years of the Obama administration, and continued to Harvard Business School, where I started a nonprofit to work with small business owners in places like Detroit, New Orleans, and rural Montana. I have seen and lived America from the very bottom to the very top. And so, in Mr. Bush's eyes, and in many others', I am the embodiment of the American dream. The sad thing is that they are right. The American dream, you see, is a fantasy, a myth that relies on stories like mine to distract us from the American machine, the conveyor belt that leads most young people, especially from neighborhoods like mine, from nothing to nowhere, while picking off the chosen few, like me. Yes, there is Oprah. There is Sonia Sotomayor. But the dream cannot compete with the American reality, that a kid in my neighborhood is expected to earn 21,000 dollars a year, less than their parents were expected to make, that 13 million American children live in households without enough to eat, that one in 30 don't have a stable household at all. The stats only begin to make the tragedy plain. When we highlight stories like mine, we send the message to kids that it's their fault if they don't succeed. Even worse, we send the message to the rest of society that it's not our fault that this country has failed to give every child a fair shot.The dream makes the machine seem accidental, rather than designed. That, to me, would be a story worth telling.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：20%多的非裔美国人和18%的西班牙裔美国人在美国处于贫困的生活状态。这是美国人口调查局的最新数据。虽然这些数字的量在减少，但依然是白人贫困比率的近2倍。对于一些人来说，实现所谓美国梦的难度要高于其他人。今晚，作家兼企业家凯西·杰拉尔德分享了自己对美国梦本质的理解，并表示美国梦的理念是具有破坏性的。

凯西·杰拉尔德：我生的不好，正如乔治布什曾说，我出生在河的另一边。我们有时候会在总统图书馆的自助餐上遇到，他就会兴致勃勃地跟我再次讲述关于他对我故事的理解。他是对的：大多数城市都有铁轨，可以将贫穷的有色人种和其他市民区分开来。在达拉斯，我们之间一直隔着一条河，我们三方就以这样的方式共处着。我家附近是全都是黑人生活的橡树崖。我从小被奶奶带大。奶奶是个佣人。我的姐姐收养了我，因为我找不到妈妈了。我眼看着父亲屡次戒毒不成，我看着我的朋友们也经历着同样甚至更糟糕的事情。但这并非布什受到感动并愿意分享我的故事的原因。18岁的时候，我离开了我的那岸河，去了离家1600英里的耶鲁。我参加了足球比赛，还在华尔街实习过。

奥巴马上任之初的那几年，我曾在华盛顿工作，后来又去了哈佛商学院。在哈佛商学院，我创办了一个非盈利组织，跟底特律、新奥尔良和蒙大纳农村的一些小型商户合作。我从美国的底层爬到了顶层。所以，在布什乃至很多人的眼里，我是美国梦的代表。让人难过的是：他们的所想是正确的。大家可以感受到，美国梦就像范特西一样，是一种神话一样的存在，要靠像我这样的人的故事才能将大家从机器旁抽离出来。这是一个传送带，引领着大多数年轻人，尤其是像我一样出身寒门的年轻人，从一事无成到永无止境，然后从中遴选一些人，而我就是其中的一员。没错，奥普拉也是，索尼娅·索托马约尔也是。但美国梦无法与美国的现实状况相比拼，而现实就是：在我住的地方，一个小孩子就要每年赚2.1万美金才行，而他的父母都还赚不到这些；现实是：1300万美国儿童食不果腹，1/30的人无家可归。这样的数字让悲剧变得司空见惯。当我们宣传像我一样的个人经历时，也是在告诉孩子们：如果他们不成功，就是他们自己的问题。更糟糕的是，我们也向社会传递了一个讯息：没有为每个孩子提供公平的环境并不是社会的错误。美国梦让大家如出一辙，毫无创意。对于我来说，这个故事讲给大家是有意义的。