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讀紐時學英文
2020/06/26 第308期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim 沒單一領導人卻迅速聚人潮 社群媒體成現代抗爭最強領袖
Is a Pandemic the Right Time to Start a Business? It Just Might Be 危機即轉機 疫情催生創業潮
紐時周報精選
 
Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim 沒單一領導人卻迅速聚人潮 社群媒體成現代抗爭最強領袖
文/John Eligon and Kimiko de Fr
譯/陳韋廷 核稿/樂慧生

社群媒體 現代抗爭者最強領袖

In the sea of hundreds of protesters who gathered one evening near the intersection where George Floyd was killed, a lone voice rose from the crowd.“Everybody sit down,” it urgently ordered.Others chimed in — “Sit down! Sit down!” — scolding those, even journalists, who were slow to comply.

某個夜晚,數百名抗議者聚集在明尼亞波利斯市、黑人佛洛伊德被白人警察以膝蓋壓頸致死的十字路口附近,人群中響起一個孤單的聲音。它急切命令道:「大家坐下。」另有些人附和道「坐下!坐下!」,並責罵那些沒有立刻配合的人,甚至包括記者在內。

A few minutes later, Tony Clark, wearing a black face mask and an earring with the inscription “Not today Satan,” bounded toward the center of the circle of seated bodies and took the megaphone.“Everybody stand up,” he commanded, contradicting the earlier speaker’s instructions.The crowd rose.

幾分鐘後,戴著黑色口罩、耳環刻有「不是今天,撒旦」字句的湯尼·克拉克,朝席地而坐的人群中間跳過去拿起了擴音器。他命令道:「所有人都站起來。」這跟稍早擴音器傳出的指令相反。大家都站了起來。

“The moment y’all sit down, the moment they’re going to step on y’all,” Clark, 27, said to rousing applause. But a half-hour later, he reversed his stance and told everyone to sit down again.

27歲的克拉克朝著熱烈鼓掌的人們說:「你們坐下的時刻,就是他們踐踏你們的時刻。」但半小時後,他改變了立場並告訴大家坐下。陸戰隊退伍的

“Stop barking orders,” said Davi Young, a Marine veteran, twisting his face. “You’re not the police.”

戴維·楊恩歪曲著臉說:「別再發號施令了。你又不是警察。」

Welcome to 21st-century activism, where spontaneous and leaderless movements have been defined by their organic births and guided on the fly by people whose preferences, motivations and ideas may not always align.

歡迎來到21世紀的街頭抗爭運動,這些自發且沒有領袖的運動,是由它們的有機出生所定義,並由那些喜好、動機與想法可能並不總是一致的人所導引。

But the absence of organized leadership does not mean the movements — from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter — are rudderless.

然而缺乏有組織的領導,並不代表從「阿拉伯之春」到「占領華爾街」再到「黑人的命也是命」這些運動沒有方向。

Leveraging technology that was unavailable to earlier generations, the activists of today have a digital playbook. Often, it begins with an injustice captured on video and posted to social media. Demonstrations are hastily arranged, hashtags are created and before long, thousands have joined the cause.

拜先前世代無法獲得的科技所賜,今日的社運人士握有一本數位教戰手冊。通常,它是從以影片捕捉到不公正事件並發布在社群媒體開始。示威活動在極短時間內安排就緒,主題標籤同時創立,不久後,成千上萬人加入了這項運動。

At the core is an egalitarian spirit, a belief that everyone has a voice, and that everyone’s voice matters.

運動的核心是一種平等精神,一個人人有權說話,每個人的意見都很重要的信念。

But leaderless movements have their challenges.It can be difficult to keep protests from spilling out of control, and difficult to maintain a clear and focused message. Disputes over the best strategies can easily emerge.

可是沒有領袖的運動也有其挑戰。要讓抗議活動不失控很難,維持一個明確集中的訊息也不容易,經常會因何者才是最佳策略而起爭執。

These days, social media is the strongest, most prominent leader. Young activists announce the location of an action or protest on Twitter or Instagram, and within an hour, scores of people are there.

現下,社群媒體是最強大、最突出的領袖。年輕的社運人士在推特或Instagram上宣布活動或抗議的地點,一小時內就有數十人到場。

“I think it kind of does make it hard to manage because you don’t know who’s coming,” said Maryan Farasle, a 17-year-old high school senior who lives in the Minneapolis suburbs and is an activist organizer. “You don’t know the people showing up and what their intentions are.”But at the same time, she added, “I think it is a way to get a lot of people together quickly.”

住在明尼亞波利斯市郊的17歲高三學生、同時也是個抗爭活動主辦者的瑪芮恩.法拉斯勒表示,「我認為這確實有點難管理,因為你不知道會來些什麼人。你不認識出現的人,也不知道他們的意圖」,但同時她又說「我認為這是讓很多人迅速聚集的一個辦法」。

But today’s young activists also avoid singular leaders. “We’ve seen what happens to people in the past when they’re the lead of anything,” Farasle said, referring to civil rights leaders who have been slain.

不過,今天的年輕社運人士也避免出現單一領導人。法拉斯勒說:「我們看到了過去有人成為任何活動的領袖時,他們的下場。」她指的是遇害的民權領袖。

 
Is a Pandemic the Right Time to Start a Business? It Just Might Be 危機即轉機 疫情催生創業潮
文/Amy Haimerl
譯/陳韋廷、核稿/樂慧生

危機即轉機 疫情催生創業潮

In March, as small businesses across the country were shutting down amid the spreading coronavirus pandemic, Shanel Fields was about to open one up.

今年三月新冠肺炎開始大流行,全美各地小型企業紛紛歇業,而夏奈兒•費爾茲卻準備開一家新公司。

For Fields, the timing couldn't have been better. Her company, MD Ally, allows 911 dispatchers and other responders to route nonemergency calls and patients to virtual doctors, to help local governments improve their emergency response systems.

對費爾茲來說,時機可再好不過了。她的公司名叫MD Ally,能協助911緊急求救電話的調度員和其他救難人員,將非緊急電話和病人轉給虛擬醫生,從而幫助地方政府改善他們的緊急救難反應系統。

She's not alone: New businesses are forming despite the pandemic.

她並不孤單,因為儘管疫情大流行,新公司仍不斷設立。

Past downturns produced some high-profile U.S. companies: Airbnb, Disney, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Slack, Uber and Venmo, to name a few.

過去的經濟低迷時期造就了一些引人注目的美國企業,像是Airbnb,迪士尼、通用汽車、惠普、微軟、Slack、Uber和Venmo。

“Downturns or challenging times are seen as good times to start a business for two reasons,” said Rashmi Menon, entrepreneur in residence at the University of Michigan's Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. “One is, there is less competition for resources. The second reason is that whatever changes we face, positive or negative, bring up new customer needs. And customer needs are at the core of any business.”

密西根大學澤爾路利創業研究所常駐企業家拉希米•梅農說:「經濟低迷或充滿挑戰的時期被視為創業的好時機,這有兩個原因,第一個是爭奪資源者減少。第二個原因則是,無論我們面對的是正面還是負面的改變,都會帶來新的客戶需求。而客戶需求是一切業務的核心。」

For Fields, opening now meant greater access to top talent. She hired her fourth employee and said more than 200 qualified applicants had submitted resumes. And being in the health care sector during a pandemic has raised her profile with funders and governments: MD Ally, which is based in Philadelphia, recently signed its first customer and closed its first round of investment worth $1 million.

對費爾茲而言,現在創業意味著更容易接觸到頂尖人才。她雇用了第四位員工,並表示有200多名符合資格的申請者提交履歷。在疫病大流行期間投入醫療領域,提高了她在投資金主與政府眼中的分量。總部位於費城的MD Ally最近簽下了第一個客戶,並已完成第一輪價值100萬美元的募資。

For others, the timing can mean low interest rates for borrowing startup capital, cheaper equipment as businesses sell off inventory or lower lease rates as landlords scramble to fill empty spaces.

對另一些人來說,這個時機意味著能用低利率借到創業資本,取得因企業出脫庫存而更便宜的設備,租金也因房東爭相出租閒置空間而調降。

“There are going to be industries that are winners, and others that are going to be losers,” said David Brown, who co-founded the startup accelerator Techstars during the 2008 recession. “I probably wouldn’t want to be in a business right now that caters to business travelers, but I’d love to be in a business that helps enable telemedicine.”

2008年經濟衰退期間跟他人共同創辦新創加速器Techstars的大衛•布朗說:「有些行業會成為贏家,有些則會成為輸家。此刻我大概不會想從事為商務旅行者提供服務的行業,但我會樂於投入有助於實現遠距醫療的行業。」

Determining what customers need now, rather than before the pandemic, is crucial. Menon and Brown see opportunity in offering solutions to the challenges that people now face: educating their children, working from home, managing supply chains, getting a haircut or the house cleaned, seeing doctors and therapists, entertaining themselves. Even new restaurants might be successful if they consider the future of customer service rather than recreate old systems.

確定客戶現在的需求,而非疫情流行前的需求,至關重要。梅農和布朗看到了為人們當前所面臨挑戰提供解決方法的機會,像是教育孩子、在家工作、管理供應鏈、理髮或打掃房子、看醫生與治療師與自我娛樂。即便是新餐館也有可能成功,只要他們考慮到顧客服務的未來,而非重建舊系統。

“If you can find innovative ways for people to feed themselves right now, that might make sense,” Menon said. “You just have to address a need.”

梅農說:「只要你能找到創新的方法來幫助人們解決吃的問題,那就可能行得通。總之你必須能滿足某種需求。」

※說文解字看新聞【陳韋廷】

Airbnb與Uber等明星企業均在金融危機期間創立,它們的成功意味著經濟衰退時期似乎為創業的良機,第四段單字downturn指的就是經濟衰退(economic recession),為財經新聞常見單字,複合形容詞high-profile則在文中譯為「引人注目的」,非「高調、高規格」之意,反義詞則是low-profile。

entrepreneur一字來自法語,意指「創業家、企業家」,形容詞為entrepreneurial,entrepreneurship指「創業精神、企業家精神」。另外,enterprise代表「企業、公司」,常指剛起步的中小企業(small and medium enterprise,簡稱SME),startup(新創公司)就是其中一分子。

動詞片語start a business即指「創業」,意思跟文中首段表示「歇業」的shut down相反,又「封鎖、關閉」則是後者其他常見意思。至於to name a few則用在舉例時,常出現在句末,其中name在此作「舉出」解。

 
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