How the Wealth Gap Is Reshaping Politics | Xochitl Gonzalez | TED · TED
演讲者通过自己无法买咖啡的经历，揭示财富不平等对民主的潜在威胁。适合练习社会议题、心理描写和逻辑表达。
I'm here to tell you a story about getting a cup of coffee.
我来这里是想给你们讲一个关于买一杯咖啡的故事。
Or I should say, attempting to get a cup of coffee, because when I went to pay for it,
或者更准确地说，应该是“试图买一杯咖啡”；因为当我去付款的时候……
I couldn't.
我做不到。
This is about a year and a half ago, and there was nothing wrong with my card's chip.
这件事发生在大约一年半前，当时我的信用卡芯片没有任何问题（即芯片功能正常）。
The store's reader was fine.
这家商店使用的读卡器没有任何问题（即可以正常使用）。
The problem was with my bank account.
问题出在我的银行账户上。
It was empty.
里面什么都没有。
Now, a rational person would have just taken out another card, but in that moment, there was nothing rational about me.
一个理智的人本来应该再抽一张牌的，但在那一刻，我完全失去了理智。
My chest tightened, my jaw clenched, my cortisol spiked.
我的胸口感到一阵紧绷，下巴不由自主地紧绷起来，体内的皮质醇水平也急剧上升。
I lost all awareness of a purse with a wallet and other pieces of plastic inside of it.
我完全忘记了那个钱包的存在——里面装着现金、银行卡以及其他塑料制品。
And instead, I just apologized profusely, walked out the door and burst into tears.
于是，我只是连连道歉，然后走出了门，突然哭了起来。
Dramatic, a tad.
有点戏剧性吧……
But my reaction had very little to do with who I am in this moment, a New York Times best -selling author,
但我的反应其实与我此刻的身份（一位《纽约时报》畅销书作者）几乎没有关系。
a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a homeowner.
一位普利策奖决赛入围者，同时也是一位房主。
And it had everything to do with who I once was.
这一切都与我曾经是谁有关。
A working -class girl from South Brooklyn who didn't grow up with much.
她来自南布鲁克林的一个工人阶级家庭，成长过程中并没有拥有太多物质财富。
Despite our nation's reputation as a land of opportunity, the truth is upward social mobility in America is actually quite arduous,
尽管我们国家被誉为充满机会的地方，但事实是，在美国实现社会地位的提升实际上相当困难。
and less than 10 % of people
而且只有不到 10% 的人……
that start out like me on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder ever managed to make it to the top.
那些最初像我一样处于经济阶梯最底层的人，最终都成功登上了顶峰。
And somehow, I did.
不知怎么的，我做到了。
So while it was a temporary problem paying for the coffee that day, you know, I move things around,
虽然那天支付咖啡费用确实是个临时性的小问题（你知道的，我经常会调整各种安排或资源的使用方式），不过……
other accounts, that panic in my body was known from before.
从其他经历来看，我身体中的那种恐慌情绪其实以前就出现过。
From 2009, when I was struggling to get my small business through the Great Recession.
从 2009 年开始，我就一直在努力让自己的小企业度过那场严重的经济衰退。
From 1998, when I was working my way through college and there was no other account to pull from or parent or relative to call,
从 1998 年开始，那时我还在上大学，既没有其他可以动用的资金来源，也没有父母或亲戚可以求助……
all the other times that I was living like so many of my fellow Americans
在我像我的许多美国同胞一样生活的那些日子里……
from paycheck to paycheck.
只能勉强维持生计，从一份工资发到下一份工资发。
It's no secret that we are living in a time of wealth inequality, not seen since the Gilded Age,
我们生活在一个财富分配极度不平等的时代，这种状况自“镀金时代”以来从未出现过，这已经不是什么秘密了。
but too often it's talked about with the clinical distance of other people's problems and inconvenience that we wish somebody would do something about.
然而，人们谈论这个问题时往往带着一种冷漠的态度——将其视为他人的问题或不便，希望有人能够采取措施来解决这些问题。
And far less discussed is the shared urgent threat that this poses to our democracy.
而更少被讨论的是：这对我们的民主制度所构成的共同且紧迫的威胁。
And if we don't start talking about income inequality like the civic issue it needs to be,
如果我们不开始将收入不平等视为一个亟需解决的公民问题来讨论的话……
we will surely slide further towards autocracy than we already have.
我们肯定会进一步走向专制，甚至比现在的情况更严重。
Maybe irrevocably so.
也许这种改变是不可逆转的。
Part of the problem is, even though we're a capitalistic society, we fascinatingly hate talking about money.
问题的一个根源在于：尽管我们生活在一个资本主义社会中，但我们却非常不愿意谈论金钱。
Like a lot of you, I have an aura ring and the day of the coffee incident,
和你们中的许多人一样，我也戴着一枚带有特殊能量的戒指。就在那次咖啡事件发生的那天……
it told me, I'd experienced an unusual amount of stress that day and it gave me a few reasons,
它告诉我，那天我承受了异常大的压力，并给出了几个导致这种压力的原因。
work, bad sleep, and maybe it's because aura is from Finland, but money wasn't an option,
工作压力大、睡眠质量差……也许还因为“Aura”这个品牌来自芬兰，所以根本没钱去尝试其他选择。
which is unfortunate because in America, financial anxiety is linked to things like hypertension,
这实在令人遗憾，因为在美洲，财务焦虑与高血压等疾病之间存在关联。
depression, and even reduced lifespan.
抑郁症不仅会导致情绪低落和心理压力，还可能缩短人的寿命。
But it all got me thinking, well, if money can impact our health,
但这让我开始思考：如果金钱真的会影响我们的健康的话……
how does having money or not having money impact our behavior and our thoughts?
拥有金钱或没有金钱，会如何影响我们的行为和思维呢？