A CASE OF “SEVERE BIAS”
Patricia Raybon
hov1 This is who I am not. I am not a crack addict. I am not a welfare mother. I am not illiterate. I am not a prostitute. I have never been in jail. My children are not in gangs. My husband doesn’t beat me. My home is not a tenement. None of the things defines who I am, nor do they describe the other black people I’ve known and worked with and loved and befriended over the forty years of my life.
工程管理就业方向
◆ welfare mother: welfare queen is a pejorative phra ud in the United States to refer to people, usually women, who are accud of collecting excessive welfare payments through fraud or manipulation英语听力.
◆ tenement: n. 1) a large building divided into flats/apartments, especially in a poor area of a city
(尤指城市贫困区的)经济公寓，廉价公寓
e.g. a tenement block 经济住宅街区
2 Nor does it describe most of black America, period.
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美国达人第五季3 Yet in the eyes of the American news media, this is what black America is: poor, criminal, addicted, and dysfunctional. Indeed, media coverage of black America is so one-sided, so imbalanced that the most victimized and hurting gment of the black community － a small gment, at best － is prented not as the exception but as the norm. It is an insidious practice, all the uglier for its blatancy.
◆ dysfunctional: adj. (technical) not working normally or properly 机能失调的；功能障碍的
e.g. children from dysfunctional families 有缺陷家庭的子女
◆ coverage: n. (U) 1) the reporting of news and sport in newspapers and on the radio and television 新闻报道
e.g. media/newspaper/press coverage 媒体/报纸/报刊的报道
tonight’s live coverage of the hockey game 今晚曲棍球比赛的现场直播
2) the range or quality of information that is included in a book or cour of study, on television, etc. (书、课程学习、电视等的)信息范围，信息质量
e.g. magazines with extensive coverage of diet and health topics
包含大量饮食与健康话题的杂志
3) the amount of sth that sth provides; the amount or way that sth covers an idea
提供的数量；覆盖范围（或方式）
e.g. Immunization coverage against fatal dias has incread to 99% in some countries.
在一些国家致命疾病免疫注射的覆盖面已达到99%。
日语新年快乐 4) (NAmE)=cover n.(4)
悬而未决的意思 e.g. insurance coverage 保险范围
Medicaid health coverage for low-income families 对低收入家庭的医疗保险
◆ victimize: v. 1) (often passive) to make sb suffer unfairly becau you do not like them, their opinions, or sth that they have done (不正当地)使受害，使受苦
e.g. For years the family had been victimized by racist neighbors.
多年来这家人因邻居怀有种族偏见而饱受欺凌。
在线辞典 The union claimed that some of its members had been victimized for taking part in the strike.
工会声称有些会员因参加罢工而受到迫害。
◆ insidious: adj. 1) (formal, disapproving) spreading gradually or without being noticed, but causing rious harm 潜伏的；隐袭的；隐伏的
e.g. the insidious effects of polluted water supplies 供水系统污染的潜在恶果
◆ blatant: adj. 1) (disapproving) (of actions that are considered bad) done in an obvious and open way without caring if people are shocked 明目张胆的；公然的 syn: flagrant
e.g. a blatant attempt to buy votes 公然的贿选企图dead beat
klk It was a blatant lie. 那是个赤裸裸的谎言。
4 In recent months, I have obrved a steady offering of media reports on crack babies, gang warfare, violent youth, poverty, and homelessness － and in most cas, the people featured in the photos and stories were black. At the same time, articles that discuss other aspects of American life － from home buying to medicine to technology to nutrition － rarely, if ever, show blacks playing a positive role, or for that matter, any role at all.
◆ crack baby: Parental cocaine exposure (PCE) occurs when a pregnant woman us cocaine and thereby expos her fetus to the drug. “Crack baby” was a term coined to describe children who were expod to crack.
◆ warfare: n. (U) 1) the activity of fighting a war, especially using particular weapons or m
ethods 战；作战；战争
e.g. air/naval/guerrilla, etc. warfare
空战、海战、游击战等
countries engaged in warfare 参战国
2) the activity of compteting in an aggressive way with anotehr group, company, etc.
(群体、公司等之间的)斗争、竞争、冲突
e.g. class/gang warfare 阶级/帮派斗争
The debate soon degenerated into open warfare.
争论很快恶化，演变成了公开的论战。
5 Day after day, week after week, this message － that black America is dysfunctional and unwhole － gets transmitted across the American landscape. Sadly, as a result, Amer
ica never learns the truth about what is actually a wonderful, vibrant, creative community of people.
