Day 11
Part II
9 The Mulberry Tree
Words and Expressions
button up
button verb [intransitive, transitive]
1 (also button up) to fasten clothes with buttons, or to be fastened with buttons
Sam, make sure Nina buttons up her jacket.
2 → button it!
do up a button (=fasten it)
He quickly did up the buttons on his shirt.
原文对照：
If a black guy chooses to button up his blackness to live among white people and play lots of golf, white people will say, “Fine. I like Brian. He’s safe.”
erase from
e‧rase /ɪˈreɪz $ ɪˈreɪs/ ●●○ verb [transitive]
1 to remove information from a computer memory or recorded sounds from a tape
The computer crashed, and all our records were erased.
► see thesaurus at remove
2 to remove writing from paper
Some of the names had been accidentally erased.
3 to get rid of something so that it has gone completely and no longer exists
Their dream is to erase poverty and injustice from the world.
erase something from your mind/memory
He couldn’t erase the image from his mind.
She had tried to erase the memory of that day.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall erased the border between the two Germanys.
• Somehow the magnets had erased the entire cassette.
原文对照：
Because if you work hard enough you can erase this taint from your bloodline.
denounce
de‧nounce /dɪˈnaʊns/ ●○○ verb [transitive]
1 to express strong disapproval of someone or something, especially in public → denunciation
Amnesty International denounced the failure by the authorities to take action.
denounce somebody/something as something
He denounced the election as a farce.
2 to give information to the police or another authority about someone’s illegal political activities
denounce somebody to somebody
She denounced him to the police.
原文对照：
All you had to do was denounce your people, denounce your history, and leave your darker-skinned friends and family behind.
Thoughts
While most were killed off through disease, famine, and war, the rest of their bloodline was bred out of existence, mixed in with the descendants of whites and slaves to form an entirely new race of people: coloreds. Colored people are a hybrid, a complete mix.
Eden Park 属于有色人区，搬家之后Trevor遇到的歧视不仅来自白色社区，还来自有色社区。如果一个人是被排斥于局外的对象，来自局内和局外的歧视都将淹没他。
夹缝中的不那么完全的黑，又不那么白，简直是对两边的双重“背叛”。这种双向的歧视，很有点“三明治”的味道，年纪在中间的，被年长的人认为是不够成熟，被小孩们认为不够年轻活力。中产的“鄙视链”也是类似，更有产的阶级不屑于基础的富余阶级产物，他们依然会担心财产，并未达到经济的完全自由，而更底层的则会一边嘲笑他们的装，一边仇视他们的财富。
小Trevor虽然一直被欺负，却一直以善心度人，才会一再被欺负。
虽有时也会回家向妈妈告状，其实最终不得不自己解决遇到的难题。最后他学会自己独立面对，一面把陌生人的对话理解为交朋友，一面也会在醒悟之后控诉抢劫和霸凌的孩子。
这里关于教育的方式，Trevor妈妈又作了榜样，她不会替小孩解决问题，也不会因为告状而直接进行安慰或反击，而是让孩子自己面对。在遇到约会女孩儿时，又会适当引导，也是言行一致，并进行有关教养的教育了。