新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第二册 unit6b_new

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[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.net，就把hxen.net复制到QQ个人资料中！Judge by Appearances
[00:04.68]A standard criticism of sociological research
[00:10.12]is that it goes to great lengths
[00:14.58]to prove what most people with common sense already know.
[00:21.13]Without exactly taking sides for or against that criticism,
[00:27.40]I want to describe a sociological exercise that might seem to validate it
[00:35.68]except that, for me and a classmate
[00:41.33](and maybe for some who read this account)
[00:45.79]the experience made a common claim come alive.
[00:51.44]During spring break from a local college,
[00:56.20]my friend and I went downtown to shop.
[01:00.95]First, however,
[01:04.19]we made ourselves virtually unrecognizable to our friends
[01:10.45]and even to our families.
[01:14.92]We wore clothing slightly inappropriate for the weather
[01:20.39]clean but not ironed,
[01:24.35]clearly not the styles worn by most visitors to the area.
[01:30.50]We carried plastic bags of nameless possessions.
[01:35.94]Both of us were slightly untidy.
[01:40.87]My friend wore a faded cotton shirt over a T-shirt
[01:46.34]and a wrinkled skirt over sweat pants.
[01:51.71]I wore a wool hat that concealed my hair
[01:57.68]and an unfashionable coat and glasses with sun shades that clipped on.
[02:04.63]The aim was to look like street people
[02:09.67]and to observe what difference that made in the way other people responded to us
[02:16.94]whether the appearance of poverty would invite prejudice on us.
[02:24.00]We were also prepared to act out some mildly unusual behavior
[02:31.45]that might speak of some emotional problems,
[02:36.60]without appearing seriously disturbed or dangerous.
[02:42.25]As it turned out, there was no need for dramatics;
[02:47.90]people turned us off or tuned us out on the basis of appearance alone
[02:56.54]Our first stop (after parking our cars near the railroad tracks)
[03:04.79]was in the bargain store of a local charity,
[03:10.04]where we politely asked access to a bathroom and were refused
[03:17.78]Next we entered the lobby of a large hotel,
[03:23.15]where we asked for a coffee shop and a bathroom.
[03:28.62]The door man said, "You must go to the twentieth floor."
[03:34.38]We weren't up to trying our act at an exclusive restaurant,
[03:41.94]so we wandered around the first floor and left.
[03:47.70]From there we went to a second-hand shop,
[03:53.06]where we more or less blended with the customers,
[03:58.14]and then on to the upper-scale stores and coffee shops during the lunch hour
[04:05.59]It was prejudice time.
[04:10.24]Some of the children we encountered stared, pointed, and laughed
[04:16.68]adults gave us long, doubting looks
[04:22.04]Clerks in stores followed our track to watch our every move.
[04:28.70]In a lunchroom a second assistant hurried to the side of the cashier,
[04:35.54]where they took my $2 check without asking for ID
[04:42.28]it seemed worth that price to have us out the door.
[04:48.22]it seemed worth that price to have us out the door.
[04:54.19]At one doorway a clerk physically blocked the entrance
[05:01.36]apparently to discourage our entry.
[05:06.40]We had money to cover small purchases, and,
[05:12.66]apart from wearing down-scale clothing,
[05:17.70]we did nothing in any of these settings to draw attention to ourselves
[05:25.26]we merely shopped quietly in our accustomed manner.
[05:31.13]At one establishment we did blow our cover
[05:37.68]when we ordered French rolls with two special coffees;
[05:43.33]that may have been too far out of character for "bag ladies".
[05:50.06]Elsewhere we encountered ribbing, imitating, lack of trust, and rude stares
[05:59.82]So what did we learn? Mostly what we expected,
[06:07.20]what everybody knows: people judge by appearances
[06:14.15]Just looking poor brings with it prejudice,
[06:19.80]accompanied by removal of much of the social grace most of us take for granted
[06:27.47]Lacking the culturally acceptable symbols of belonging in this setting,
[06:34.34]we became, to a degree, objects, with less inherent dignity as persons.