Reviewed by Ed Ladd
I always enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell. He enlightens me. He connects the dots in ways that I would never suspect and in doing so illuminates my understanding of the world. He tells stories, coupled with research, to reveal hidden truths. In books like The Tipping Point, Blink, The Outliers, and others he has done this consistently. And he does it again in his latest work, Talking to Strangers.
In 2015, a young black woman named Sandra Bland is stopped by a policeman for failing to use her turn signal. Their encounter turns into an argument, her forcible removal from the car, her arrest, and placement in a jail cell. Three days later she committed suicide. Gladwell wants to know why this happened. “We put aside these controversies after a decent interval and move on to other things. I don’t want to move on to other things.”
In a world where people of color are killed by police in alarming numbers, we have failed to understand why. And although we point to the broader concept of systemic racism, we are at a loss to explain the point of conflict when two strangers meet and the result of that coming together is death. Gladwell attempts to uncover this mystery. For the full book review, please click here.