Malcolm Gladwell

I'm a great fan of Malcolm Gladwell's. He's increadibly adept at distilling academic work into simple, and, at times, beautiful prose. But there is a downside. He tends to pare people down into mere statistics. For example, in one blog entry - following the ides of his book, Blink - he says that when you are speaking to a stranger, it is alright to bring up topics that person's race, sex, etc. are commonly associated with. So, when speaking with white-southern-business men, Gladwell regularly brings up college football. The reasoning is that if he acts according to the average interests of a demographic, things will work out for him, and his conversation partner, more often than not. Alright. But what about the effect of this strategy on the individual? It is increadibly disheartening being confronted by someone that sees you as a mere statistical average. Yes, it will work on average. But when it doesn't , the individual is left very wounded. He or she is left feeling like a jelly fish: transparent to all, an unwitting open book. And perhaps that outweighs the benefits. Perhaps that suggests we should not employ such a strategem.

Gladwell approaches the question of racism, and one's degree of racism, in much the same way here. I think he would be a little harder (justifiably) on Michael Richards, if he wasn't so confined by definitions and categories.

Name: Malcolm Gladwell
Age: 43
Ethnicity: Mixed (mother is Jamaican)
Profession: Staff writer for The New Yorker