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Malcolm Gladwell and the Dangers of Light Skinned Privilege

By Chris L. Butler

A few years ago, in 2016, a friend recommended a podcast to me titled, Revisionist History, by a journalist and bestselling author named Malcolm Gladwell. I had never really read any of his books at the time, but my interest and curiosity had peaked nonetheless.

From there, I discovered the Afro-Canadian, Jamaican-British writer’s calm, yet direct approach to unpacking topics of importance. Initially, I had fallen for his non-confrontational style during a time of rampant Trump/right-wing politics and the impact that it had on North America and Europe. At the time, I was living in Houston (my home), so quite frankly, Gladwell’s calamity was an escape from all the noise. 

After season one of the podcast, I decided to read his most famous book Outliers. I read it over and over, digesting its words like a top tier steak. Bit by bit, bite by bite, I truly studied its flavour. Outliers is one of the most unique books I have ever read (for several reasons), this is a book where Gladwell makes the dubious claim that an individual’s birth month will determine their ability to be a great professional hockey player, backing up the claim with statistics. A real Canadian dream. However, these causal narratives allow Gladwell to slip in some of his more problematic ideas.

For example, Gladwell says that Bill Gates is the successful person he is because he had access to a computer as a child. Gates put in his 10,000 hours making him the expert in computers, at a time when most people did not even know what a computer was (the 60s). While this may be true, Gladwell ignores Gates’ access to generational wealth and white privilege. Gates’ parents were professors in the 1950s, a time when most Americans or Canadians of any race did not have access to higher education. 

Sadly, this is not Gladwell’s most troubling take in Outliers. Gladwell dives into tropes and stereotypes, claiming that Asians are better at math than Americans because of their cultural history cultivating rice patties. No matter what methodology gets Gladwell here, some things should just be kept in the drafts and worked out in counselling. 

Outliers was published in 2008. Writers can, have, and we can only hope, grow over time. What was “acceptable” then, is often not now. In 2019, however, Malcolm Gladwell published a book called Talking to Strangers. This is essentially a Revisionist History style essay collection where Gladwell unpacks miscommunication between individuals who don’t know each other. 

I find that this book has a different relevancy after the events of the Summer of 2020. It shows that many people, even Black people, can become police apologists. This is a book where Gladwell includes the interaction between Sandra Bland and her arresting officer. Gladwell claims that Sandra Bland was arrested ultimately because of a miscommunication and not because of racial bias. Gladwell himself has spoken and written in the past about experiencing racism himself, in Canada, the UK, and the States. Yet in this book he writes, “We aren’t in villages anymore. Police officers have to stop people they don’t know.”   

In season four of Revisionist History, there is an episode called “Puzzle Rush”. In this episode, Malcolm Gladwell and his assistant decide to take the LSAT. They of course do not study for the LSAT, but rather how the exam itself works. By doing this Malcolm claims to have “cracked the code”, discovering that the LSAT is not a game of aptitude but rather time. Once again, he chronically overlooks systemic racism, and the historical Darwinist inequality in standardized testing. In 2019, the same year as the episode, Brown Political Review published an essay titled “(Il)logical Reasoning: LSAT’s Troubling History of Exclusion” by Luke Angelillo. 

The dangers that come out of these problematic stances by Malcolm Gladwell must be discussed. Gladwell is Black, but he is also mixed race and very light skinned. As a person of African American and Dutch ancestry who is also a writer, and also light skinned, I know that I have a responsibility addressing colorism, and other advantages I may have, such as being cisgender or heterosexual. Gladwell, however, tends to do the opposite, he will mention race, but not necessarily systemic racism. He will note that he is angry, but will not point out the roots of many of the problems (white supremacy, systemic racism, testing bias, stereotypes, etc).

 It would be one thing if Malcolm Gladwell’s supporters were majority Black or Brown folks. The reality, however, is that most Malcolm Gladwell supporters are liberal or libertarian white people who feel much of today’s outcries for justice are misguided, unwanted, extreme, or even delusional. These folks listen to Gladwell because he surfaces the things they are afraid to talk about, without confronting the issues head on by having actual conversations with the melanated people in their actual lives.

If Gladwell doesn’t discuss testing bias, then testing bias can’t be real. If Gladwell claimed Asians are good at math because of rice culture, then it isn’t racist to say that. If Gladwell overlooks Bill Gates’ white privilege while discussing his access to generational wealth, then Gates is purely a self made genius. These are just examples of things that will be said to many Black and Brown people when discussing the impact of systemic inequality. 
This isn’t a smear campaign of Malcolm Gladwell, but rather a reality check on his ideas, and the delivery of them. He benefits greatly from light skinned privilege, as I and many other mixed Black people do. It is important now, more than ever, that we lean into the honesty of Colin Kaepernick or Ijeoma Oluo, rather than graze the surfaces of heavy topics like Malcolm Gladwell.

About Chris: I am a poet and essayist who works at Afros in Tha City as the Social Media Coordinator and Patreon Manager. In 2020, I immigrated from Houston, Texas to Calgary, Alberta. My writing focuses on the intersections of Blackness in politics,  pop culture, and sports. You can read some of my other work in CV2, FlyPaperLit, HeadFakeHoops, and others. 

Sources:

https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2019/12/illogical-reasoning-the-lsats-troubling-history-of-exclusion/ 

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown & Co., 2008)

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know  by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown & Co., 2019)

https://www.pushkin.fm/show/revisionist-history/