As soon as I saw that Malcolm Gladwell released a new book in 2019, I added to my Christmas list immediately. Once I opened it up on Christmas morning, both my BIL and SIL said that they absolutely loved Talking to Strangers. They weren’t able to put it down.
Out of all Gladwell’s books, I’ve read The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink. I really enjoyed all of them, for different reasons, so I couldn’t wait to dive in.
Although I haven’t read all of them his books yet, Talking to Strangers is my favourite Gladwell book to date. All of his books are rooted in facts and data, but a lot the stories that he touched on are stories that resonate with me because they’re such a recent part of history.
Without giving away too much, he goes into analysis of the Sandra Bland story. Anyone who has social media knows about the #SayHerName hashtag, if nothing else. As a former psychology major, I appreciated the nuance around how we can falsely perceive people and their intentions.
As someone that takes first impressions so seriously, almost to a fault, it sparked some introspection around how I approach these interactions. I definitely consider myself to be an empathetic person, and do my best to give people the benefit of the doubt, but as a Black woman, sometimes I can take the way people approach me to heart.
I’m huge on people making eye contact, and a strong handshake. If people combine the two, even better. If someone can’t look you in the eye when they’re talking to you, they’re not to be trusted, at least in my opinion.
The officer in the Sandra Bland case truly believed that he handled the situation correctly. He thought that his perception of Bland was up to par, and that her responses to him had to directly correlate to the behaviour he anticipated from her.
The book goes on to talk about other figures in our history, such as Adolf Hitler, and how the perceptions others had of him were so far off that… well… you know the rest.
I would encourage anyone looking to better understand our psychology as human beings to pick this book up and read it. It has definitely impacted the way I move in the world.
Khadijah Plummer Consulting 