Talking to Strangers Named Sandra Bland
Malcolm Gladwell’s New Book Questions How People Judge the Unfamiliar on the Way to an Unacceptable Miscarriage of Justice
In Talking With Strangers, and per his norm, Malcolm Gladwell analyzes a motley crew of events, their players, and the requisite psychological underpinnings which may interpret them. Wherein the final product may convince “better” as an audiobook, Gladwell seeks to explain how Sandra Bland’s arrest on July 10th, 2015, would lead to her suicide three days later. Gladwell is explicit about the intent behind his first book since 2013’s David and Goliath stating his desire to reconvene the conversation surrounding Sandra Bland’s death and similar or related incidents of the past few years.
And can you blame him?
Few would have predicted the string of events that led to Bland’s death as a standard police stop rarely escalates into an arrest, three days’ incarceration, and suicide of the suspect. Gladwell sets out to show his reader how police officers pursue and escalate minor traffic violations stemming from training and a predisposition to doubt the authenticity of the strangers they meet.
