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Gladwell is attempting to make the point that systemic racism took more than hearts and minds to be changed. I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, the only way y
by frogpelt 11y ago
Gladwell is attempting to make the point that systemic racism took more than hearts and minds to be changed.
I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, the only way you can change systemic problems is to convince the minds and hearts of people to change.
You cannot simply make new laws and expect everything to go smoothly if few people have changed their minds or hearts. How will you enforce the new laws?
And furthermore, he wasted a whole lot of his time and mine trying to reveal the disparity between the novel Harper Lee wrote and the one she should have written. Why?
- haberman 11y agoI'm trying to be charitable in my reading of your comment, but your argument seems to imply that the Supreme Court should have delayed the Brown vs. Board of Education decision until white southerners had already been convinced to desegregate. Or that the Civil War should rather have been a Civil Conversation, or a Civil Plea. Also I don't think it's meant as a criticism of the novel at all. It just means the novel is deeper than a simple morality play.
- frogpelt 11y agoPoints taken. On your first point, I don't think the law needs to wait on everyone to change their minds and hearts. But enough lawmakers and voters have to change their minds and hearts for the systemic problems to go away. On the second point, you're probably right. But something about the way he says it seems critical of fictional character behaviors.