October 19, 2023 • 29 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that answer up in the morning Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes, the world most dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club
Charlamagne the God just hilarious and we had to step
out for a second.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
But we have the great Malcolm Gladwell here this morning.
Good morning brother, good morning, Morning, Morning Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
He just released the six part series Our Revision is
History is Back.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
What is the series about?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Man, It's about gun violence. Decided to do up an
sort of an extended look at what we're not talking
about when it comes to guns in this country, some
of them. It ranges all over the map. There's a
We started by making fun of the Supreme Court, which
is surprisingly easy to do. There's one there's this one
(00:45):
case that they had two years ago, which is this
big the New York City where they struck down a
New York state gun law that had been a place
for one hundred years. And there's an exchange and they
tape you know, their or arguments. They tape them so
you can listen to them. There's an exchange where the
justices to the Justices Alito and Kavanaugh are arguing with
(01:07):
the lawyer for New York State and their their argument
is that we would all be better off if we
could carry handguns on the subway, And the lawyer for
New York State is like, basically, she's insane. Basically she's like,
have you ever ridden the subway? You know what a
gunfight on a subway would look like? And they're completely oblivious,
and so we I went on and on about this,
like imagining it's a bunch of guys. One of the
(01:29):
guy's alitos from like a rich kid from suburban New Jersey.
If he has ever ridden the subway in his life,
I'd be very surprised. Kavanaugh is like a rich kid
from suburban DC, like, you know, the closest he came
to the subway was his mom's minivan. And they're having
this surreal conversation with a legit think that if everybody
(01:50):
on the A train had a glock, we would be safer,
Like it's just like that level. So that's that's sort
of one of the early ones. And then tell a
bunch of about what I'm sorry about a crazy story about
a guy in Alabama who had a shooting in his
home and what happens when the ambulance doesn't come because
(02:10):
they think the the kid who got shot is black wow.
And and then I went the last one is the
one of the most moving ones' ever done. There's a guy,
an er doc at the University of Chicago Hospital cut
up called up Della Price and grew up on the
South Side, but goes to med school and then practices
(02:32):
on the South Side. And that's, you know, obviously one
of the epicenters of gun violence in this country. I mean,
I just sat down with him. I went Chicago. I
sat down with him and he's start of talking about
the experience of when you don't know what the people
are wheeled in on the gurney on a Saturday night,
and he'll know chances are he grew up with. That
kid told me, I think fifteen people he grew up
(02:54):
with have been killed by guns in the last since
he you know, and when he said grew up with
he met friends people, he said his definition was somebody
who was in his phone. I know them personally. I just,
I just I just went all around the country, you know, Alabama, Chicago,
he went to hung out with some trauma surgeons in DC,
(03:17):
talk about what happens when when you show up at
a and it was just the most the one of
the fascinating things about it was very few of the
people who I talked to who are on the front
lines of gun Mountain's country, talked about gun control. There's
an interest them, it's it's they see what's going on
(03:41):
and the debate that we the policy debates we have
in Washington are just so far removed from their daily experience.
If two kids, both with illegal handguns, get high on
a Saturday night and have an argument and shoot each other,
how exactly is a law and Washington supposed to fix that?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Right? Or you get shot and you die. Because this
is the story I was telling. In Chicago. For the
longest time, there was no trauma center on the South
side of Chicago. If you got shot, they took you
by ambulance all the way to the north side. You
know far that is traffic, So lots of people, all
these cases of kids who would just die in the
ambulance on the way. Now, how exactly is like a
(04:22):
you know, some abstract argument about the Second Amendment going
to fix the flight of somebody who's got to spend
thirty five minutes in an ambulance to get to a
trauma center. So it's like I just I just came
to the conclusion that there's a lot of people in
this country who are deeply invested in these debates that
(04:43):
have been going on for uh, you know, for decades now,
and they're just out of touch with and even something
as simple this is maybe gonna get me a little trouble.
But what do we when we talk about gun buns
in this country? We spend a huge amount of time
talking about mass shootings. Mass shootings are statistically a drop
(05:05):
in the bucket, They're rare, and so we're consumed with
the very tiny part of the problem that happens to
affect middle class right, and then the rest of it
is like whatever, kind of shrugging whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I got so many questions based off what you just said.
Back to the subway thing real quick. Yes, I don't
think handguns everybody having a handgun on the subway will
make things safer, But people do feel safer when they see.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Police officers with handguns on the sub absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
How do you explain that, Well, because the police officer
knows how to use the gun. The problem, well, I
mean problem with a handgun is so hilarious. You talk
to people who actually know a lot about guns and
they will tell you it is so hard to hit
some hit what you want to hit with a handgun,
particularly if you're not an expert and you're terrified. So like,
if two people have a shootout on a subway cars,
(06:00):
they're gonna hit everybody. They're gonna be like, it's gonna
be Mayhem Like Yeah, this idea that everyone is cool
under pressure when they're making a life or that decision
with a hand is nuts. Even police, well even police
officers don't always hit what they're supposed to hit. Yeah.
I had a really fun discussion with a prosecutor in
Brooklyn on this very question, and he was like, you know,
(06:22):
I've been doing this for whatever twenty years, He's I
get even even cops rarely shoot straight, So why would
we want to introduce more guns into a closed steel
box running under the East River? You know, like it's
just the but like it's just the thing that's weird.
Is just how out of touch? What I really my
real point was not to get into an argument about
(06:45):
guns on the subway, is was the idea that our
policy is being made in this country by a bunch
of people who are completely out of touch.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Already out of touch are our gun lobby is just
too in their pockets because I mean when you look
at Post yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
You know it's they're just making these sort of abstract
legal arguments. And you know, I sort of wanted to
why are they even debating gun control in Washington? Why
don't they They should take that show on the road.
Let's let's put them on the A train at eight
o'clock at night and then show them. Okay, let's what
do you think would happen if six people on this
(07:23):
in this car right now we're carrying a handgun. I mean,
they're just there has to we have to do something
to kind of reconnect the conversation.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Why do you think we as Americans are so obsessed
with guns?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Well, you know, I'm Canadian, So that's why I say
we I'm looking here. No, I was gonna say, I
didn't mean that I was, but like so it's just,
you know, we're just to the North Settle roughly the
same time by people from Europe and you know, and whatever.
I mean, the history is parallel, but we're not obsessed
(08:00):
with I've never been able to wrap my mind around well,
I don't have it. What I'm saying is I can't
answer that question because I grew up in Canada and
where there's no guns. I didn't see a gun till
like you got to be until I got over here,
So I don't know you could. I suppose there's all
kinds of complicated historical reasons for that. But it's weird.
How kind of gun focused.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Is it the legislation you think? I mean, I mean,
I don't know a gun law in Canada.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
So yeah, well so if you watch, this is not
an answer to the question out of but if you watch,
there's a category of Canadian Westerns. So the same idea,
some guy out on the range and the you know
in the in the frontier, like bringing justice. In Canadian Westerns,
the mounty not a not a not a sheriff, but
(08:46):
like he spends all of his time like pulling dogs
out of the river and like helping middle old ladies.
He doesn't even carry a gun. Like in the Canadian
fantasy of the wild West. It's like, you know, somebody,
somebody lost a cow and they call. In the American fantasy,
(09:08):
it's like people are So there's something about the fantasies.
Right from the beginning, there was a weird set of
fantasies that get attached to I think TV. I did
an episode of this series on this gun series on
visions History that looked that was all about gun smoke.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It was the longest running Western absolutely, and we did.
One of the things we did is we calculated, so
Gunsmoke takes place in Dodge City in Kansas, and we
tried to calculate, based on the TV show, what would
the homae what's the homicide rate in the fictional Dodge
City And the answer is it's like eighty times higher
than than the highest homicide rate in a real American city.
(09:50):
So in our fantasy world, we created an America that
is infinitely more dangerous and scary than the real America.
Right And by the way, Gun Smoke was on TV
for twenty years. It was it was on for twenty years,
twenty years. It's one of those popular TV shows yea
both time, and it was peddling a kind of vision
of American life that was again out of touch.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Do you think that is because the media is always leading.
They would say, if it bleeds, it leads, So we
think that America is way worse than it actually is
because of the news.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, I do think. Well, it's you know, it's an
odd thing I got. Really, you know, when Ron DeSantis
was running around lecturing New yorker is on how dangerous
New York is. Meanwhile, New York and New York State
are so much safer than Florida. Florida, you want to
go someplace and put your life in your hands, go
to Jacksonville.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Jackie and kill Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
The idea, The idea that the governor of one of
the most violent states in the country is lecturing New
Yorkers New York City, New York City and New York State,
by the way, one of the safest regions of the country,
the idea, and nobody he got a free pass. Everyone
was like, yeah, New York must be more dangerous from Florida.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
No, the opposite.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
So it's like, it is, it's, it's it's it is
a fascination with this kind of violence, coupled with a
set of like completely unexamined assumptions about what's dangerous in America,
where the danger is or like honestly, like google Jacksonville
and then you will never go to Jacksonville again.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's all gave somebody doggy in a day from Jacksonville.
I don't know why Malcolm shooting at Jacksonville this morning,
but something happened to Malcolm and jacksonvilleing and then.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
We have all from Jacksonville. I like, but I should
say I have been to Jacksonville many times. Parts of
Jacksonville are quite lovely. But like, the governor of Florida
should not be lecturing us about violence, is all I
have to say.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, damn do ball your city caught one this morning?
You said that people, uh, people were not with the
kind coversation we're not having about guns.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
What is that? Is it about the people?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Because I feel like as they always have conversations about
gun control, but they never talk about the people who
actually own the guns.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
There's there's that, there is the well, there's there's all
kinds of sort of weird things that we're not talking about. Yeah,
we're not talking about I did that episode on trauma centers.
We're not talking about the fact that, uh, hospitals, trauma
centers should be where the victims of gun violence are.
And we have a system right now in this country
(12:32):
where we don't always sometimes we do we don't always
put medical facilities where they're needed. We put them where
they make the most money. And so that's one thing
we don't talk a lot about when we should that
it's a huge issue. You know. One of the episodes
in the series, I looked at the question of a
homicide rate at any A murder rate at any given
time is a function of two things. One is how
(12:53):
much violence there is, and the second is how good
How good is the medical care. Right, If you get
shot and you get taken directly to the hospital and
they save your life, you're not a homicide victim. If
the same thing happens and you don't get to the
hospital time and you die, you are a homicide victim. Right.
So a lot depends on how good your hospital system is,
(13:14):
and a huge amount if we have situations like in Chicago.
They did a study and they showed that if you
were black, you traveled a lot further to a trauma
center than if you were white. Right, Like, that's something
that's the kind of thing you should talk about.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Big something.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You know, you could save a lot of lives if
you cite another thing.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We maybe didn't not trying to save. Maybe that's the point.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yes, it's I think it's in it's in its indifference
more than or just like you know, uh, the the
amount of oxygen, like I said before, the amount of
oxygen that gets taken up by heart obsession with mass
shootings when they're the terrible thing, but they are they
are so a tiny, such a tiny, tiny part of
the problem. The idea that that's all we kind of
(13:58):
talk about it about it is weird. But also the
idea that you know, in every profession, when anytime, anytime
people have an area of specialized knowledge, they're usually invested
in making sure that not any kind of you know,
if you're a doctor, you're powerfully invested in the idea
(14:19):
that you got to go to med school before you
can practice medicine. You don't want any yahoo breck, you know,
like you yeah, But gun owners will simultaneously go on
and on and on legitimately about how much knowledge you
need to handle a gun safely and fired accurately, and
at the same time they're like, but everyone should be
able to get one at the job of a hat.
That's just dumb. It should be the gun owners who
(14:41):
are supporting restrictions around gun use, because they're the ones
who are aware of how legitimately difficult it is to
handle a gun safely and appropriately. I don't get it.
I don't understand why gun control isn't being pushed by
gun lovers, right. You know. It's like I said, like
I you know, I'm a big runner. I'm the last
(15:01):
person who says everyone should run and it's hard. Take
it seriously. You know what you're doing. You gotta, like,
you know, prepare for it. I don't say you have
a right to everyone should have a right to run
ten miles in the morning.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Maybe gun levels are in a bubble because they know
how to use their guns. They you know, they go
to the gun range all the time. People around them
probably know how to use their gun and go to
the gun range when their mind, they're just assuming if
you have a gun, you know how to use it,
you know how.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think that's probably maybe They's what I spent one
of the episodes. I go down to North Carolina and
I hang out with this guy, Greg Wallace, who's a
He said, he loves guns. He's a just competitive shooting
and gave me a kind of we fired assault rifle
and he gave me a tutorial on how to do it.
And just from spending an afternoon with him. That's the
(15:49):
thing I came away from. It's like you need it's hard.
There's a lot of and you know the amount of
caution he took, Like when I when I picked up
the assault rifle and picked up the wrong way, he was,
you know, like, don't you know? Like it was it
was a real kind of Uh it was. It was
(16:10):
fascinating just to see how in their own little world
they're super gotious around.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
How do you feelhen you fight that thing though? How'd
you feel? Malcolm? Huh? You get a rush?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Jesus did I get a rush? The first time I've
ever picked up a gun in my life?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, first time.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
First time in a shooting range in rural North Carolina,
an ar fifteen And uh I felt. First of all,
I was, it's really loud. You had a head I had,
I had things on, but it was still loud. It
(16:48):
was creepy at first. And then you with that you
can't help it.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You get a little rush.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
It's like these things are big and heavy. Like the
idea that you have in your hands, something that you
could kill someone with is just strange.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
If he's never held a gun, have you have? I
shot a gun. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I never shot an the sault rifle though, like an
AAR fifteen or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, but you know handgun, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
A little like a lower one, the lower part. I
mean we got a three fifty seven of the house
on the glock of the house. Oh okay, what what
are your thoughts on assault rifles now after using one?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Well, I did that episode and it was the one
that got the most male basically saying I think salt
rifle bands are a dumb idea, and they're dumb because
they're not actually banning assault rifles. Assaut rifle is a
kind of platform, and what assaut rifle bands do is
identify if you accessorize your gun with a certain number
(17:46):
of cosmetic things. We think that's bad and we want
to ban them, but they it's a semi automatic rifle
with a large magazine. Those are you know, those are
until you can Still they're still legal in many states
asault rifle bands. So it's like kind of weird that
why are we identifying a class of weapons because they
look ugly and saying we should. But the other thing
(18:08):
is like it's the amount of damage they can do,
but we're not. We're not banning so rifles. Rifles are
are very you know, they're semi automatic rifles are a
very lethal weapon. We're not banning semi auomatic rifles. Within
assault rifle ban we're banning a tiny subcategory that happened
to have a certain number of cosmetic features that we
(18:28):
don't like. So it's like we're not solving the problem.
And then I sat down with this trauma surgeon in
DC who had studied mass shootings and it's like, if
that's what's what's you're worried about, is mass shootings? Actually
the most lethal weapon used in mass shootings is are handguns,
because a handgun gets into the grizzly. But you within
(18:51):
assault rifle, you shoot once the person goes down, and
because it's boom right then with a handgun, you shoot
once and sometimes person doesn't go down, so you're more
likely to be shot twice. You're shot by a handgun
and the guy gets up closer and shoots you a
second time, and he is more likely to kill you.
So you're more likely to die from a handgun than
(19:11):
a sult rifle in a mass shooting, which just says,
by the way, which is a all we're saying is
guns are dangerous, they're used in different ways, and to
have as a to spend all of our time and
energy trying to remove one tiny subcategory of guns from
the equation and the hopes is going to change things.
(19:33):
It's just dumb. It's just like the problem is much
bigger than that. You're not solving it by by by by,
you know, by taking some pair of scissors to one
page of the gun manual.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, So what is the solutions then? How to kind
of control of the America gets lit broken out of?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
We think that, Yeah, he's from cannabis, so he can't.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
When I talked to that guy at Della Price in
the last the last of the episodes, which by the way,
one of the most so I sat with. So he's
a guy, he's in his thirties, big football big, incredibly
moving and powerful and thoughtful guy.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Just say he's sexy, Malcolm. First of all, Malcolm is sexy.
I talked it is a big sexy.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I knew, I knew. I just knew what I was like,
I'm gonna describe. I'm just going to get in trouble.
Uh the he is he a handsome man? Yes, he
is a handsome man, charle man, if that's what you're asking,
and he so. My point is he's talking about one
of the things he does is he goes into elementary
(20:51):
and middle schools in the South Chicago hands out first
responder kids, teaches the kids how to minister first eight
if the first because it's a reality, No terrible, that
kind of I mean, it's just what he was describing that,
it's just like it's so heartbreaking and children. What he
would say is and what he talked about it is,
(21:13):
you know, a lot of gun violence is kids, is
disputes between young people who don't know how to resolve
their disputes peaceably. And you have to teach people a
kind of an emotional vocabulary that allows them to have
an argument without pulling a gun.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
But that's a whole other thing for us.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Serious and now you're talking about mental health and social
remoa learning and.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Maybe if we just maybe if we just put the
gun control conversation on hold and said, all right, we'll
get back to this when the time comes. It's it's important,
but it's not as important as what you're just talking about.
Is you've got kids. You know, Little Price was talking
about on in the neighborhoods where he works. It's you know,
(22:03):
we're talking about multi generational beefs, like you shot my cousin,
so I shot your brother. You know, like you have
to unravel that cycle, and that takes a lot of
time and a lot of care and a lot of attention.
And you know, if we just focused on trying to
unravel that for a while and see if we make
(22:23):
any headway, that strikes me as being a really productive
way to kind of tact the problem.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, you know, why do that makes so much sense?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It makes so much sense because you probably can get
people to move on that faster than you ever will
get them to move on actual gun control.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I don't see any reason why people on both sides
of the political fence shouldn't couldn't rally around around that.
Like why do we pick a we we choose a
fight that we know is the most divisive fight we
can possibly have, and that has zero chance of getting anywhere.
We're not getting anywhere with the court we have with
gun control unhappy, So like, why do we just bang
(23:00):
our heads against the wall. Why don't we do something
that would have more effective?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Can I pivot a little bit if you don't want
to talk about it, I understand, But you know, the
whole Palestine Israel conflict.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Is that? What?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What is?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What do you think the larger global ramifications of what
we're watching right now will be ultimately.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I have I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I mean, it's so beyond my that's a that's not
something that I've ever It's just all I All I
know is that it's heartbreaking, that's allid Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Absolutely, six part series.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Tell us what you got a book?
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You're still working on the next book too?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well, now I've I'm I'm working. I put my my, my,
uh Tom Bradley book on hold and which turned into
it turned into a book about anger and all this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So it's not about Tom Bradley anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Well, I got interested in so it is. But what
I got really interested in.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Is is is I got interested in when what strategies
are available to the angry? Because it was it turned
into this book about what it meant to be black
in if you lived in Los Angeles in the thirties
and forties, and this group of black guys.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Who all go to U c.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
L A.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
In the thirties Tom Bradley, Jackie Robinson, Wally Strode, a
bunch of people who go on to have really big career.
Was it was a huge actor in Hollywood, a guy
named Washington who was a big NFL player. And they're
like the only black people on the UCLA campus. They
all live in South Central and they all have different
strategies for dealing with the fact. You know, they were
(24:32):
all on the UCLA football team and they played the
big game was against u USC and they got hung
in it. Basically, a US fraternity on the USC campus
has a mock lynching the black players on the UCLA
team and they hang them, hang them in effigy outside
the frat just before the big game between you see,
(24:54):
this is what's going on in their lives, right and
I turned I've turned the book into an examination of
what are the strategies available to you if you're in
that kind of situation. They're angry, right as you would
be if you grew up in La Black in the
nineteen thirties, and each of them, of the people I'm profiling,
(25:14):
has a different strategy for dealing with that anger. You know,
there's a one path is confrontation. I just start shouting.
And there's a woman living in ceuth Citul. It's an
incredible woman living in South Central who I write about.
Who's that's her? That's what she does. She just stands
up and starts shouting until people. And then the other
(25:35):
path is the Tom Bradley path, where you take all
of your anger and you button it up. And he
never This is a man, you know, first black mayor
of Los Angeles endures the most unspeakable kind of experienced
racist experiences trying to come to political power in LA
(25:58):
and never once you know, let's on that he's been
affected by it. I mean, he just is this serene.
And that's another strategy is you just pretend it doesn't exist, right,
you turn yourself into someone else that's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
You're suppressing it.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Well, they're all. What I'm interested in is there's no
perfect strategy. There's each strategy has a set of of
of costs and benefits and it's up to the person
to just to to figure out what the right right.
And you know, everyone, not everyone, you guys have all
you've all done this in your life, right. You have
(26:38):
sat down on some level, maybe not consciously, but you've
sat down and you've figured out how am I going
to deal with the baggage I'm carrying? Right? And you've
made compromises that you know, to yourself to those around you.
You have other times you've said, I'm not going to compromise,
I'm going to be right. That's the I want to
describe that process because it strikes me as being anyone
(27:03):
who has ever been on the wrong side of a
power equation has had to go through that process in
everyone right, and I want to figure out I want
to kind of write a kind of guidebook to how
you do that.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But you know what you said, you talked to any
psychiatrists and therapists, because before I started going to therapy,
I would just either suppressed like those emotions or conformed,
you know, in a lot of cases. And that was
actually a big life lesson that I learned dealing with
an individual like yo. I'm never compromising myself for anyone.
So did you talk to any psychiatrist and therapists.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
On people that did the work I mean on that book,
I'm only halfway okay, So I'm getting yeah, I'm getting
I'm I'm right now. I'm I'm just doing the part
where I'm describing the like I have a whole chapter
on the the whole group of there's a whole group
of comics, comedians living in South Central in the thirties
and forties and who are allowed to be in movies
(27:57):
in LA only of course, if they conformed to a
certain right. There's the guy Jack Benny's sidekick what's his name,
I've forgotten, who has to play this kind of stupid butler, right,
but he has little opportunities to kind of fight back,
but he has to. That's those are the rules, and
(28:18):
you want.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
To be and yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Got to that. That kind of women. Eddie Anderson, Eddie
have a whole thing, a whole chapter on Eddie Anderson,
who fascinating, Yeah, fascinating. He's the mayor of Central Avenue.
He's this huge figure in South central the UH in
the thirties and forties. And know, he's one of the
most he might be one of the most famous black
(28:42):
men in America in if you talked to us, if
you went to a white person from Iowa in nineteen
forty seven and said, you know, name three black people,
he would be one of them, to be him and
Joe Louis and yeah, you know. So he's a huge figure.
We've forgotten now it's a huge But so I tell
his one of the chapters about his extraordinary story.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's interesting because some people will say that that hasn't changed.
Like you still if you're black, you still have to
play a certain role, whether it's a hip hop movies
or whatever in order to have success.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Listen, I know Malcolm Glawell has to leave the six
part series. Revision is History is out right now. I
love Revision History. I haven't gotten a chance to listen
to the six part series, but I reference your McDonald's
episode quite often, you know, quite often. But thank you
for coming, my brother, thank you, thank you so much.
It's Malcolm Gladwell.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Breakfast Club.
Wake that answer up in the morning Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes, the world most dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club
Charlamagne the God just hilarious and we had to step
out for a second.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
But we have the great Malcolm Gladwell here this morning.
Good morning brother, good morning, Morning, Morning Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
He just released the six part series Our Revision is
History is Back.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
What is the series about?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Man, It's about gun violence. Decided to do up an
sort of an extended look at what we're not talking
about when it comes to guns in this country, some
of them. It ranges all over the map. There's a
We started by making fun of the Supreme Court, which
is surprisingly easy to do. There's one there's this one
(00:45):
case that they had two years ago, which is this
big the New York City where they struck down a
New York state gun law that had been a place
for one hundred years. And there's an exchange and they
tape you know, their or arguments. They tape them so
you can listen to them. There's an exchange where the
justices to the Justices Alito and Kavanaugh are arguing with
(01:07):
the lawyer for New York State and their their argument
is that we would all be better off if we
could carry handguns on the subway, And the lawyer for
New York State is like, basically, she's insane. Basically she's like,
have you ever ridden the subway? You know what a
gunfight on a subway would look like? And they're completely oblivious,
and so we I went on and on about this,
like imagining it's a bunch of guys. One of the
(01:29):
guy's alitos from like a rich kid from suburban New Jersey.
If he has ever ridden the subway in his life,
I'd be very surprised. Kavanaugh is like a rich kid
from suburban DC, like, you know, the closest he came
to the subway was his mom's minivan. And they're having
this surreal conversation with a legit think that if everybody
(01:50):
on the A train had a glock, we would be safer,
Like it's just like that level. So that's that's sort
of one of the early ones. And then tell a
bunch of about what I'm sorry about a crazy story about
a guy in Alabama who had a shooting in his
home and what happens when the ambulance doesn't come because
(02:10):
they think the the kid who got shot is black wow.
And and then I went the last one is the
one of the most moving ones' ever done. There's a guy,
an er doc at the University of Chicago Hospital cut
up called up Della Price and grew up on the
South Side, but goes to med school and then practices
(02:32):
on the South Side. And that's, you know, obviously one
of the epicenters of gun violence in this country. I mean,
I just sat down with him. I went Chicago. I
sat down with him and he's start of talking about
the experience of when you don't know what the people
are wheeled in on the gurney on a Saturday night,
and he'll know chances are he grew up with. That
kid told me, I think fifteen people he grew up
(02:54):
with have been killed by guns in the last since
he you know, and when he said grew up with
he met friends people, he said his definition was somebody
who was in his phone. I know them personally. I just,
I just I just went all around the country, you know, Alabama, Chicago,
he went to hung out with some trauma surgeons in DC,
(03:17):
talk about what happens when when you show up at
a and it was just the most the one of
the fascinating things about it was very few of the
people who I talked to who are on the front
lines of gun Mountain's country, talked about gun control. There's
an interest them, it's it's they see what's going on
(03:41):
and the debate that we the policy debates we have
in Washington are just so far removed from their daily experience.
If two kids, both with illegal handguns, get high on
a Saturday night and have an argument and shoot each other,
how exactly is a law and Washington supposed to fix that?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Right? Or you get shot and you die. Because this
is the story I was telling. In Chicago. For the
longest time, there was no trauma center on the South
side of Chicago. If you got shot, they took you
by ambulance all the way to the north side. You
know far that is traffic, So lots of people, all
these cases of kids who would just die in the
ambulance on the way. Now, how exactly is like a
(04:22):
you know, some abstract argument about the Second Amendment going
to fix the flight of somebody who's got to spend
thirty five minutes in an ambulance to get to a
trauma center. So it's like I just I just came
to the conclusion that there's a lot of people in
this country who are deeply invested in these debates that
(04:43):
have been going on for uh, you know, for decades now,
and they're just out of touch with and even something
as simple this is maybe gonna get me a little trouble.
But what do we when we talk about gun buns
in this country? We spend a huge amount of time
talking about mass shootings. Mass shootings are statistically a drop
(05:05):
in the bucket, They're rare, and so we're consumed with
the very tiny part of the problem that happens to
affect middle class right, and then the rest of it
is like whatever, kind of shrugging whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I got so many questions based off what you just said.
Back to the subway thing real quick. Yes, I don't
think handguns everybody having a handgun on the subway will
make things safer, But people do feel safer when they see.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Police officers with handguns on the sub absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
How do you explain that, Well, because the police officer
knows how to use the gun. The problem, well, I
mean problem with a handgun is so hilarious. You talk
to people who actually know a lot about guns and
they will tell you it is so hard to hit
some hit what you want to hit with a handgun,
particularly if you're not an expert and you're terrified. So like,
if two people have a shootout on a subway cars,
(06:00):
they're gonna hit everybody. They're gonna be like, it's gonna
be Mayhem Like Yeah, this idea that everyone is cool
under pressure when they're making a life or that decision
with a hand is nuts. Even police, well even police
officers don't always hit what they're supposed to hit. Yeah.
I had a really fun discussion with a prosecutor in
Brooklyn on this very question, and he was like, you know,
(06:22):
I've been doing this for whatever twenty years, He's I
get even even cops rarely shoot straight, So why would
we want to introduce more guns into a closed steel
box running under the East River? You know, like it's
just the but like it's just the thing that's weird.
Is just how out of touch? What I really my
real point was not to get into an argument about
(06:45):
guns on the subway, is was the idea that our
policy is being made in this country by a bunch
of people who are completely out of touch.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Already out of touch are our gun lobby is just
too in their pockets because I mean when you look
at Post yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
You know it's they're just making these sort of abstract
legal arguments. And you know, I sort of wanted to
why are they even debating gun control in Washington? Why
don't they They should take that show on the road.
Let's let's put them on the A train at eight
o'clock at night and then show them. Okay, let's what
do you think would happen if six people on this
(07:23):
in this car right now we're carrying a handgun. I mean,
they're just there has to we have to do something
to kind of reconnect the conversation.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Why do you think we as Americans are so obsessed
with guns?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Well, you know, I'm Canadian, So that's why I say
we I'm looking here. No, I was gonna say, I
didn't mean that I was, but like so it's just,
you know, we're just to the North Settle roughly the
same time by people from Europe and you know, and whatever.
I mean, the history is parallel, but we're not obsessed
(08:00):
with I've never been able to wrap my mind around well,
I don't have it. What I'm saying is I can't
answer that question because I grew up in Canada and
where there's no guns. I didn't see a gun till
like you got to be until I got over here,
So I don't know you could. I suppose there's all
kinds of complicated historical reasons for that. But it's weird.
How kind of gun focused.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Is it the legislation you think? I mean, I mean,
I don't know a gun law in Canada.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
So yeah, well so if you watch, this is not
an answer to the question out of but if you watch,
there's a category of Canadian Westerns. So the same idea,
some guy out on the range and the you know
in the in the frontier, like bringing justice. In Canadian Westerns,
the mounty not a not a not a sheriff, but
(08:46):
like he spends all of his time like pulling dogs
out of the river and like helping middle old ladies.
He doesn't even carry a gun. Like in the Canadian
fantasy of the wild West. It's like, you know, somebody,
somebody lost a cow and they call. In the American fantasy,
(09:08):
it's like people are So there's something about the fantasies.
Right from the beginning, there was a weird set of
fantasies that get attached to I think TV. I did
an episode of this series on this gun series on
visions History that looked that was all about gun smoke.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It was the longest running Western absolutely, and we did.
One of the things we did is we calculated, so
Gunsmoke takes place in Dodge City in Kansas, and we
tried to calculate, based on the TV show, what would
the homae what's the homicide rate in the fictional Dodge
City And the answer is it's like eighty times higher
than than the highest homicide rate in a real American city.
(09:50):
So in our fantasy world, we created an America that
is infinitely more dangerous and scary than the real America.
Right And by the way, Gun Smoke was on TV
for twenty years. It was it was on for twenty years,
twenty years. It's one of those popular TV shows yea
both time, and it was peddling a kind of vision
of American life that was again out of touch.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Do you think that is because the media is always leading.
They would say, if it bleeds, it leads, So we
think that America is way worse than it actually is
because of the news.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, I do think. Well, it's you know, it's an
odd thing I got. Really, you know, when Ron DeSantis
was running around lecturing New yorker is on how dangerous
New York is. Meanwhile, New York and New York State
are so much safer than Florida. Florida, you want to
go someplace and put your life in your hands, go
to Jacksonville.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Jackie and kill Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
The idea, The idea that the governor of one of
the most violent states in the country is lecturing New
Yorkers New York City, New York City and New York State,
by the way, one of the safest regions of the country,
the idea, and nobody he got a free pass. Everyone
was like, yeah, New York must be more dangerous from Florida.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
No, the opposite.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
So it's like, it is, it's, it's it's it is
a fascination with this kind of violence, coupled with a
set of like completely unexamined assumptions about what's dangerous in America,
where the danger is or like honestly, like google Jacksonville
and then you will never go to Jacksonville again.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's all gave somebody doggy in a day from Jacksonville.
I don't know why Malcolm shooting at Jacksonville this morning,
but something happened to Malcolm and jacksonvilleing and then.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
We have all from Jacksonville. I like, but I should
say I have been to Jacksonville many times. Parts of
Jacksonville are quite lovely. But like, the governor of Florida
should not be lecturing us about violence, is all I
have to say.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, damn do ball your city caught one this morning?
You said that people, uh, people were not with the
kind coversation we're not having about guns.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
What is that? Is it about the people?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Because I feel like as they always have conversations about
gun control, but they never talk about the people who
actually own the guns.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
There's there's that, there is the well, there's there's all
kinds of sort of weird things that we're not talking about. Yeah,
we're not talking about I did that episode on trauma centers.
We're not talking about the fact that, uh, hospitals, trauma
centers should be where the victims of gun violence are.
And we have a system right now in this country
(12:32):
where we don't always sometimes we do we don't always
put medical facilities where they're needed. We put them where
they make the most money. And so that's one thing
we don't talk a lot about when we should that
it's a huge issue. You know. One of the episodes
in the series, I looked at the question of a
homicide rate at any A murder rate at any given
time is a function of two things. One is how
(12:53):
much violence there is, and the second is how good
How good is the medical care. Right, If you get
shot and you get taken directly to the hospital and
they save your life, you're not a homicide victim. If
the same thing happens and you don't get to the
hospital time and you die, you are a homicide victim. Right.
So a lot depends on how good your hospital system is,
(13:14):
and a huge amount if we have situations like in Chicago.
They did a study and they showed that if you
were black, you traveled a lot further to a trauma
center than if you were white. Right, Like, that's something
that's the kind of thing you should talk about.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Big something.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You know, you could save a lot of lives if
you cite another thing.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We maybe didn't not trying to save. Maybe that's the point.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yes, it's I think it's in it's in its indifference
more than or just like you know, uh, the the
amount of oxygen, like I said before, the amount of
oxygen that gets taken up by heart obsession with mass
shootings when they're the terrible thing, but they are they
are so a tiny, such a tiny, tiny part of
the problem. The idea that that's all we kind of
(13:58):
talk about it about it is weird. But also the
idea that you know, in every profession, when anytime, anytime
people have an area of specialized knowledge, they're usually invested
in making sure that not any kind of you know,
if you're a doctor, you're powerfully invested in the idea
(14:19):
that you got to go to med school before you
can practice medicine. You don't want any yahoo breck, you know,
like you yeah, But gun owners will simultaneously go on
and on and on legitimately about how much knowledge you
need to handle a gun safely and fired accurately, and
at the same time they're like, but everyone should be
able to get one at the job of a hat.
That's just dumb. It should be the gun owners who
(14:41):
are supporting restrictions around gun use, because they're the ones
who are aware of how legitimately difficult it is to
handle a gun safely and appropriately. I don't get it.
I don't understand why gun control isn't being pushed by
gun lovers, right. You know. It's like I said, like
I you know, I'm a big runner. I'm the last
(15:01):
person who says everyone should run and it's hard. Take
it seriously. You know what you're doing. You gotta, like,
you know, prepare for it. I don't say you have
a right to everyone should have a right to run
ten miles in the morning.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Maybe gun levels are in a bubble because they know
how to use their guns. They you know, they go
to the gun range all the time. People around them
probably know how to use their gun and go to
the gun range when their mind, they're just assuming if
you have a gun, you know how to use it,
you know how.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I think that's probably maybe They's what I spent one
of the episodes. I go down to North Carolina and
I hang out with this guy, Greg Wallace, who's a
He said, he loves guns. He's a just competitive shooting
and gave me a kind of we fired assault rifle
and he gave me a tutorial on how to do it.
And just from spending an afternoon with him. That's the
(15:49):
thing I came away from. It's like you need it's hard.
There's a lot of and you know the amount of
caution he took, Like when I when I picked up
the assault rifle and picked up the wrong way, he was,
you know, like, don't you know? Like it was it
was a real kind of Uh it was. It was
(16:10):
fascinating just to see how in their own little world
they're super gotious around.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
How do you feelhen you fight that thing though? How'd
you feel? Malcolm? Huh? You get a rush?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Jesus did I get a rush? The first time I've
ever picked up a gun in my life?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, first time.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
First time in a shooting range in rural North Carolina,
an ar fifteen And uh I felt. First of all,
I was, it's really loud. You had a head I had,
I had things on, but it was still loud. It
(16:48):
was creepy at first. And then you with that you
can't help it.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You get a little rush.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
It's like these things are big and heavy. Like the
idea that you have in your hands, something that you
could kill someone with is just strange.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
If he's never held a gun, have you have? I
shot a gun. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I never shot an the sault rifle though, like an
AAR fifteen or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, but you know handgun, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
A little like a lower one, the lower part. I
mean we got a three fifty seven of the house
on the glock of the house. Oh okay, what what
are your thoughts on assault rifles now after using one?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Well, I did that episode and it was the one
that got the most male basically saying I think salt
rifle bands are a dumb idea, and they're dumb because
they're not actually banning assault rifles. Assaut rifle is a
kind of platform, and what assaut rifle bands do is
identify if you accessorize your gun with a certain number
(17:46):
of cosmetic things. We think that's bad and we want
to ban them, but they it's a semi automatic rifle
with a large magazine. Those are you know, those are
until you can Still they're still legal in many states
asault rifle bands. So it's like kind of weird that
why are we identifying a class of weapons because they
look ugly and saying we should. But the other thing
(18:08):
is like it's the amount of damage they can do,
but we're not. We're not banning so rifles. Rifles are
are very you know, they're semi automatic rifles are a
very lethal weapon. We're not banning semi auomatic rifles. Within
assault rifle ban we're banning a tiny subcategory that happened
to have a certain number of cosmetic features that we
(18:28):
don't like. So it's like we're not solving the problem.
And then I sat down with this trauma surgeon in
DC who had studied mass shootings and it's like, if
that's what's what's you're worried about, is mass shootings? Actually
the most lethal weapon used in mass shootings is are handguns,
because a handgun gets into the grizzly. But you within
(18:51):
assault rifle, you shoot once the person goes down, and
because it's boom right then with a handgun, you shoot
once and sometimes person doesn't go down, so you're more
likely to be shot twice. You're shot by a handgun
and the guy gets up closer and shoots you a
second time, and he is more likely to kill you.
So you're more likely to die from a handgun than
(19:11):
a sult rifle in a mass shooting, which just says,
by the way, which is a all we're saying is
guns are dangerous, they're used in different ways, and to
have as a to spend all of our time and
energy trying to remove one tiny subcategory of guns from
the equation and the hopes is going to change things.
(19:33):
It's just dumb. It's just like the problem is much
bigger than that. You're not solving it by by by by,
you know, by taking some pair of scissors to one
page of the gun manual.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, So what is the solutions then? How to kind
of control of the America gets lit broken out of?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
We think that, Yeah, he's from cannabis, so he can't.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
When I talked to that guy at Della Price in
the last the last of the episodes, which by the way,
one of the most so I sat with. So he's
a guy, he's in his thirties, big football big, incredibly
moving and powerful and thoughtful guy.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Just say he's sexy, Malcolm. First of all, Malcolm is sexy.
I talked it is a big sexy.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I knew, I knew. I just knew what I was like,
I'm gonna describe. I'm just going to get in trouble.
Uh the he is he a handsome man? Yes, he
is a handsome man, charle man, if that's what you're asking,
and he so. My point is he's talking about one
of the things he does is he goes into elementary
(20:51):
and middle schools in the South Chicago hands out first
responder kids, teaches the kids how to minister first eight
if the first because it's a reality, No terrible, that
kind of I mean, it's just what he was describing that,
it's just like it's so heartbreaking and children. What he
would say is and what he talked about it is,
(21:13):
you know, a lot of gun violence is kids, is
disputes between young people who don't know how to resolve
their disputes peaceably. And you have to teach people a
kind of an emotional vocabulary that allows them to have
an argument without pulling a gun.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
But that's a whole other thing for us.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Serious and now you're talking about mental health and social
remoa learning and.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Maybe if we just maybe if we just put the
gun control conversation on hold and said, all right, we'll
get back to this when the time comes. It's it's important,
but it's not as important as what you're just talking about.
Is you've got kids. You know, Little Price was talking
about on in the neighborhoods where he works. It's you know,
(22:03):
we're talking about multi generational beefs, like you shot my cousin,
so I shot your brother. You know, like you have
to unravel that cycle, and that takes a lot of
time and a lot of care and a lot of attention.
And you know, if we just focused on trying to
unravel that for a while and see if we make
(22:23):
any headway, that strikes me as being a really productive
way to kind of tact the problem.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, you know, why do that makes so much sense?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It makes so much sense because you probably can get
people to move on that faster than you ever will
get them to move on actual gun control.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I don't see any reason why people on both sides
of the political fence shouldn't couldn't rally around around that.
Like why do we pick a we we choose a
fight that we know is the most divisive fight we
can possibly have, and that has zero chance of getting anywhere.
We're not getting anywhere with the court we have with
gun control unhappy, So like, why do we just bang
(23:00):
our heads against the wall. Why don't we do something
that would have more effective?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Can I pivot a little bit if you don't want
to talk about it, I understand, But you know, the
whole Palestine Israel conflict.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Is that? What?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What is?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What do you think the larger global ramifications of what
we're watching right now will be ultimately.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I have I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I mean, it's so beyond my that's a that's not
something that I've ever It's just all I All I
know is that it's heartbreaking, that's allid Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Absolutely, six part series.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Tell us what you got a book?
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You're still working on the next book too?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Well, now I've I'm I'm working. I put my my, my,
uh Tom Bradley book on hold and which turned into
it turned into a book about anger and all this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So it's not about Tom Bradley anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Well, I got interested in so it is. But what
I got really interested in.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Is is is I got interested in when what strategies
are available to the angry? Because it was it turned
into this book about what it meant to be black
in if you lived in Los Angeles in the thirties
and forties, and this group of black guys.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Who all go to U c.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
L A.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
In the thirties Tom Bradley, Jackie Robinson, Wally Strode, a
bunch of people who go on to have really big career.
Was it was a huge actor in Hollywood, a guy
named Washington who was a big NFL player. And they're
like the only black people on the UCLA campus. They
all live in South Central and they all have different
strategies for dealing with the fact. You know, they were
(24:32):
all on the UCLA football team and they played the
big game was against u USC and they got hung
in it. Basically, a US fraternity on the USC campus
has a mock lynching the black players on the UCLA
team and they hang them, hang them in effigy outside
the frat just before the big game between you see,
(24:54):
this is what's going on in their lives, right and
I turned I've turned the book into an examination of
what are the strategies available to you if you're in
that kind of situation. They're angry, right as you would
be if you grew up in La Black in the
nineteen thirties, and each of them, of the people I'm profiling,
(25:14):
has a different strategy for dealing with that anger. You know,
there's a one path is confrontation. I just start shouting.
And there's a woman living in ceuth Citul. It's an
incredible woman living in South Central who I write about.
Who's that's her? That's what she does. She just stands
up and starts shouting until people. And then the other
(25:35):
path is the Tom Bradley path, where you take all
of your anger and you button it up. And he
never This is a man, you know, first black mayor
of Los Angeles endures the most unspeakable kind of experienced
racist experiences trying to come to political power in LA
(25:58):
and never once you know, let's on that he's been
affected by it. I mean, he just is this serene.
And that's another strategy is you just pretend it doesn't exist, right,
you turn yourself into someone else that's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
You're suppressing it.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Well, they're all. What I'm interested in is there's no
perfect strategy. There's each strategy has a set of of
of costs and benefits and it's up to the person
to just to to figure out what the right right.
And you know, everyone, not everyone, you guys have all
you've all done this in your life, right. You have
(26:38):
sat down on some level, maybe not consciously, but you've
sat down and you've figured out how am I going
to deal with the baggage I'm carrying? Right? And you've
made compromises that you know, to yourself to those around you.
You have other times you've said, I'm not going to compromise,
I'm going to be right. That's the I want to
describe that process because it strikes me as being anyone
(27:03):
who has ever been on the wrong side of a
power equation has had to go through that process in
everyone right, and I want to figure out I want
to kind of write a kind of guidebook to how
you do that.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But you know what you said, you talked to any
psychiatrists and therapists, because before I started going to therapy,
I would just either suppressed like those emotions or conformed,
you know, in a lot of cases. And that was
actually a big life lesson that I learned dealing with
an individual like yo. I'm never compromising myself for anyone.
So did you talk to any psychiatrist and therapists.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
On people that did the work I mean on that book,
I'm only halfway okay, So I'm getting yeah, I'm getting
I'm I'm right now. I'm I'm just doing the part
where I'm describing the like I have a whole chapter
on the the whole group of there's a whole group
of comics, comedians living in South Central in the thirties
and forties and who are allowed to be in movies
(27:57):
in LA only of course, if they conformed to a
certain right. There's the guy Jack Benny's sidekick what's his name,
I've forgotten, who has to play this kind of stupid butler, right,
but he has little opportunities to kind of fight back,
but he has to. That's those are the rules, and
(28:18):
you want.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
To be and yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Got to that. That kind of women. Eddie Anderson, Eddie
have a whole thing, a whole chapter on Eddie Anderson,
who fascinating, Yeah, fascinating. He's the mayor of Central Avenue.
He's this huge figure in South central the UH in
the thirties and forties. And know, he's one of the
most he might be one of the most famous black
(28:42):
men in America in if you talked to us, if
you went to a white person from Iowa in nineteen
forty seven and said, you know, name three black people,
he would be one of them, to be him and
Joe Louis and yeah, you know. So he's a huge figure.
We've forgotten now it's a huge But so I tell
his one of the chapters about his extraordinary story.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That's interesting because some people will say that that hasn't changed.
Like you still if you're black, you still have to
play a certain role, whether it's a hip hop movies
or whatever in order to have success.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Listen, I know Malcolm Glawell has to leave the six
part series. Revision is History is out right now. I
love Revision History. I haven't gotten a chance to listen
to the six part series, but I reference your McDonald's
episode quite often, you know, quite often. But thank you
for coming, my brother, thank you, thank you so much.
It's Malcolm Gladwell.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Breakfast Club.
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