Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant (best e book reader for android txt) 📗

They were an inferior species, he said—they had smaller brains, which made them unintelligent, and a genetic predisposition toward violence. When Daryl pointed out that he was Black but had never shot anyone or stolen a car, the Cyclops told him his criminal gene must be latent. It hadn’t come out yet.

Daryl decided to beat the Cyclops at his own game. He challenged him to name three Black serial killers. When the Cyclops couldn’t name any, Daryl rattled off a long list of well-known white serial killers and told the Cyclops that he must be one. When the Cyclops protested that he’d never killed anybody, Daryl turned his own argument against him and said that his serial-killer gene must be latent.

“Well, that’s stupid,” the flustered Cyclops replied. “Well, duh!” Daryl agreed. “You’re right. What I said about you was stupid, but no more stupid than what you said about me.” The Cyclops got very quiet and changed the subject. Several months later, he told Daryl that he was still thinking about that conversation. Daryl had planted a seed of doubt and made him curious about his own beliefs. The Cyclops ended up quitting the KKK and giving his hood and his robe to Daryl.

Daryl is obviously extraordinary—not only in his ability to wage a one-man war on prejudice, but also in his inclination to do so. As a general rule, it’s those with greater power who need to do more of the rethinking, both because they’re more likely to privilege their own perspectives and because their perspectives are more likely to go unquestioned. In most cases, the oppressed and marginalized have already done a great deal of contortion to fit in.

Having been the target of racism since childhood, Daryl had a lifetime of legitimate reasons to harbor animosity toward white people. He was still willing to approach white supremacists with an open mind and give them the opportunity to rethink their views. But it shouldn’t have been Daryl’s responsibility to challenge white supremacists and put himself at risk. In an ideal world, the Cyclops would have taken it upon himself to educate his peers. Some other former KKK members have stepped up, working independently and with Daryl to advocate for the oppressed and reform the structures that produce oppression in the first place.

As we work toward systemic change, Daryl urges us not to overlook the power of conversation. When we choose not to engage with people because of their stereotypes or prejudice, we give up on opening their minds. “We are living in space-age times, yet there are still so many of us thinking with stone-age minds,” he reflects. “Our ideology needs to catch up to our technology.” He estimates that he has helped upwards of two hundred white supremacists rethink their beliefs and leave the KKK and other neo-Nazi groups. Many of them have gone on to educate their families and friends. Daryl is quick to point out that he hasn’t directly persuaded these men to change their minds. “I didn’t convert anybody,” he says. “I gave them reason to think about their direction in life, and they thought about it, and thought, ‘I need a better path, and this is the way to go.’”

Daryl doesn’t do this by preaching or prosecuting. When he begins a dialogue with white supremacists, many are initially surprised by his thoughtfulness. As they start to see him as an individual and spend more time with him, they often tap into a common identity around shared interests in topics like music. Over time, he helps them see that they joined these hate groups for reasons that weren’t their own—it was a family tradition dating back multiple generations, or someone had told them their jobs were being taken by Black men. As they realize how little they truly know about other groups, and how shallow stereotypes are, they start to think again.

After getting to know Daryl, one Imperial Wizard didn’t stop at leaving the KKK. He shut down the chapter. Years later, he asked Daryl to be his daughter’s godfather.

CHAPTER 7 Vaccine Whisperers and Mild-Mannered Interrogators How the Right Kind of Listening Motivates People to Change

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.

—Attributed to Dick Cavett

When Marie-Hélène Étienne-Rousseau went into labor, she broke down in tears. It was September 2018, and her baby wasn’t due until December. Just before midnight, Tobie arrived, weighing just two pounds. His body was so tiny that his head could fit in the palm of her hand, and Marie-Hélène was terrified that he wouldn’t survive. Tobie spent only a few seconds in her arms before he was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. He needed a mask to breathe and was soon taken to surgery for internal bleeding. It would be months before he was allowed to go home.

While Tobie was still in the hospital, Marie-Hélène was shopping for diapers when she saw a headline about measles spreading in her province of Quebec. She hadn’t had Tobie vaccinated. It wasn’t even a question—he seemed too fragile. She hadn’t vaccinated her three other children, either; it wasn’t the norm in her community. Her friends and neighbors took it for granted that vaccines were dangerous and passed around horror stories about their side effects. Still, the fact remained: Quebec had already had two serious measles outbreaks that decade.

Today in the developed world, measles is on the rise for the first time in at least half a century, and its mortality rate is around one in a thousand. In the developing world, it’s closer to one in a hundred. Estimates suggest that from 2016 to 2018, measles deaths spiked worldwide by 58 percent, with over a hundred thousand casualties. These deaths could have been prevented by the vaccine, which has saved roughly 20 million lives in the past two decades. Although epidemiologists recommend two doses of the measles vaccine and a minimum immunization