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Malcolm Gladwell - Restructuring the Police & How to Protest | The Daily Social Distancing Show - YouTube
Channel: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
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welcome gladwell welcome to the daily
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social distancing show thank you
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i'm very flattered to be to be on it i'm
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honored to have you here because um
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i said this to you before we started
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recording but i'll say it to you again
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while people are watching so there's
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witnesses
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you are one of the people who has taught
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me to always question what i think i
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know
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about the world and you you're an expert
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in doing that in your books
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you know you you create and tell stories
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about things that are seemingly
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unconnected and then by the end of the
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story or by the end of the book we start
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to realize how everything is connected
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or how everything affects something else
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in a way that we never thought possible
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um your podcast does that as well and
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one of my favorite episodes on the
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podcast is where you talk about
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elections
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and what was really mind-blowing for me
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was getting to a place where i realized
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as human beings we are horrible at
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predicting
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who is going to be a good leader and so
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i found myself at the end of that
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episode of the podcast going like wow
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maybe
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maybe elections should be lotteries
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maybe we should have no elections
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no money being spent no people
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campaigning just the lottery system of
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all the people who want to run
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should run do you still stick by that
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though is is that something that you
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believe in when you look at
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elections the cues we use to predict
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who's going to be a good leader
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are false or there are faulty do i think
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that should be true of
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a presidential campaign no but
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i do think there is a way to restructure
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our
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elections where we do cast the net a lot
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wider
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and maybe at a local level we should go
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with lotteries
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as a way of picking uh who our leaders
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should be i think there's something to
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that
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right now america is going through a
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really really tough time
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i think it's exacerbated by coronavirus
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the george floyd protests have now
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swelled into a nationwide movement
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where people in the country are saying
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we want to see change
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predominantly within the police force
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for those who think they have an idea of
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police police reform
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defunding the police or even abolition
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what do you think
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some of the unthought thoughts should be
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about this whole process well my
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question would be we've done a very good
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job
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i think in the last couple of months
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focusing on what reform of
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of police behavior in this country looks
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like right
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now i think it's time for us to turn the
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attention on ourselves
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what are the kinds of things we can do
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non-police officers can do
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to make the job of policing better in
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this country and i think that's the part
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we've neglected
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we make the police in this country deal
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with things like
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mental illness and homelessness why
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because we have
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radically underfunded the social support
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mechanisms for those two social problems
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the cops get they'll get that job by
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default
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it's a really hard job they're not
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trained to do it and they don't want to
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do it
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right and so what we're doing is we've
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taken a group of people who already have
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an insanely difficult
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job we've made it a lot harder why
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because
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we're too cheap and we're too unfeeling
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and we're too lazy
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to build adequate support systems for
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people who are very much in need in our
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country
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so there's a case where i think stage
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two is peop is
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is time for people like me and you and
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all of us
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to stand up and say okay i am willing to
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support
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greater funding for homeless services
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for
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the mentally ill in order to improve the
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quality of policing in this country
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among others
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right that's where i think we should be
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headed right now and i feel like
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if people in the police department saw
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that
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they would be much more willing to
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embrace reforms because they would say
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you know what we're all in this together
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it's a very different place to start a
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reform conversation
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than a conversation that's all about
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here's what you're doing wrong
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it's interesting because actually you're
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the perfect person for me to ask this
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too
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because there's a puzzle that i've been
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trying to solve in my brain and the
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puzzle that i have is around protest
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right in america right now there's an
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interesting conundrum people go
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what is the correct way to protest and
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although i'm distilling it down there
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seems to be two schools of thought
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protest should be something that doesn't
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you know disrupt the status quo doesn't
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like break anything doesn't you know put
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anybody out of their way
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another school of thought is no the very
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definition of protest is that it is
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meant to make society itself
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uncomfortable and you know not be able
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to live its life as if everything is
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normal and and i think to myself
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protest in many ways is defined by your
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standing in life
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you know so the more you have the less
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of a tolerance you'll have for protest
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in all your studies and in the work that
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you look at and in the ideas
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have you come across anything or do you
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even think the mind of malcolm gladwell
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can go like
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there is a definitive answer to this or
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is this something that society has never
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ever figured out yeah there is no
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definitive
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answer i mean it's funny you you you
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said
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what you said that i would be the person
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to ask i would say actually you are
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you're south african the best
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contemporary example of
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how to handle a uh successful
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protest reform movement last 25 years is
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nelson mandela right
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um and what does mandela have in common
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with
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other successful historical examples
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martin luther king
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we could make a list gandhi uh that they
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are
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their protest is purposeful
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and disciplined what i would like to
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see from the protests that we have now
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is that same
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discipline and purposefulness i think we
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have uh it in large part
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but there are times when it doesn't seem
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to be either those things when a
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bunch of you know people get out of
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control and just start breaking windows
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then i say i don't really know what that
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is achieving
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when i see people those kinds of
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protests that were in new york
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or in major cities where you know tens
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of thousands of people would march
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purposefully and peacefully with one
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voice
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demonstrating the world that this is not
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some
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minor niche group in society that's
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upset this is everyone
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that to my mind i had a number of people
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who studied police reform very closely
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to say to me that
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that had tremendous impact in
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moving and getting people like congress
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to take police reform seriously
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so that was that's one side of my brain
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there is another argument though and
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that is that without that side of
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the protests they wouldn't have been
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seen as the
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the the reasonable person to deal with
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the reasonable you know you know what i
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mean
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people say martin luther king jr needed
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malcolm as much as
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the other needed the other that's the
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puzzle i'm playing with in my head as i
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go like
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is is it is it the peaceful protest
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that works or is it the fact that the
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peaceful protest is seen as peaceful
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relative
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to another protest you get i'm saying so
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for instance colin kaepernick
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was protesting peacefully he was met
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with the utmost resistance
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that anyone could be met with and i'm
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sure now if he kneeled people will say
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well that's
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a much better way to protest than
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breaking a window yeah
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yeah i do think there's something to
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what you're saying i
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i would only add that to my mind there
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is an immediate
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existential threat to all of this which
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is the possibility that trump gets
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re-elected
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and all i care about right now is that
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we get through this
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election intact um you know that an
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awful lot of what we're seeing that is
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malignant and pathological in america
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right now
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is simply a result of this guy in the
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white house
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so you know my fear i don't know whether
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it's legit fear or not
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but part of me worries that the more
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violent kinds of protests have the
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effect of aiding
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trump's reelection before i let you go
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you have done
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a lot of work looking at the way human
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beings see each other
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the way human beings interact with each
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other and how that can define
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progress or a stagnant
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society is there a better way for us to
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communicate
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specifically i should say with people we
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don't agree with and i'm not talking
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about nazis i'm just talking about
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people who we just have like
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some some you know political
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disagreements with
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we need to find a way to communicate to
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understand
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the complexity of the people we're
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talking to so
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you and i could come could make a list
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of all of
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our identities you know uh
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you are a south african you are
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biracial you are a comedian you are a
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successful author
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and you and i may have profound
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disagreements all along
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one of those lines yes but we may agree
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on
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six of them and i feel like what's
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happened in our society now is
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you know you'll talk to someone who's a
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who loves trump and you'll assume that's
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the most important dimension in their
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life
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and that the difference between you and
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that person politically
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um is irrevocable there's no way you can
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bridge that gap
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but then if you talk to them for a
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little bit longer you would discover
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you know they're a massive basketball
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fan and so are you
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they love you and i think a lot of times
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those
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other identities are a lot more
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important than the ones we spend all of
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our time obsessing over
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and i think it's time for us to start
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looking for ways to find common ground
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with people
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and getting beyond the most kind of
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obvious and salient of their identities
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i could talk to you for hours but
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luckily uh i've got the podcast for that
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um i've got the books thank you for
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taking the time congratulations on
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another wonderful podcast season and
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i hope we'll be seeing many more thank
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you trevor
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you
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