How Little Things Make a Big Difference

African Americans and people of color are still treated unfairly due to the fact that society will not accept the fact that there is still racism in this world. White people choose to not acknowledge racism and ignore it. King states in his letter that African Americans greatest obstacle towards freedom is not the “Ku

Malcolm Gladwell insists throughout his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that the recipe for achievement is not simply based on personal talents or innate abilities alone. Gladwell offers the uncommon idea that outliers largely depend upon “extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies” (Gladwell19). According to Gladwell, successful men and women are beneficiaries of relationships, occasions, places, and cultures. The author draws on a different case study in each chapter to support a particular argument concerning success. Despite his indifference and suppression in regards to counterarguments, Gladwell’s claims are effective for many reasons, including through the accounts of experts, tone and style of writing, and the

Often heralded as the world’s greatest nation, the United States is also considered home to the world’s greatest authors. Reputable authors such as Fitzgerald, Twain, and Steinbeck remain relevant even through the washing waves of time. One such timeless author, Ray Bradbury, ventured the hazardous path of taboo to write of change. Through his novels of innocent youths evolving into children enlightened beyond their years, Bradbury utilizes the motif of time, innocence, and the philosophical movements of existentialism, transcendentalism, and romanticism to describe catastrophic events the American culture could face if existing destitute judgments continue to prevail. Ray Bradbury dared to reveal his voice.

Before we can observe how the Harry Potter phenomenon correlates to the Gladwell’s notion of the tipping point, we must first define what the tipping point is. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell examines how something unique becomes common. He asserts that there are three rules that must be followed for a tipping point to occur.

In today's world, many small changes have been made in regard to racism. In the movie To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee presented the changes made in the way black people were viewed. In the movie Selma, Director Ava Duvernay revealed the struggle many had to endure in order to achieve the right to vote. Despite the success of these small problems, racism is still a big problem in today’s society. As revealed in To Kill A Mockingbird and Selma, even though small changes have occured, big change and a potential solution to the problem has still yet to happen in today’s world.

During the colonial period early American settlers came up with the idea to bring African natives overseas to America and use them as slaves. The white man was higher up than the black man in society at the time because of the color of his skin. Americans consider this the biggest blight on our history. The shame of this period in our history still continues today for many whites, but many blacks still feel angry and oppressed. With the election of our first black president, we are really showing how anything is possible here in America and that it doesn’t matter what color or ethnicity you are.

The African American race and the events they have been involved in from 1865- resent day, have single handedly contributed to and shaped the race they are today and the issues they deal with now. There are six specific areas of history that had great impact an effect on shaping African Americans, their culture, the society, and even social status to date. These events include The Civil War, this marked the beginning of freedom for blacks or so they thought. It directly relates to and shows how blacks were given something or promised a way of life but treated completely different. It also sparked all types of injustices one being segregation and the long standing feud between southern and Northern whites.

Africans have long faced racism in their long history in America. They have had their identities and rights lost under centuries of slavery. Even after the Civil War, the inequalities between African Americans and Caucasians did not cease to exist. From these troubles, many strong people have risen and been able to tell their stories. Among these include a former slave who traveled north and gained freedom, Frederick Douglass and civil rights activist, Malcolm X who both wrote their own autobiographies about their journeys against racism. While Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass lived about a century apart, they share similarities in how they faced and combated racism through education, inspiration by other people, and their eventually finding of freedom.

Then goes and re-examines each story in such a detail matter, that he pinpoints the unknown facts that led to that person success. Gladwell unmasked our so called "big shoots" in our nation through a series of factual, ethical, and emotional evidence. He uses a structured balance between logos, and ethos to truly define an outlier in our society. In the first chapter of the Outliers Gladwell

“Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden” (Desmond Tutu). America is truly shaped by human experiences. From The Triangle Trade, to our Founding Fathers owning slaves, to the Civil War, to Civil Rights Movement, and finally to today. Racism has led to a great deal of impaction on the United States. One event that rocked our nation would be the Scottsboro trials in the 1930’s. The Scottsboro case tragedy changed America because for the first time it was made public, heightened the nation's emotions and whites Southerners felt threatened by the colored and their advancements.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. 1st ed. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print

That has changed radically today with the emergence of the first black President ever in the United States. African American’s have also, for a majority of the existence of the United States, not been treated as equal citizens to everyone else, particularly to the “white” population. Slavery and segregation have dominated our existence and we have been treated more like property than we have been treated like equals. Our social existence in America was not something that even truly existed until the mid-1960’s. Culturally we always have been faced with hatred from others, particularly the White population, which has caused us to band together as a race and live together in communities of our “own kind”. Our historical segregation meant that no one had ever given us a chance to share our culture with the world. No one ever got a chance to know us. We had to live together, in communities of African American’s that did not have any other mixing of cultures. This has led to widespread ghetto areas that are economically depressed and do not receive any government funding to help better the community.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his novel entitled, “Outliers,” explores the landscape of success and shows us that success comes from the culture that surrounds the successful , not their intelligence and ambition. Gladwell explains this through a series of situations and studies. In Part One, he discusses success as a result of timing, such as the month or year you were born. In Part Two, he focuses on cultural legacies and how they play a role in helping someone become successful. He unfolds the reasons why hockey players are not born in the latter part of the year, why the Beatles and Bill Gates were able to become so successful, and why Jewish immigrants were able to become successful lawyers and doctors. Gladwell disproves many beliefs by discovering

In the United States, African American faced prejudice for hundreds of years. Even now, African American are still facing inequality. However, though these cruelties persist, according to Martin Luther King Jr. and Elie Wiesel, the past should not be forgotten.

Harvard Business Review September, 1996 / October, 1996 HEADLINE: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY BYLINE: by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ely; David A. Thomas is an associate professor at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Robin J. Ely is an associate professor at Columbia University 's School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. Their research and teaching focus on the influence of race, gender, and ethnicity on career dynamics and organizational effectiveness. ABSTRACT: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY DAVID A. THOMAS and ROBIN J. ELY Diversity efforts in the workplace have been undertaken with great goodwill, but, ironically, they often