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Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell begins and ends Talking to Strangers with an analysis of Sandra Bland’s 2015 encounter with Officer Brian Encinia. The interaction began when Encinia pulled over Bland, a young Black woman, for her failure to signal before switching lanes. What should have been a routine traffic stop ultimately escalated into violence, leading to Bland’s arrest. Three days later, on July 13, 2015, Bland died by suicide in her jail cell. Bland had recently traveled from her hometown outside Chicago, Illinois, to Prairie View, Texas, for a new job at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, when Encinia pulled her over. While the interaction began cordially, tensions escalated once Encinia took note of Bland’s visible irritation. Their subsequent conversation hit a turning point when Bland lit a cigarette in her car in an attempt to relax. Encinia demanded she put out the cigarette, but Bland said she was in her car and shouldn’t need to. After Encinia ordered her to exit her vehicle, the situation escalated, with Encinia later threatening and physically harming Bland. Gladwell views this incident as exemplary of how wrong things can go when two people fail to make sense of each other. Gladwell points out that Encinia’s police training taught him to regard many of Bland’s reasonable behaviors, such as her irritation and anxiety at being pulled over and lighting a cigarette to calm her nerves, as signs of guilt or an intent to engage in violent behavior.
Sandra Bland Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Sandra Bland or refer to Sandra Bland. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
When we don’t know someone, or can’t communicate with them, or don’t have the time to understand them properly, we believe we can make sense of them through their behavior and demeanor.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
Like suicide, crime is tied to very specific places and contexts. Weisburd’s experiences in the 72nd Precinct and in Minneapolis are not idiosyncratic. They capture something close to a fundamental truth about human behavior. And that means that when you confront the stranger, you have to ask yourself where and when you’re confronting the stranger—because those two things powerfully influence your interpretation of who the stranger is.
Chapter 11
Quotes
There is something about the idea of coupling—of the notion that a stranger’s behavior is tightly connected to place and context—that eludes us. It leads us to misunderstand some of our greatest poets, to be indifferent to the suicidal, and to send police officers on senseless errands. So what happens when a police officer carries that fundamental misconception—and then you add to that the problems of default to truth and transparency? You get Sandra Bland.
Chapter 12
Quotes
To Encinia’s mind, Bland’s demeanor fits the profile of a potentially dangerous criminal. She’s agitated, jumpy, irritable, confrontational, volatile. He thinks she’s hiding something. This is dangerously flawed thinking at the best of times. Human beings are not transparent. But when is this kind of thinking most dangerous? When the people we observe are mismatched: when they do not behave the way we expect them to behave.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Brian Encinia’s goal was to go beyond the ticket. He had highly tuned curiosity ticklers. He knew all about the visual pat-down and the concealed interrogation. And when the situation looked as if it might slip out of his control, he stepped in, firmly. If something went awry that day on the street with Sandra Bland, it wasn’t because Brian Encinia didn’t do what he was trained to do. It was the opposite. It was because he did exactly what he was trained to do.
Get the entire Talking to Strangers LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sandra Bland Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Sandra Bland or refer to Sandra Bland. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
When we don’t know someone, or can’t communicate with them, or don’t have the time to understand them properly, we believe we can make sense of them through their behavior and demeanor.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
Like suicide, crime is tied to very specific places and contexts. Weisburd’s experiences in the 72nd Precinct and in Minneapolis are not idiosyncratic. They capture something close to a fundamental truth about human behavior. And that means that when you confront the stranger, you have to ask yourself where and when you’re confronting the stranger—because those two things powerfully influence your interpretation of who the stranger is.
Chapter 11
Quotes
There is something about the idea of coupling—of the notion that a stranger’s behavior is tightly connected to place and context—that eludes us. It leads us to misunderstand some of our greatest poets, to be indifferent to the suicidal, and to send police officers on senseless errands. So what happens when a police officer carries that fundamental misconception—and then you add to that the problems of default to truth and transparency? You get Sandra Bland.
Chapter 12
Quotes
To Encinia’s mind, Bland’s demeanor fits the profile of a potentially dangerous criminal. She’s agitated, jumpy, irritable, confrontational, volatile. He thinks she’s hiding something. This is dangerously flawed thinking at the best of times. Human beings are not transparent. But when is this kind of thinking most dangerous? When the people we observe are mismatched: when they do not behave the way we expect them to behave.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Brian Encinia’s goal was to go beyond the ticket. He had highly tuned curiosity ticklers. He knew all about the visual pat-down and the concealed interrogation. And when the situation looked as if it might slip out of his control, he stepped in, firmly. If something went awry that day on the street with Sandra Bland, it wasn’t because Brian Encinia didn’t do what he was trained to do. It was the opposite. It was because he did exactly what he was trained to do.
