Book on science of racism only tells half the story

Robert McCrum concedes that there is a lot to learn about DEI and unconscious bias. It's just a pity that Keon West's tome distracts from, instead of tackles, an urgent subject

- Robert McCrum

Twenty-five years ago, not long before 9/11, a young Canadian journalist of English and Jamaican origin named Malcolm Gladwell published a short book with a provocative subtitle "how little things can make a big difference". He called it The Tipping Point; his American publisher paid $1m for the rights; after a disastrous start, it rapidly acquired the status of myth. To a world fighting a “war on terror”, and consumed with ephemeral dread, Gladwell’s “little things” (Hush Puppies, broken windows, and the midnight ride of Paul Revere) became a new and entertaining way to look at social issues. Gladwell’s message (how just a few people can affect positive change) was at once provocative and soothing.

From The Tipping Point to Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking to Outliers: The Story of Success, which popularised the theory of “10,000 hours practice”, Gladwell became a genremaster illuminated in the flattering light of international imitation by numerous wannabe bestseller writers (often journalists), most of whom possessed neither his witty intelligence nor his effortless storytelling.

The Tipping Point became a millennial phenomenon that shaped a generation. Don’t take my word for it. Gladwell’s publishers have just released Revenge of the Tipping Point, a nonchalant audit of second thoughts by the writer who became, Bill Clinton said, “part of the zeitgeist”.

By chance, in this same season, we find The Science of Racism by Keon West, published with a throwaway Gladwellian subtitle (“Everything you need to know but probably don’t – yet”). West, who quips that “he has always been black”, is a social psychologist with some impressive qualifications, who has drunk deep at the well of The Tipping Point, and makes an early pitch for a similar readership.

“In this groundbreaking study,” declares the jacket blurb, “