Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox
The methodology by which Civil Rights leaders suckered white supremacist police and politicians into beating the crap out of peaceful protesters in front of cameras and the world is traced back to an ironic story in the tales of Uncle Remus. Brer Rabbit gets stuck in tar and begs Brer Fox (who is responsible) to do anything he wants, but just please don’t toss him to the briar patch. Of course, Brer Fox does exactly this and quick learns the meaning of irony when he realizes that this is what Brer Rabbit actually wanted him to do in order to facilitate his escape from the tar.
Ironic Irony
The story of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox is used an example of the Trickster component in being a David going up against a Goliath as it relates to the Civil Rights. Knowing they were no match for the power of authority invested in southern police departments and politicians, leaders of the movement consciously acted to stimulate violence enacted upon their non-violent resistance. The irony of getting white supremacists already consumed by a desire to act violently toward black citizens to actually go through with acting violently is a rare case of the irony being itself ironic.
The London Blitz
The regular attacks by German bombers over London and other parts of England were designed in part, of course, to cause immense physical devastation. And in that sense it was a genuine success. The larger purpose, however, was pure terrorism. The long-term intent was not the collapse of buildings, but the collapse of British citizens to keep fighting. The result was pure irony:
“Do you see the catastrophic error that the Germans made? They bombed London because they thought that the trauma associated with the Blitz would destroy the courage of the British people. In fact, it did the opposite. It created a city of remote misses, who were more courageous than they had ever been before. The Germans would have been better off not bombing London at all.”
The Photograph
One of the most stunning examples of irony in the entire book is a deconstruction of what Gladwell terms “the most famous photograph in the history of the American civil rights movement.” It is a photo taken on May 3, 1963 of Birmingham cops unleashing (metaphorically, not actually) two K-9 German shepherds on a passive young black male non-violent protester. Or so it seems. The photo became world famous and infamous for its portrait in miniature of how every single showdown in the south had been going down.
Except that the young black boy was actually a member of a black family which owned two newspapers that been openly critical of Martin Luther King, Jr.He wasn't there to protest, but simply to watch. The photo quite clearly shows both dogs not just leashed, but those leashes being pulled taut in an effort to control the aggressive behavior of the dogs. Bystanders in the background are not horrified or outraged by the sight of two police dogs attacking a defenseless teenager, but quite calmly looking on. And, most ironic of all, perhaps, the position of the teen’s leg and later reports both indicate that it was he was being aggressive toward the shepherd. The larger irony is that though the image contributed to a greater good of hastening the Civil Rights Act, everything it accomplished was done through presenting a false narrative of what actually happened.
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is forwarded as a learning disability which for a great many people has contributed to their not succeeding in life, winding up in prison, getting dragged into a vortex of substance abuse and a host of other negative consequences. Several high-profile examples are given to indicate that in different ways, dyslexia can also be an important mechanism in the better-than-average success of some people. The irony lies in the fact that having trouble reading my force some kids to develop strengths which serve them well later in life which they may not have developed were they not dyslexic.
