PDF Summary:How Not To Be Wrong, by James O'Brien

In How Not to Be Wrong, one of the UK’s leading radio personalities—known for his ability to argue his guests into submission and prove his own rightness—changes course, compelled by a personal crisis to examine his “wrong” beliefs and misguided ways of relating to others.

James O’Brien argues in this part memoir, part self-help book that learning to change your mind when you’re wrong is a valuable tool for combating prejudice. Coming from a man who was taught never to show vulnerability, his method for changing his own mind is unexpected: starting therapy and exploring his childhood trauma. O’Brien claims that only by getting to the root of our pain can we learn to have empathy for others.

In this guide, we place O’Brien’s ideas in context by analyzing psychological and sociological research on childhood trauma, masculinity, and prejudice. We also compare O’Brien’s perspectives to those found in books such as What Happened to You? and The Body Keeps the Score, which take a more clinical approach to similar issues.

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In addition, because O’Brien came from a comfortable, middle-class family and was loved by his parents, he often told himself that things could have been much worse. But he learned in therapy that this, too, was a type of armor designed to protect him from having to look inward and examine his own pain.

(Shortform note: While definitions of trauma vary, psychologists generally acknowledge that trauma is best understood as a constellation of symptoms, rather than as a specific type of negative event. Consequently, acknowledging childhood trauma doesn’t have to mean placing blame on those who inflicted it or believing the specific events you endured were the equivalent of war or natural disaster. Instead, it means examining your own response to distressing or disturbing events.)

Beliefs About Others: Prejudices and Failure to Recognize Systemic Inequity

In addition to examining his beliefs about himself, therapy led O’Brien to examine his beliefs about others. Specifically, he recognized that, despite his progressive politics, he had been blind to systemic inequity that didn’t affect him directly, and he held unfounded prejudices against certain groups of people.

Failure to Recognize Racism and White Privilege

As a white man, O’Brien was relatively uninformed about race and racism. The more he learned, the more his eyes were opened, and he saw that his beliefs about things like stop-and-frisk and white privilege had been wrong.

Stop-and-Frisk and Racism

O’Brien claims that he wasn’t exposed to racism growing up, because (according to him) his friends who were people of color didn’t experience it in school. Since he didn’t observe racism around him in his boarding school or college, he didn’t think it was a problem.

As an adult, he didn’t view the law enforcement practice of indiscriminate stop and search (stop-and-frisk in America) as an example of racial profiling, even though it was directed primarily at Black men. Rather, he believed that if you had nothing to hide, you had nothing to fear.

The turning point: When O’Brien first asked listeners of his show to phone in about stop-and-frisk, he got lots of calls from old, white men. But then he asked for calls specifically from people who had personally experienced stop-and-frisk. He was surprised by how the callers (Black men) felt uniformly victimized by the words and behavior of the police during the stop-and-frisk. But O’Brien still clung to his position that stop-and-frisk was necessary; he just amended it to add “as long as the police are polite and respectful."

The more he listened to people with negative experiences of stop-and-frisk, the harder it became to hold on to his opinions. O'Brien says that if he had been in another job where he wasn't exposed to those opinions, he might never have changed his mind.

He realized that he had accepted the type of indiscriminate, unfounded punishment used in stop-and-frisk because thinking otherwise would force him to acknowledge the pain he felt when experiencing similar punishment as a child (albeit under different circumstances). In essence, his views on stop-and-frisk had been another version of his belief that pain makes you stronger, and that the best way to approach unfair punishment is to grit your teeth and accept it. Coming to terms with his own childhood pain helped O’Brien empathize with and change his mind about other people.

O’Brien also learned from his callers that a tiny percentage of Black people in London actually commit serious, violent crimes (.005%), but all Black people are blamed for it. So the vast majority of Black kids who just want to go to school are treated like they are criminals, which is traumatizing for them and also means that resources are being allocated to policing instead of helping low-income kids who live in dangerous neighborhoods.

O’Brien’s answer to the question of how to change racist views is to educate yourself, in particular by listening to people who have personally experienced racism.

White Privilege

Just as O’Brien didn’t recognize race as a factor in stop-and-frisk policing, he also failed to see his own race as a factor in his success. O’Brien used to feel that he’d worked too hard and endured too much “failure” early in life (primarily failure to win prizes and promotions) to have any real privilege. When he did start becoming successful, he wanted to believe it was exclusively due to his effort, and not to the color of his skin.

The turning point: One of O’Brien’s callers made him see white privilege differently. He had an on-air discussion, in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd murder, with a woman who was an American filmmaker of East Asian descent. He’d asked callers to answer the question: What do white people need help understanding about racism? The caller talked about representation in film and media and said that even O’Brien’s radio station had only one presenter who was a person of color. He shut her down, saying they were there to talk about the brutal death of a Black man in America, not the racial makeup of his London radio station.

Upon reflection, O’Brien saw that the caller was talking about a type of white privilege: White people see themselves reflected and represented in the media in a way that people of color don’t, and that gives them a head start.

O’Brien called the filmmaker back a few hours later, apologized, and let her speak. In the interview, she pointed out that becoming a popular radio presenter like he was takes hard work and talent, but it also requires opportunities that people of color are often denied. The problem in overcoming systemic racism, she said, is that people in power (often white gatekeepers) want to hold on to power.

This helped O’Brien understand that white privilege doesn’t negate hard work, but it does give white people advantages that they’re often unwilling to acknowledge.

Individual vs. Systemic Racism, Racial Profiling, and White Privilege

Before he became more informed about racism, O’Brien seemed to think that because he hadn’t witnessed any overtly racist acts, racism wasn’t a big problem in England. Besides the fact that O’Brien’s friends and classmates (and many others) could have been experiencing racism of which he was simply unaware, O’Brien’s former mindset also made him conflate the apparent absence of individual racism with the absence of systemic racism.

Systemic racism is racism that is baked into institutions, such as the government, the legal system, and law enforcement. It consists of policies, procedures, and laws—often put in place during a time when overt racism was societally sanctioned—that work to discriminate against people based on race, even in the absence of any individual racist acts. The practice of racial profiling, or targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based solely on race, is an example of systemic racism. Stop-and-frisk policing often relies on racial profiling.

Stop-and-frisk policing, used in both England and the United States, was especially controversial in New York City during Michael Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor from 2002 to 2013. During that time, the vast majority of people detained and searched were young Black and Latino men. For example, in 2009, Black and Latino people in New York were nine times as likely as white people to be stopped by the police. According to police data analyzed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, only 14 out of every 10,000 stops conducted during the Bloomberg era turned up a gun, and 1,200 out of every 10,000 ended with a fine, an arrest, or the seizure of an illegal weapon.

Stop-and-frisk came to an end in New York when a federal judge ruled that the searches amounted to a policy of indirect racial profiling of Black and Latino people. After the policy was abandoned, crime in New York City fell to levels not seen since the 1950s.

Racial profiling goes beyond unfair practices: It often results in the injury or death of the person detained. In addition, people who experience racial profiling often suffer from PTSD, much as O’Brien himself suffers from the effects of being unfairly targeted for punishment in his childhood.

White Privilege

Just as racial profiling is a form of discrimination against primarily Black and Latino men, white privilege is a form of discrimination in favor of white people. It’s a byproduct of systemic racism and, as O’Brien’s filmmaker caller points out, of institutions designed to keep powerful people in power. White privilege grants white people access to greater resources, rights, and power than people of color in the same situation. In How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi says that examples of white privilege include:

• being afforded the presumption of innocence and intelligence

• being afforded compassion or empathy when hurt, angry, or in need

• being given opportunities by a white social network

• being able to vote easily

• having equal access to mortgages and good schools

Prejudices Against Overweight People, People With Tattoos, and Unmarried People

In addition to his misguided beliefs about race, O’Brien held prejudices against other groups of people as well. O’Brien recognized that some of his beliefs about others were unfair and unfounded, but he had a hard time letting go of them—in part because he’d never questioned where they come from. Examining the source of prejudices and talking to callers on his radio show helped him change his mind about overweight people, people with tattoos, and unmarried people.

“Fat-Shaming” and Prejudice Against Overweight People

O’Brien used to bully fat people on his radio show, even though he himself was overweight. At one point he was actually proud that a slur he had coined on the radio was gaining traction in the world (a caller told him that her daughter had used it against an overweight person in the supermarket). He compares his prejudice against fat people to the prejudice some Brits have against immigrants: He lumped them all together to dehumanize them.

(Shortform note: There is no consensus on the most respectful terms to use to describe overweight people. In the US in particular, the “fat acceptance movement” advocates an end to the discrimination that fat people face. This movement deliberately uses the word “fat” to describe larger bodies, as a way of reclaiming and destigmatizing the word. In medical settings, particularly in the UK, studies show that patients with a body mass index above 25 prefer the terms “weight” and “overweight.” Of course, there is often no need to describe a person’s body size in the first place. If it’s necessary to do so, a safe bet is to use the language preferred by the individual.)

O’Brien analyzes his own “othering” of fat people to demonstrate how he uses the same tactics as anyone who tries to dehumanize a group of people:

1. He focused on criticizing a government program designed to reward overweight people financially if they lost weight. In this way, he gave people a reason to get angry that resources that belonged to them—in this case, taxpayer money—were being “unfairly” redistributed to other people. He tried to provoke strong feelings under the guise of sharing facts.

2. He used terms that compared human beings to inanimate objects. For example, he compared 15 pounds of weight loss to a bag of sugar. This made it easier for listeners not to have to think of fat people as real humans with feelings.

3. He argued that the money being spent to encourage people to lose weight could have been spent to provide terminally ill people with medication. This allowed people to think that they weren’t attacking fat people; rather, they were protecting terminally ill people. (The truth, says O’Brien, is that money spent to treat obesity would actually save money for the National Health Service and the taxpayer in the long run.)

4. He emphasized the seriousness of the threat posed by obese people taking taxpayer money.

The turning point: O’Brien’s prejudice against fat people began to change when his family hired a wonderful person to help with childcare. She had long struggled with her weight (and she listened to his show). Knowing that she was a listener, every time he was about to launch into a diatribe about fat people, he thought of her.

He also realized that his criticism of others was more about his own inability to lose weight. It was another example of his “survival personality” refusing to admit that he was vulnerable and needed help, and that simply eating less and exercising more wasn’t enough.

O’Brien compares the way he fat-shamed people to the way online trolls shamed the McCann family whose daughter disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007. Most of the hatred directed at the McCanns was for leaving their daughter alone while they had dinner nearby. O’Brien learned from this that blaming the McCanns was a way for people to convince themselves that it’s possible to control whether terrible tragedies happen to you. If the McCanns were to blame for leaving their daughter alone, the reasoning went, then people who didn’t leave their children alone would never experience a similar tragedy. Hurting others was a way for the trolls to reassure themselves that they and their children were safe.

While trolls shaming grieving parents may be an extreme example, O’Brien believes that everyone shares that mindset to some degree: Everyone sometimes lashes out at others for pain they are feeling themselves.

(Shortform note: Researcher, speaker, and author Brené Brown confirms that it’s human nature to blame others because it gives us some semblance of control. According to Brown’s data, blame is actually the discharging of discomfort and pain. Blaming others, however, generally does not lead to changes in their behavior. On the contrary, it tends to make the recipient more defensive.)

Other Types of Prejudice

In addition to his prejudice against overweight people, O’Brien also harbored prejudices against people with tattoos, and he believed that married people have superior relationships to unmarried people.

He tried to figure out why he felt the way he did about tattoos, and he remembered an early scary experience with a mentally ill man from his town who had a spiderweb tattooed over his whole face. O’Brien realized that holding onto a strong opinion about tattoos helped him feel a sense of control and order in a chaotic world. It was a type of false certainty used to combat fear (not unlike religion, he says).

On the marriage question, O’Brien realized that he held this belief because his parents told him that his biological mom (a single woman) gave him up for adoption because she thought his adoptive parents could give him a better life than she ever could. He took this to mean that a “better life” was what married people experienced. It was hard for him to let go of this belief because the importance of marriage was tied up with his own “origin story.”

O’Brien lets go of his prejudices by asking himself tough questions about why he believes what he does. He believes that you can’t argue someone into changing their mind; you can only ask them questions until they get to a place where they might change their own mind.

In examining “wrong” beliefs and prejudices, whether they’re his own or someone else’s, O’Brien typically asks the following questions:

• What are you afraid of?
• What are you really angry about?
• How would you feel if the roles were reversed?

How to Combat Prejudice

O’Brien says that his primary method for combating prejudice is asking tough questions (and it seems that therapy also helped him get to the root of his own prejudices). Psychologists have identified a number of other effective methods for reducing one’s prejudices against others, such as:

1. Traveling. Traveling serves as a reminder that different cultures have very different ways of doing things, and that your culture’s way is not the only (or best) way.

2. Taking a class on prejudice. Knowledge is one of the most effective ways to combat prejudice. Studies show that taking a course on prejudice can significantly reduce your levels of both conscious and unconscious bias.

3. Happiness. Research also demonstrates that people who are smiling and happy are less likely to show implicit bias on a test of racial attitudes.

4. Working together for a common cause. When opposing groups work together to achieve a common goal, such as supporting a cause they value, they are more likely to get along and form cross-group friendships.

5. Staying healthy. Research shows that when people are concerned about their own mortality, they care more about their values—but they’re also more likely to be prejudiced against those who don’t share those values. Staying healthy can help you feel more secure about your place in the world, and, surprisingly, this is likely to make you more tolerant of other worldviews.

When confronted with prejudice in yourself or others, there are a few things you should do, according to the Anne Frank House. The first step is to recognize the prejudice. Everyone has prejudices, so awareness is a prerequisite to making change. Second, make sure that the prejudices you do have don’t affect your behavior and lead to discrimination. For example, it was one thing for O’Brien to have negative opinions about overweight people, but it was more egregious for him to spread those opinions on his radio show and encourage the use of fat-shaming slurs that hurt others.

Finally, if you witness or experience prejudice, react. If you see someone discriminating against others or insulting groups of people, say something. This is where O’Brien’s advice to ask questions comes in handy. If you argue or try to convince someone that they’re wrong, you’re unlikely to get anywhere. But asking questions—ideally with empathy and humor— can cause them to examine and perhaps even reconsider their beliefs.

Conclusion: We Must Acknowledge Our Own Pain to Empathize With Other People

In considering everything he had been wrong about, O’Brien wonders whether the source of his wrongness on less important issues was the same as the source of his wrongness on significant issues. He concludes that the source is the same: childhood trauma.

There are degrees of trauma—O’Brien’s boarding school experiences are not the same as the former gang member’s experience in a criminal gang, for example—and trauma affects people in different ways, but the common denominator, claims O’Brien, is that if you don’t like the person it's made you into, you can change. It’s treatable.

O’Brien says that our lack of empathy and negative attitudes about other people almost always stem from our denial of our own pain. As long as we fail to address the negative experiences that made us who we are, it will be hard for us to understand the perspectives of others. However, if we can recognize our own hurt, we can let down our guard and be more vulnerable, which allows us to relate to others by listening and establishing trust, rather than by arguing.

And by listening and learning, we can change our mind.

Is Childhood Trauma Really the Cause of Prejudice?

Some might argue that in claiming his childhood trauma caused his prejudices and failure to recognize racism, O’Brien is trying to let himself off the hook. Does childhood trauma really cause prejudice?

The causes of prejudice are multiple and complex and include social, cultural, and historical factors. For example, prejudice is often taught through socialization. A family or societal history of intolerance can have a huge effect on an individual’s tendency to form prejudices. By the age of five, children already have the ability to place people into social categories, and US and British studies show that ethnicity is the most influential factor in forming such categories, with gender the second most influential.

A psychological explanation for prejudice is more in line with O’Brien’s experience. Research demonstrates that people with authoritarian personalities are predisposed to becoming prejudiced. Authoritarians typically have rigid beliefs, do not tolerate weakness in themselves or others, believe in a strict system of punishments, and are highly respectful of authority, to name just a few of their traits. An authoritarian personality can be the result of one’s environment—without diagnosing O’Brien as “authoritarian,” it is easy to see how a boarding school environment that emphasizes toughness and doles out frequent punishments for rule violation could breed the type of personality that might be rigid and intolerant.

Of course, plenty of people who experience childhood trauma do not form strong prejudices or discriminate against others. Indeed, for many children, the trauma they experience is the discrimination itself. Chronic exposure to discrimination can trigger racial trauma.