What impression is Gladwell presenting of his ancestors in the first part of the epilogue?

Gladwell uses the epilogue to separate truth from non-truth. He is affording us integral family background that is necessary to understand the basis of the novel Outliers. Gladwell wants us to understand how his family came to be.... how his mother really found success.... and the odds the family was up against in order to achieve any success at all. We learn about his ancestors history.... slavery, Jamaican social structure, and the reasons his family was afforded more opportunities than others.... often opportunities yielded based upon the color of their skin.