Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh
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Book Summary Author: Sudhir Venkatesh Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2008-01-10 ISBN: 1594201501 Number of pages: 320 Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The |
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Book Reviews of the Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
Customer Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE GHETTO AS AN OUTSIDER LOOKING AT LIFE FROM THE INSIDE.**RIVETING!**
Summary: 5 Stars
The author Sudhir Venkatesh is currently a professor of sociology at Columbia University. In 1989 when Sudhir undertook this brazen life-threatening, information gathering expedition deep inside of one of the worst ghetto's in America he was a mere first year grad student at the University Of Chicago. As he entered this epicenter of drugs, killings, crimes and powerful gangs, he was armed more with naiveté than with chutzpah or cojones. Sudhir had started attending seminars where the professors posed the classic sociological questions: "How do an individual's preferences develop? Can we predict human behavior? What are the long-term consequences, for instance, of education on future generations. The standard mode of answering these questions was to conduct widespread surveys and then use complex mathematical methods to analyze the survey data. This would produce statistical snapshots meant to predict why a given person might, say, fail to land a job, or end up in prison, or have a child out of wedlock. It was thought that the key to formulating good policy was to first formulate a good scientific study." He liked the questions, but compared to the living-breathing people he saw on the streets of Chicago, "the discussion in these seminars seemed cold and distantly, abstract and lifeless. He found it particularly curious that most of these researchers didn't seem interested in meeting the people they wrote about."
Sudhir decided, perhaps naively, that he would simply "walk" to where the people that were being studied resided and ask them questions. He first struck up friendships with some older men at Washington Park which resided just across Cottage Grove Avenue from the University Of Chicago. One gentleman named Leonard Combs, aka "Old Time" told him, "Never trust a white man, and don't think black folk are any better." Another acquaintance Charlie Butler said, "You got two kinds of whites in this city, and two kinds of blacks. You got whites who'll beat you if you come into their neighborhood. Then you got another group that won't invite you in. They'll call the police if you come in their neighborhood - and the police will beat you up." As far as blacks; "You got blacks who are beating their heads trying to figure out a way to live where you live! Don't ask me why. And then you got a whole lot of black folk who realize it ain't no use. Sudhir started interviewing the men and Charlie could see how dismayed and dejected Sudhir was. "Before you give up," he said, "you should probably speak to the people who you really want to talk to - young men, not us. That's the only way you're going to get what you need." And that advice is what led to this "UN-FLINCHABLE", "UN-RELENTING", "UN-FORGIVING", "UNFORGETTABLE" book!
Sudhir went to the University Of Chicago library and checked the census records to find a tract with poor black families with people between the ages of 16 and 24. This led him to the Lake Park projects Building Number 4040. Sudhir just a few months removed from a long stretch of time following the Grateful Dead wearing a tie-dyed shirt and donning a ponytail, innocently strolled into a dark, damp, abandoned building smelling of urine and hopelessness, carrying a clipboard with sociology questions. Before he could even get used to the nauseating odor of urine and vomit he was surrounded by members of the "Black Kings" gang. They at first thought he was part of a rival Mexican gang and before you could blink your eyes one gang member had a gun at his head and another gang member was wielding a six inch knife. Sudhir kept telling them he was a student trying to take a survey. When the leader of the local housing project J.T. got involved he said , "Well ask me a question." So in the midst of guns, knives, and urine, Sudhir asked his first question."HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE BLACK AND POOR?"
From that point forward J.T. takes a liking to Sudhir for a number of reasons, one of which is he mistakenly thinks Sudhir is going to write his biography. As the story progresses the reader learns that the "Black Kings" has an organizational chart that rivals IBM or General Motors. Over time J.T. does such a good job at the Lake Park Projects that he's "promoted" to a new territory in the Robert Taylor Homes. The Chicago Housing Authority had built this project between 1958 and 1962. It was the size of a small city, with 4,400 apartments housing about thirty thousand people, encompassing 28 buildings. "In newspaper headlines, Robert Taylor was variously called "Congo Hilton," "Hellhole" and "Fatherless World" and this was when it was relatively new." In a "Gangland-like" Forrest Gump story the reader and Sudhir are taken along with J.T. as we learn what everyday life in a ghetto that even the police do not want to come to is really like. We learn of the types of family structure, self-policing, business, beatings, killings and drugs that is as common in that area, as the air we breathe is to non-ghetto residents.
From the first gripping page of the Preface when Sudhir says: "As I opened my eyes, I saw two dozen people sprawled about, most of them men, asleep on the couches and the floor. No one had lived in the apartment for a while. The walls were peeling, and roaches skittered across the linoleum floor. The activities of the previous night - smoking crack, drinking, having sex, vomiting - had peaked at about 2:00 AM. By then the unconscious people outnumbered the conscious ones - and among the conscious ones, few still had the cash to buy another hit of crack cocaine. That's when the "Black Kings" saw diminishing prospects for sales and closed up shop for the night." At that point the reader is hooked and it only gets better from there!