Gang Leader For a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

Sudhir was a first year sociology grad student at the university of Chicago when he was asked to perform a survey at The Robert Taylor homes projects about urban poverty. The question he was to ask: How does it feel to be black and poor? He asks this question to one of the most powerful gang leaders in Chicago and is laughed away.

For Venkatesh, this seemingly small event would lead to over a decade of being entrenched with the gang and people of the Robert Taylor homes with an intimacy that most sociologists could only dream of. Sudhir became close friends with one of the heads of The Black Kings, a powerful gang whose primary export is crack(although they have a hand in every pocket and activity in the complex).

Sudhir and JT's friendship is complicated and so are the feelings that arise as you read Venkatesh's story. Though he does become friends with many in the building, he is using them to further his research and career. This is troubling to him and was troubling to me as a reader. As an observer he watches abuse, beatings, shootings, prostitution, drug use, and selling narcotics without stepping in or trying to stop it. Many ethical questions come up when reading this book.

The ethics of the community life at the Robert Taylor homes are very complicated themselves. For instance, the gang leader JT (who is by the way a college grad) justifies his selling drugs by saying that the gang does pour money into the community. Drug users are going to find a way to buy drugs no matter who is selling them, isn't it better for the black kings to profit off of that when they will put some of that money into helping the community? Or another example, Building managers take bribes from the gang and allow them to sell in their building. In exchange the gang promises to protect the residents of said building. Which makes sense when police and ambulances refuse to come (police mostly because they also have taken bribes too).

The world that Venkatesh shows us made me feel gutteral reactions of disgust, anger, and sadness throughout. He truly became friends with these people and his portraits of them and the choices they have had to make are often understandeable and bittersweet. Though at times there is an academic (and maybe a classist) detachment that made me angry, he does seem to truly care about the people he is studying.

Knowing that the projects were torn down shortly after this book ends is also strange. There is no doubt the projects begot poverty and violence, but thousands and thousands of people were forced into them where they made families and networks and then just as easily forced out of them. You are left with a deep sadness at the powerlessness the people have to determine their own lives and the well-meaning but misguided wealthy people who force them to go where they decide is best.

I would absolutely recommend this book as a fascinating look into the relationships gangs have with a community and the infrastuctual aspects of a gang economy.