March 2010

Gang Leader for a Day

by Sudhir Venkatesh

Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh, a graduate student at the University of Chicago opens with Sudhir doing a survey on poverty in the infamous Robert Taylor Homes in South-side Chicago, on poverty in the projects in 1989. Honest and entertaining, Venkatesh, a Columbia University professor, vividly recounts his seven years following and befriending a Chicago crack-dealing gang in a fascinating look into the complex world of the Windy City's urban poor. He became involved with the Black Kings and their gang leader JT. Sent to the projects with a multiple choice test on poverty he was invited to see hot the drug dealers functioned in real life, from their corporate structure to the corporal punishment meted out to traitors and snitches. Venkatesh breaks down common misperceptions (such as all gang members are uneducated and cash rich, when the opposite is often true), the native of India also addresses his shame and subsequent emotional conflicts over collecting research on illegal activities and serving as the Black Kings' primary decision-maker for a day-hardly the actions of a detached sociological observer. But over involved or not, this graduate student turned gang-running rogue sociologist has an intimate and compelling tale to tell.