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A review by rbruehlman
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh
5.0
This was an interesting, thought-provoking read. Sudhir Venkatesh, a first-year sociology graduate student, tries to conduct traditional sociology research (a survey) at the Robert Taylor projects and is understandably laughed out the door by skeptical gang members. When they tell him he will never learn about being black and poor through a silly survey, Sudhir takes this to heart, and tries to learn about the Robert Taylor complex by being part of their community. J.T., a charismatic rising gang leader, takes a shine to him and slowly integrates Sudhir into the community.
This results in a thoughtful, six-year saga detailing Sudhir's deepening relationship with J.T., the symbiotic relationship between the building tenants and the gang, the various politically astute individuals who "run" the projects, the varied Robert Taylor denizens and their struggles, and the difficulty balancing between being an outsider who knows little, but causes little harm, and a foreign insider who knows much, but can cause harm with that knowledge, inadvertently. As much as Sudhir wants to be an impassive observer, truly learning about the community means being a part of it--thereby definitionally not impassive. Sudhir's well-intentioned actions have consequences.
This is not a book about facts or statistics, or a musing on how to help the poor. This is a story, with real people, about a poorly-understood, oft-feared community. Some reviewers call Sudhir naive; perhaps, yes, but, for the most part, he also abstains from judgment or pity, enabling readers to understand and draw conclusions about the people he depicts on their own.
My favorite aspect of the book, by far, was how well Sudhir humanized the complex people who lived in the projects. It would be easy in a more academic book to look at gangs as pure criminals deserving of punishment, and--make no mistake--the people featured in the book are indeed often criminals. However, they are not sociopaths; most are just trying to survive in a broken dog-eat-dog system, and community is important to them. While the factors that encourage gang membership among young people is never discussed explicitly, it's not hard to see why young men join gangs in the world Sudhir depicts. There is an order to the mayhem of Robert Taylor, and it feels reasonable and relatable in an odd way. Many of the people featured are easy to relate with and grow fond of. You cannot understand or help a community if you do not recognize and relate to the real human beings that comprise it. Gang life, or even living in the projects, is utterly foreign to me, and reading about this same topic in an academic context would easily "other" the Robert Taylor tenants. It is impossible to "other" the tenants in the way this book was written. It is crushingly clear how and why the projects function the way they do, and why many well-intentioned policies meant to improve the lot of poor, inner-city people simply fail.
Critically, however, Sudhir takes care not to paint an overly rosy picture of tenants, either. The gang claims they help the community, and in a sense they do, but they also make it worse, a fact Sudhir wrestles with greatly. Many of the prominent individuals in the book are complex characters, likable and community-oriented in some ways, but self-serving in others. It is readily evident that while all the Robert Taylor tenants live a hard life, there is an "elite" that skims off the even less fortunate in a morally grey way. I don't think the morally suspect elite of the book are unique to the projects, though; I suspect this stratification of power among a select politically astute few is simply a reflection of "nice" society at large, although we don't like to admit it. While Sudhir comes off as being quite naive and rosy in the beginning, his opinions of powerful figures like J.T. and Ms. Bailey grow more nuanced and conflicted as time goes on.
Part of me wishes that Sudhir had included more history and statistics on gangs (e.g., how many people participate? how does Chicago's gangs compare to elsewhere?), or taken a more macro view to provide context. However, I suppose that entirely defeats the point of the book--Sudhir rejected the traditional sociology survey approach and instead chose to get to know people himself. I still have unanswered questions about gangs and will have to read another book to get them answered, but that's okay.
Critically, as well, Sudhir never weighs in on how to help the community or others like it. He deftly shows how neither government agencies nor the police are any help, and in fact are deeply corrupt. In a sense, the community thrives and betters itself in spite of the government. Still, though, life is not perfect--surviving is hard, and tenants' relationship with the Black Kings gang was clearly complicated--and Sudhir offers precisely no suggestions of what he thinks *would* make things better, even if just a little bit. In a sense, it feels like he drops in on the community, writes a book about it, and leaves the work of translating his learnings into actionable help to others. Giving the community exposure in a book is a huge start, and, to be clear, I am not expecting the author to have a silver bullet solution ... but, nonetheless, given how deeply he knows the community, I wish he had imparted at least *some* thoughts on what to do differently.
This results in a thoughtful, six-year saga detailing Sudhir's deepening relationship with J.T., the symbiotic relationship between the building tenants and the gang, the various politically astute individuals who "run" the projects, the varied Robert Taylor denizens and their struggles, and the difficulty balancing between being an outsider who knows little, but causes little harm, and a foreign insider who knows much, but can cause harm with that knowledge, inadvertently. As much as Sudhir wants to be an impassive observer, truly learning about the community means being a part of it--thereby definitionally not impassive. Sudhir's well-intentioned actions have consequences.
This is not a book about facts or statistics, or a musing on how to help the poor. This is a story, with real people, about a poorly-understood, oft-feared community. Some reviewers call Sudhir naive; perhaps, yes, but, for the most part, he also abstains from judgment or pity, enabling readers to understand and draw conclusions about the people he depicts on their own.
My favorite aspect of the book, by far, was how well Sudhir humanized the complex people who lived in the projects. It would be easy in a more academic book to look at gangs as pure criminals deserving of punishment, and--make no mistake--the people featured in the book are indeed often criminals. However, they are not sociopaths; most are just trying to survive in a broken dog-eat-dog system, and community is important to them. While the factors that encourage gang membership among young people is never discussed explicitly, it's not hard to see why young men join gangs in the world Sudhir depicts. There is an order to the mayhem of Robert Taylor, and it feels reasonable and relatable in an odd way. Many of the people featured are easy to relate with and grow fond of. You cannot understand or help a community if you do not recognize and relate to the real human beings that comprise it. Gang life, or even living in the projects, is utterly foreign to me, and reading about this same topic in an academic context would easily "other" the Robert Taylor tenants. It is impossible to "other" the tenants in the way this book was written. It is crushingly clear how and why the projects function the way they do, and why many well-intentioned policies meant to improve the lot of poor, inner-city people simply fail.
Critically, however, Sudhir takes care not to paint an overly rosy picture of tenants, either. The gang claims they help the community, and in a sense they do, but they also make it worse, a fact Sudhir wrestles with greatly. Many of the prominent individuals in the book are complex characters, likable and community-oriented in some ways, but self-serving in others. It is readily evident that while all the Robert Taylor tenants live a hard life, there is an "elite" that skims off the even less fortunate in a morally grey way. I don't think the morally suspect elite of the book are unique to the projects, though; I suspect this stratification of power among a select politically astute few is simply a reflection of "nice" society at large, although we don't like to admit it. While Sudhir comes off as being quite naive and rosy in the beginning, his opinions of powerful figures like J.T. and Ms. Bailey grow more nuanced and conflicted as time goes on.
Part of me wishes that Sudhir had included more history and statistics on gangs (e.g., how many people participate? how does Chicago's gangs compare to elsewhere?), or taken a more macro view to provide context. However, I suppose that entirely defeats the point of the book--Sudhir rejected the traditional sociology survey approach and instead chose to get to know people himself. I still have unanswered questions about gangs and will have to read another book to get them answered, but that's okay.
Critically, as well, Sudhir never weighs in on how to help the community or others like it. He deftly shows how neither government agencies nor the police are any help, and in fact are deeply corrupt. In a sense, the community thrives and betters itself in spite of the government. Still, though, life is not perfect--surviving is hard, and tenants' relationship with the Black Kings gang was clearly complicated--and Sudhir offers precisely no suggestions of what he thinks *would* make things better, even if just a little bit. In a sense, it feels like he drops in on the community, writes a book about it, and leaves the work of translating his learnings into actionable help to others. Giving the community exposure in a book is a huge start, and, to be clear, I am not expecting the author to have a silver bullet solution ... but, nonetheless, given how deeply he knows the community, I wish he had imparted at least *some* thoughts on what to do differently.