Gang leader for a day

                                                                     Gang leader for a day

                                                   review by: Adeel Chaudhry November 27, 2011

                                                                

The Gang leader for a day written by Sudhir Venkatesh a graduate student in sociology from University of Chicago is perhaps one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. Initially we see the author trying to conduct his research in a form of a questionnaire his first question being “How does it feel to be black and poor in America?” (pg. 14), but this attempt failed as he found himself kidnaped by the gang. It took the gang leader J.T and his mother known as Ms. Mae to make him realize how wrong his methods were. Although the topic remained the same which was to find out what it was like to be poor and black in American but the methods were quiet unique.

   This ethnography, which occurred in gang controlled Robert Taylor housing projects, takes a deep insight of the gang life and how it affects the community. Venkatesh briefly describes his background as well, which makes Gang Leader for a Day more relatable to people who grew up in American suburbs and had a relatively privileged or middle class life. In contrast his participants living only a few miles from his University campus lived under severe poverty in neighborhoods portrayed in the media as troubled spots.

  Venkatesh's research takes place over long period of about 10 years during the height of the crack epidemic. Initially he tries to get accepted by the residents of the project especially the gang during which he develops close friendship with the Black King gang leader J.T who was in charge of the gang operations in Robert Taylor projects. His friendship and development of ties with the people in the projects enabled him not only better understand the day to day operations of the gang but also the dynamics of the community it operates in.

  Venkatesh’s unorthodox methods of collecting data, itself makes this book more interesting. Instead of conducting one to one interviews with the subjects, Venkatesh focused on blending himself in the community, enabling him better access to peoples’ personal lives and what role did the gang had to play in their lives.

In a research done on people one the margins of society there have to be some moral that need to be addressed, one can argue about the morality of Venkatesh’s methods, but to me at least his methods provided a more detailed insight of the life of people living in urban areas infamous for their violence. Venkatesh found ways in which he could perform a more detailed research benefitting his new career as a sociologist while bring the problems of the communities in which the gangs operate more light.

  Gang Leader for a Day portrayed the gang not just as a criminal group, but a complex corporation, which also helps the local economy and keep peace in areas largely ignored by the government organizations. The gang indeed places its interest first as in the C-note beating (pg. 62, 63) and others instances such as keeping the peace so the police doesn’t interfere. The interests of the people only were mutual due to the lack of services.

  Sudhir’s blending in the Robert Taylor project of community and the Black King gang and providing us a deep understanding of the gang and people was a brave step but did it only benefit his career of helped bring more light to the socio-economic problems which revolve around it. In my opinion it did both, Gang leader for a day made Venkatesh a well-known sociologist and helped pin point the problems which enable the existence of the gang in such poor and ignored communities. This ethnography is a must read for someone who would like to better understand the interactions between the community and the gangs.

My Kinship Diagram

Fixing the Economy

The recession that we are currently in which can be traced back to the 2nd half of the 2008 is often compared to The Great Depression, but can we really consider it a depression. When the recession started the global trading plummeted, while emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil recovered relatively quickly developed ones such as the U.S and the european economies continued to suffer.
In the U.S the stock market lost triple digit points, we saw large scale unemployment reaching 10% at its peak, the housing market suffered greatly, we saw a sudden drop in the property values and there was a record number of foreclosures. The question that we asked is that was this recession avoidable.
While the poor and middle class americans were suffering the CEOs of big businesses couldn't have enough of the excessive living. Their salaries were record high and perks they had were beyond excessive. They enjoying all that while they were following bad policies which made the recession inevitable, but there was no one to stop them, it can be argued that they controlled the U.S economy. The following video summarizes how CEOs of big banks and businesses contributed to the recession:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjdVYmJRHI&feature=related
Once the recession actually struck we saw an increasing involvement of the government in the economy. There were multibillion dollar bail outs and an increase in government spending the government spending did help to slow the down turn in the economy, but the growth is painfully slow and there is still a 9% unemployment rate. The bail outs just didn't seemed to have helped the larger population. We can take models from other countries to help solve our economic crisis, such as Sweden which instead of increasing government spending in bad times saves the money for times when the global economy seems to be doing well, but sweden is a more homogeneous society. The solution to our recession has to be an american one.
We can start with the tendency of the government to help out the big businesses in a recession. Instead on granting them billions upon billions of dollars, the government can spend tax money on the middle class and poor who make the bulk of the population. Project such as up-gradation of educational institutions and infrastructure can help create jobs. There is also a need to help the small business owners providing them tax incentives will enable them to grow thus hire more people creating long term employment. These  are only a few of the steps the government can take to help with the recession, now the people can help themselves buy controlling excessive spending, manage their investment more wisely.
The recession if affected you directly or indirectly will be a painful part of our history unless the growth speeds up and the policies adopted by the government and big businesses don't change we will continue to experience recession like this one or even worse in the future.

Benefits of Post Modernism

The generation I belong to is considered as post modern, we are known to be more tolerant and susceptive   to change. This cultural change has helped most of us greatly to adopt to an increasingly smaller world, by smaller i don't mean geographically but in terms of travel, people with often different cultures are increasingly interacting with one another. Our one can argue that this was perhaps made possible due to our post modern thinking other than the advances in travel. Lets imagine the world without modern or post modern people in which social darwinism still exists and one culture looks down upon the other, people would be less likely to interact with other to avoid conflicts etc.


There is the other factors to considered like do we all adopt a uniform culture of post modernism, not necessarily  post modernism is not about becoming one culture but about celebrating the diversity of cultures. Lets look at example to avoid racist thinking we  often consider ourselves "color blind" but now we celebrate our colors features and ideas. these are a few of the defining aspects of post modernism.
Now the question is where the 21st century take us?