Last week I started reading the book Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Sudhir learns a lot as a student growing up about issues like gangs, but to get a closer looks he semi-joins a gang. His main mission was to learn about how African Americans live day by day, but when he walks into a drug house, he is quickly chirped. The man Sudhir first meets, is J.T., the gang leader. As they chat Sudhir gave him a survey to fill out and as JT reads it he starts laughing. The next day Sudhir came back with a case of beer, and was then quickly accepted. The 2 of them become friends and Sudhir learns that JT wasn't always part of a gang and in fact he went to college on a sports scholarship, but due to racial problems didn't succeed as much as he thought he would. Due to racism in the working world, he dropped it to join a gang.
After reading the first two chapters of this book, I was really surprised on how easily Sudhir got accepted. Of course the first day he was called names and was on the verge of being beaten, but then the next time he visited, it was like he was one of them. I never imagined that a guy like Sudhir could just mingle in with a gang. Also When JT explained his life story I was beyond shocked to find out that he went to college and was on a scholarship for sports. It may be wrong but when I think of people who are in gangs, I don't think of people who were on the track to be successful. This book already has twisted my views of how life really is, and exposed a little bit about what racism does. It keeps me engaged and I'm beyond excited to find out what happens next.
I agree with what you said about how you don't think of gang members as successful people. Maybe it's the place we live in because we aren't really exposed to gangs and all of that stuff so we have no real way of knowing much about them. I wasn't so shocked at how the other members accepted Sudhir because most of the time (from what I've heard and read) the gang you are joining is mean to you for a day or makes you do something to show that you can hang with them, but after that you are like a brother. My favorite quote from West Side Story (which is a musical about gangs) is "Without a gang you're nothing, but with a gang you walk in twos, and threes. And when your gang is the best, when you're a Jet you own the world!" It just shows that the gangs people are in are sometimes all they have, or all they care about.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that insight. And I guess you are right about that, the first day is like and initiation and then after that the others start to get to know you. If you read my second one my curiosity went up because later in the book it says that the gang leader himself had a great life before this.
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