Assignment 8: Gang Leader for a Day

Gang Leader for a Day  by Sudhir Venkatesh

Chapter 1 starts with Mr. Venkatesh attempting to learn about the poorer communities around Hyde Park in Chicago on his own.  As his interest grew, he attempted to collect data from poor people and ended up meeting J.T., a gang leader.  I was surprised as to how fearless Mr. Venkatesh was with a gun pointing at his head.

Chapter 2 follows Mr. Venkatesh's observation of J.T. and his gang as they transition into the Robert Taylor building J.T. grew up in.  Mr. Venkatesh began to meet people living in the building that were not part of the Black Kings gang.  I had never thought about it before, but I found it very interesting that people were so tolerant of the large presence of the gang in the building.

Chapter 3 focuses further on the close nit relationship of the community and the gang.  After J.T. started taking on more work with the BK's, Mr. Venkatesh became more free to meet other people in the community with power.  I thought it was very interesting that it was impossible to be neutral in the community.  Sides must be made to keep loyalty and trust.

Chapter 4 is a short chapter taking place mostly in a single day when Mr. Venkatesh attempts to do J.T.'s job for one day.  There were many tough decisions to make and things needed to do to keep the gang's business running smoothly.  Mr. Venkatesh thought it would be easy when in reality it was not at all.

Chapter 5 changes perspective and goes into detail about the relationship between the families living in the building and Ms. Bailey, the leader of the building.  She lobbies the CHA to get things done for the families as well as taking "donations" from businesses.  I am surprised what she is willing to do to get things done, and at the same time she seems very power hungry.

Chapter 6 takes another perspective when Mr. Venkatesh begins to interview many people of all sorts that live in and around the Robert Taylor buildings J.T. controls.  He makes a huge mistake by then telling J.T. and Ms. Bailey all that he found, and they use that information.  The community felt betrayed by him and rightly so.

Chapter 7 begins Mr. Venkatesh's return to following J.T. around as he gains access to the higher circles in the BK.  He got an opportunity to get the perspective of the police with Officer Reggie as well, but found that it was very dangerous so much as being seen with the police.  He is beginning to lose his welcome in the building from everyone except J.T.

Chpater 8 leads up to the inevitable demolition of the Robert Taylor building and how people are dealing with their forced evacuation.  It also finishes with short stories about where all the people he got close to ended up.  I felt like it ended rather quick in comparison to the detail Mr. Venkatesh goes into with other events earlier in the book.

Summary:

        I found this book incredibly interesting and very easy to read.  I had trouble putting it down after I finished a chapter.  Mr. Venkatesh seemed surprisingly naive during the entire book, but I believe that he made it seem that way in order to make a better story.  This book is not meant to be scientific ethnography, it is meant to inform and entertain the general reader.  Because of that, there were not as many solid facts and a lot more subjective findings that make for a much more interesting read.  He could not have simply reported his experiences in the Robert Taylor buildings and stated facts.  Not many people would by such a dry book.  

        A lot is still to be learned from this unique story of an ethnographer embarking on a morally questionable ethnography study of everyday life in a very poor community.  There would have been no way for Mr. Venkatesh to uphold a normal moral ground and stay alive in the society.  Everyday life in the Robert Taylor buildings held so many illegal activities that they were often overlooked as crimes at times.  They are considered necessary in order to survive.   

        Basic public services I take for granted are not available in the Robert Taylor buildings.  Things like ambulances, police or repairmen.  Almost every service is provided and done by the community as a whole. People like C-Note act as mechanics, repairmen and even sometime militia.  The BK act as security and keep things calm.  Though there are many drawbacks to the gang being there, the community would not be able to keep the peace without them.  

        The BK gang shows how complex gangs are.  Before this book I thought they acted more like an oppressive autocracy with the gang leader in charge and his thugs doing what he said.  This was a naive outlook, but until now I had only movies to go from.  The BK are depicted as community members with a dark side that is the source of their power and what they are most known for. 

      My eyes seem more open after reading this.  Not everyone is what they seem and no matter how criminal a persons' actions may be, chances are they had a strong motivation behind that action.  They are not simply bad people.  Bad is a hard word to pin on a person.  Actions can be bad, but that does not make the person inherently bad.

Ethnography Idea

A potential organization I thought of to do an ethnography about is Habitat for Humanity in Bryan. I believe that the people working and even regular volunteers would have developed a unique relationship that is key to the organization's success.  Habitat has done well all around the country in many different societies.  What makes them so successful in so many different places? It would also be very easy to get in close with Habitat as a volunteer.  I have only volunteered with Habitat twice.  Only once at the one in Bryan, and that was early last semester.

Assignment 7: Non-obvious Observation

        The group I was in decided to start on the north side of campus in front of Zachary.  From there, we individually crossed University Drive and walked into the McDonald's on the other side.  We stood in line for the register and ordered an item from the menu.  Then we had to wait for our order, receive it and walk back across University Drive to the starting point.  There are many interactions we were faced with. Such as people also waiting at the light to cross the street, cars going by, people waiting in line to order, talking to the lady behind the register, people also waiting for their food and passersby all along the way.
        My group had some technical difficulties with the camera.  Two of our recordings out of the five did not record (I will not say who's since it will give away which video is who's), so they had to redo them.  Unfortunately we did the originals right before sundown, so when we realized they were not recorded and could redo them it was already dark.
        The major non-obvious thing that we can observe from our video is what we do when waiting.  Most of us had to wait for the cross walk light twice when crossing University Drive, waiting in line and then finally waiting for our food to be made.  There were a lot of forced waiting in our particular path.  All of them were short, less than thirty seconds, besides the wait for food for some of us.  People do things they are not always aware of when they are waiting.  I am very curious as to what the different things that the other people do as well as what I do that I am not aware of.
        Another non-obvious thing  is how we interact with others passing by or going through a door at the same time as someone else.  How specifically react to another person opening a door for them or vise versa.  Where do they look when passing or interacting directly with other people?  The exact place people cannot be observed, but the general area can be since the camera follows the head not the eyes.
       

Ethnographies

        Ethnography is the scientific study of a culture.  The exact details of a culture that are taken into consideration varies across disciplines.  An ethnographer becomes a part of the observed culture and participates in basic cultural happenings in order to better understand them. An ethnography is not a look on the outside type study.  It is important to fully embrace the culture to be able to observe every aspect of the culture and not miss any key measures.  It is not possible to observe everything there is about a society, but it is critical to absorb as much as humanly possible in order to get a more full understanding.  The majority of ethnographic studies are done by anthropologists and sociologists.
        The collection of data is always subjective since the majority of data is the ethnographers' personal observations. Because human societies are so complex, an aspect of the selected culture is usually focused on.  That does not mean other aspects should be ignored because there are always links between aspects of societies.  Links are not always obvious, so it is important to keep a sense of broad ideas as well as the details throughout the societies aspects.
        There are many ethical issues that need to be taken into consideration when studying a culture.  The study should not negatively impact the society individuals under study in any way.  The ethnographer should keep an emotional distance from the people of the society as to unnecessarily effect their actions and gather false observations because of their own impact on the society.  They should also not discuss the aim of the ethnography so as to manipulate the peoples' actions to skew their responses.
        An ethnographer also needs to be aware that observations may not always be the exact or full representation of what happened either from a false observation or a loose interpretation of the data.  The fact that the ethnographer is also a participant in the culture means they will always effect the research in some way.  It is the ethnographer's job to keep their effects to a minimum and also consider their influence when observing.
       Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead is an ethnography about the life of young women on the island Ta'u in the Samoa Islands.  It was incredibly influential when it was published in 1928, but it was not received well by many Westerners because of the great difference in culture found on Ta'u.  It opened the eyes of many and solidified Mead as a popular anthropologist in America.  There were many critics that pointed out flaws in her descriptions of the Samoa culture.  There will always be inaccuracies in all ethnographic studies because they are subjective, but they can still strongly influence views and provide valuable knowledge about cultures.