Gang Leader for a Day Essay

In the book, Gang Leader for a Day, a rogue sociologist passionately dives into the lives of one of Chicago’s toughest housing projects in an attempt to develop an insight as to how the urban impoverished lived. Throughout the text it becomes clear that a conflict paradigm is being reflected. A conflict society is based on social inequality, in which some individuals benefit and thrive more than others, which tends to lead to conflict and thus change. This is evident both in the housing projects where a gang known as the “Black Kings” take over and also in the surrounding neighborhoods where the more elite citizens, including persons from the authors university, shy away from associating with the nearby poor black nearby public, thus

In society today, there is a major problem We live in a society where gangs are taking over our neighborhoods in numbers. It is the responsibility of the individuals to part take in getting their neighborhoods back under control. Gangs are becoming a growing problem in American society. More young people are turning to gangs to solve problems in their lives or for acceptance. When youths join gangs, they drop all their social activities with school, family, and friends. However, individuals ruin their lives, and the chances of them having a decent education, and a successful life by getting involved in gang activity.

In chapter 5 in the novel Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh he writes about his experience of how he began to tag along with Ms. Bailey more often. Venkatesh says the more time he would spend with her, the more he would understand her work ethics and why she is so important to the community. Since Venkatesh was spending more time with Ms. Bailey he began to help her with food drives and food donations in the community as well as go to meetings that she would run. Venkatesh says the reason that Ms. Bailey was helping the housing projects, community and their building was because it was low on clothing and food for the winter. This portion of the novel teaches us about how many people out there have needs and the altruism in the way some

Gangs of New York (2002), a bold and violent movie directed by Martin Scorsese takes us back to a New York without skyscrapers and modern-day lavishes that shows the rise of violent gang power and political corruption. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis, the film features a personal struggle placed within the context of gang warfare between Nativists and immigrants, which is set in the larger context of the Draft Riots and the Civil War. It is a reconstructed historical narrative that uses interlocking events filled with gang violence and political corruption to show how the modern New York was born.

Picture Manhattan in 1860, a time before the city had been dolled up and gotten ready for the silver screen, before the glamour and allure took over. Amsterdam Vallan (DiCaprio) is a young Irish man that migrates to the USA at a young age. Amsterdam’s story takes place in Five Points District of New York, a filthy and dangerous part of the city before it was deleted form history. As a young boy Vallan witnessed his father’s murder at the hand of William Cutting or Bill the Butcher (Day-Lewis) during one of their many gang wars. As Amsterdam’s story progresses along side The Butcher they become inseparable, but Amsterdam had ulterior motive. Ultimately, Amsterdam attempts to betray his new found ally in order to avenge his father’s death.

“You can hire half the poor to kill the other half.” Boss Tweed spoke these words in reference to the Draft Riots. It shows that you can easily turn the poor against each other, if you bring money into the situation. Gangs of New York is about the separation of the Irish and the Natives, which eventually led into larger conflicts. In this film there are two important characters, Amsterdam Vallon and Boyle McGloin, who were both Irishmen in the Five Points. Amsterdam was the son of Priest Vallon and he became a positive Irish Leader who was looked up to by many. Boyle McGloin was an Irishmen who was a Dead Rabbit, but later joined Bill “The Butcher” Cutting and became a “Native”. The character

After reading the book “Gang Leader for a Day” by Sudhir Venkatesh my view on poverty changed. I realized that poverty is truly a cycle and people who are come from it have a hard time leaving the cycle. I also thought that there would be more violence from the gang than Sudhir wrote about. This might have been due to the fact that they kept him from seeing much of the violence, but also the majority of the violence seemed to be within the gang against their own members. An example of this in the memoir is how J.T. deals with his unruly members of the gang. If they do not cooperate, J.T. will have them beat up as their punishment. The gang also is violent to residents of the projects, but only when the residents do something that the gang sees as questioning their authority.

“Gangs have morphed from social organizations into full-fledged criminal enterprises” (Thomas, 2009, para 5). Gangs are highly sophisticated and more dangerous then ever. The number one reason to join a gang is money; and 95 percent of gangs profit comes from drug dealing

This is where some of the more implicit differences between the Black Kings and the Bling Ring are visible. J.T.’s gang in Chicago believed in what they did was not wrong. They broke the law in order to keep the “underground economy” that supported the poor community going. Ms. Mae, J.T’s mother explained to Venkatesh about the importance of the community to everyone who is a part of it (including the gang members). She said, “We live in a community, understand? Not the projects—I hate that word. We live in a community. We need a helping hand now and then, but who doesn’t? Everyone in this building helps as much as they can. We share our food, just like I’m doing with you. My son says you’re writing about his life—well, you may want to

Levitt and Dubner present a Chicago drug gang with a misperception that all drug dealers are wealthy. Since the police had portrayed drug dealers as wealthy to the public. The authors use Sudhir Vankatesh research to disprove the conventional wisdom about how all drug dealers are wealthy. Their question was, “why drug dealers are leaving with their moms if they are so wealthy?” They start to provide analysis by using Sudhir research on The Black Disciples. They started their analysis by proving information on how Vankatesh got interest/involved with the project. Then the authors mentioned how Vankatesh got his hands on the J.T. financial notebook. J.T. was the boss of the gang and a college graduate on the project Vankatesh was doing. The financial records showed the conventional wisdom about drug dealers was wrong. Drug dealers earned far less than minimum wage at the time. Also it illustrates the reality that only the leaders were getting payed at least

This chapter is about a man named Sudhir Venkatesh he is 25 years old. He is a University student studying Sociology. After Sudhir has attended two seminars by the college he is invited to do a study on how black people live day to day. After finding a specific building he was looking for, the Robert Taylor projects, he walks right in. When walking in from left to right he could see the use of drugs. Right off the bat Sudhir is treated like an intruder, even though he is there for information and is not known around the city of Chicago. The gang that Sudhir runs in to in this book is everything but pleasant if you’re not their "own kind". Sudhir is called a Mexican, the only reason he was called Mexican was because of the way he looked. The gang, the

Prison gangs are originally formed by inmates as a way of protecting themselves from the other inmates. These gangs have turned out to be violent and thus posing a threat to security. This paper will have a look at the different gangs in prisons, their history, beliefs and missions, and the differences and similarities in these gangs.

I really enjoyed the article Gang Leader for a Day: Adventures of a Rogue Sociologist, however I found it unclear on exactly what Sudhir Venkatesh was researching exactly. The article never explains exactly what it was that Sudhir was going into “the projects” to study other than expressing his question to the few individuals that he encountered which was “ How does it feel to be black and poor?” I would have liked to know his precise purpose in going into such a dangerous area only to ask how it felt for the African American and poor when there are other areas I am sure that contain individuals who are under the poverty level and African American in safer areas. Sudhir’s objective was very unclear and I wonder if his choice to go to this location

Soon After, Venkatesh would go onto finding out more about the “criminal enterprise”. He learned that the gang was like any other business, and had cuts of the money to each of the members, the size depending upon how high they were up on the pyramid. He found that the gang would pay for the funerals of gang members that had been killed. The gang also had money allotted for things in the community. Venkatesh would later learn that J.T. usually made around $8,500 every month, and that the highest gang members made around $500,00 yearly (Levitt & Dubner, 2005 p. 99). However, he found that those at the bottom of the pyramid had a one in four chance of being killed (Levitt & Dubner, 2005 p. 101).

So,basically it’s a story about a mafia gang member whom every one adored and of course respected.She was,what you call a