Sudhir Venkatesh’s Perspective on Poverty and Race

In the book, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology student from the University of Chicago starts out simply trying to understand “how it feels to be poor and black,” and ends up spending years and years figuring out the ins and outs of a gang society (Venkatesh 14). Sudhir receives the chance of a sociologist’s lifetime to see first-hand what life is like in the projects. He follows gang leader, J.T. around and studies his life at the Robert Taylor homes for years. Throughout Venkatesh’s experience he witnesses many things some people go a lifetime without seeing. For example, he was no stranger to seeing people use drugs or get beat up by gang members. One interesting aspect of Venkatesh’s experiment

I lived in the Middle East during the last two years; one of the Islamic traditions I learned there was fasting. I wandered the feeling and reason for suffering a whole month. My friend told me that understanding only comes from personal experience. Seeking for the answer to my question, I chose to fast in the Muslim tradition for the Siddhartha project, a one-week opportunity to undergo deprivation. I supposed the experience would be full of physical pain; however, I learned much more than simply dealing with hunger. Through fasting, I was able to understand others in a better way, and therefore empathize them. I felt and learned the power of empathy.

Honestly, I was not in the experiment but in one point I felt like crying from all that yelling and scramming that professor Jane Elliot did to the participants. I think that thoughts shifted for some of the participants when they started to feel bad after professor Jane Elliot was saying to them. At one point in the film the participants actually believed that they were wordless and stupid and that’s where the thoughts shifted. The resistances of the adult participants happened because they did not want to believe that were bad and racisms. Personally, I was expecting that reaction from them since we tend to see ourselves most of the time as good people and not as bad people. I believe that they struggle with complying with the rules/expectations because it is something new for them. As society, when we experience something new we tend to have difficulties adjusting to it and that’s what I believed happened to the participants in this experiment. The division between whites and blacks in the film was not enough since we are living in this country where we have not only white and black people anymore. In the United States we are blessed to be able to have a very diverse country, since we have people from different nationality, religions and cultures. I would have rather see a more diverse group of people in this

In the Foreword to the book, written by Stephen J. Dubner, the writer claims that Venkatesh was born with "two abnormalities: an overdeveloped curiosity and an underdeveloped sense of fear" (Dubner, 2008, xi). That is an exaggeration of course but the truth a reader finds out is that indeed Venkatesh is basically an investigative person and he puts fear aside to enable his entry into a Chicago gang. The book shows, "Day by day and dollar by dollar, how the crack dealers, tenant leaders, prostitutes, patents, hustlers, cops, and Venkatesh himself" attempt to build a decent life from ""¦substandard materials" (Dubner, xii).

Reacted with amazement how the two participants in the experiment with the same background such as education, career choice as leadership counsel, attended the same college, came from middle-class family, played on the same softball team were treated differently in the society based on their race. Surprised how race plays a major role every day in our lives. Somehow I believe it was because of our class status but never took in consideration race.

Growing up left handed in a private school was seen as “the work of the devil,” and often times, I was smacked with a ruler on my knuckles and forced to use my right hand. As ambidextrous as I pretended to be, it was often a struggle sitting in a right-handed desk, and using right handed scissors. Not having the ability to use my left hand during this experiment brought me back to the “good old days” when I was shunned for using my left hand. I can most definitely say that this experiment related to issues surrounding cultural diversity because it seems that whatever the dominant culture is, they have a sense of seniority to the minority. In conclusion, I feel that the issues in cultural diversity will always be a struggle, or tug of war between the majority and minority. We need to realize and accept everyone for who they are and the beauty they posses, that way, we can build with each other and eventually take our hands from inside the sock and interlock it with the person standing beside

In chapter 2 of Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day, Venkatesh spends time with a Chicago drug kingpin nick named J.T. During his time spent with this kingpin, Venkatesh explores the troubled projects of Chicago such as the Robert Taylor complex and begins to learn the inner operations of the kingpins business. He learned that J.T ran the central operations of these miniature complexes and ran his illicit business like a legitimate corporation with an established hierarchy. He also learned that these apartment complexes were often united through the community being so knit close together, with all of them being understandable towards J.T illicit operations and each other’s vices. This can be noted through the estimation that “15 percent

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

Because he stayed within one community for such a long period of time, he built close relationships with the residents in order to gain their trust and to get them to tell their stories. However, it is possible that these ties affect the way he perceives certain people and actions. Since he had to make a living himself for his period of observation, he ultimately became a part of the informal economy; therefore, his perspective could shift from an objective to a personal view. Many of the stories told are not transcripts for readers, but are paraphrased; it could be the case that even readers cannot be sure of the plausibility of the stories told. Although he did not initially intend to, Venkatesh often acted as an intermediary when disputes occur; it is therefore possible that he might side with one individual over the other, leaving readers with one side of the story. It is not to say that the entire book is written from only one perspective, however. Many residents are written in an objective manner, and their stories are told realistically, so his book still gives an accurate account of the residents that make up the underground

The goal of TRPO is to help explain the link between race and poverty, understand which barriers to success are personal and which are institutional, discuss the ways in which educational advantages make a difference in life, and recommend changes to increase equitable access to any race. This non-governmental organization has been working towards the elimination of extreme poverty since its founding. Work, including donating to those who are having trouble economically because of their race. This is an organization where you can donate any amount of money to help those who are struggling. The money will go to children who are affected by their parents income. The money will then help those children get a better education and better live in

Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues

You’re a graduate student at the University of Chicago and you’re pursuing your degree in sociology. You’ve been going to seminars and they do not seem to be doing anything for you. You want to get to the root of problems. You go searching for answers and you find them in the office of a professor. Still there seems to be something missing and you go looking for it. This is what Sudhir Venkatesh goes through. As a rogue sociologist, Venkatesh struggled with changing a research project, getting information from a gang, and the ethical issues that came with the research that he was conducting with African Americans that were part of said gang. By using the ethnography method, conducting interviews, and getting to know the people that were part of the gang, Venkatesh was able to have an advantage over other researchers that just did questionnaires to get answers.

Sikh Teaching on Wealth and Poverty Thedefinition of wealth is a large amount of money and valuable material possessions or the state of being rich. The definition of poverty is the condition of being without adequate food or money. Sikhs believe in Kirat Karna. This is to earn a living by honest means.

One can easily identify the fact that poverty is generally considered as one among the most serious problems in human life. But the mainstream society provides less importance to this serious problem because human life did undergo transformation from empathy to disinterestedness. The western nations are comparatively safe from poverty and related issues, but the third-world nations are under the threat of the same. The problems related to global poverty is unimaginable because it forces human beings to do anything, just for survival. Still, world nations, especially the developed nations, can play the most important role in alleviating poverty from the world. Thesis statement: Global poverty, the most serious problem faced by humanity primarily

A social problem, is “a general factor that effects and damages society”. It can be used to describe an issue or a problem within a certain group of people or an area in the world. Examples of contemporary social problems today include anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, and sexual abuse. Poverty is an example of a social problem that exists all over the world, and to different extents. In the UK, poverty has effected at least a third of the population, as shown by the Office of National Statistics, providing evidence that it is a massive social problem in the country. Tameside has a big poverty problem. 1 in 4 children in Tameside are born into poverty, and workers in Tameside earn significantly less than other workers in the rest of the North-West area. In addition, Tameside has the largest proportion of people claiming unemployment benefits compared to the rest of the North West of England.