Inside Job

As a U. of C. grad student, Sudhir Venkatesh talked his way inside a crack-dealing gang at the notorious Robert Taylor Homes and befriended its charismatic leader. Now, in a new book, this "rogue sociologist" tells of his up-close—at times perhaps too close—encounter with gang life

By Michael Stone

(page 3 of 6)

Q: What did you learn about the gang members that surprised you most?
A: First, what they were scared of. These were people who were ready to use violence at a moment's notice but were terrified of being called on by their teachers at school. And, second, how much they wanted to get out of that [gang] life but were scared to admit it to their friends.

Q: Why do you think they wanted to get out so badly?
A: I think partly it was the corporate nature of the work. I was struck by how routinized and predictable daily life in a street gang turned out to be. But mainly it was the money. Probably the first stereotype I had to question was whether being in a gang was monetarily rewarding. I discovered that three-fourths of the gang members were holding money that belonged to others higher up. The idea of big earnings—or even a decent wage—was a grand illusion that rested on the fact that only the higher-ups were making real money.

Q: So why did so many young people join the gangs?
A: Other than status and a sense of belonging, being in a gang meant you were working—and working in the context of a community where 90 percent of folks weren't working. Membership in the gang gave not only status but a sense of purpose and self-esteem. I must have witnessed countless scenes where kids would suddenly pick up and say to their mothers, "I gotta go on my shift." It was like watching one of those 1950s TV shows when the man of the house leaves for work.

The way I justified it was access—a small price to pay. But then I realized J.T. was part of a larger structure, the [political] machine and the citywide gangs, that was raping Chicago's public housing. He was playing along to get along.

Q: According to your book, nearly everyone in the projects was implicated in some kind of illegal activity. Did that affect the way you thought about the gangs?
A: After about three or four years in the projects, I began thinking of these folks as victimized and not as criminals, which was equally inaccurate in some ways. I defended them at all costs and took a very romantic view, writing of their crimes as the actions of people who had no other choice.

Then Mrs. Mae and other community leaders asked me to meet with some reporters from the Tribune. I'd marshaled these statistics about poverty and the neglect of the Housing Authority, and I immediately started defending the street gangs, and Mrs. Mae and the other leaders were shocked. They took me aside and they said: "Don't ever pity us again 'cause we're not here to be pitied. You don't have to make excuses for our sons. We're not asking them to go kill people."

So I had to figure out a way to not victimize them, and I decided a better way to write about these folks is to pay attention to their aspirations, their dreams. This may sound trite or silly, but sociology has no place for dreams. Sociology tells us we get pushed around by social forces that are outside our control; we're largely not thinking, dreaming, feeling human beings. And so I spent the better part of 18 months getting people to explain to me where they wanted to go in life and what they hoped to achieve.

The first time I got a glimpse of who these folks really were was when these street gang leaders told me they wanted to mow their lawns on Saturday mornings. They're sitting in this project, but what they really want to do is put fertilizer over this suburban lawn. They had this vision of Americana. It sounded like they wanted a sense of ownership—not even ownership in the sense of a house, but ownership over their own life and how it was going to grow, [the feeling] that they could in some sense determine their fate.