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 5 of 6)

As Venkatesh extended his stay in the projects, he became increasingly involved in the lives of his subjects. Against Mrs. Bailey's advice, he helped a crack-addled single mother. J.T. made him gang leader for a day, and Venkatesh participated in a kangaroo court judgment that resulted in a gang worker's beating. The researcher clearly crossed the line between sociologist and subject in the wake of an assault on a young woman resident, an aspiring model named Teneesha, who was beaten and raped by her self-appointed manager, a squatter known as Bee-Bee.

Q: What happened in the incident with Bee-Bee?
A: I was in the stairwell, and there'd been a report that a woman had been beaten up and the perpetrator was still in the building. I was told by Mrs. Bailey to leave, but I stayed anyway. Meanwhile, she rounded up the squatters in the building as a militia. This was a practice 30 years old, that the squatters and the people living off the lease had to answer to Mrs. Bailey and protect the women in the community.

Again, they didn't call the police first, but they had to get this guy out of the building, and they found out he was on a top floor running down. There were 16 stories. I was in back of these squatters and they were in the stairwell and you could hear slowly the rumbling of somebody coming down. It was terrifying 'cause I wasn't sure what they were actually going to do to this guy. And I didn't know whether he was armed, whether he had a knife or a gun, and they were worried about the same thing, too.

So he runs out and they try to tackle him because he's a big guy. He's a young guy and he has a football player kind of build. Very menacing. And he looks like he's high. So I'm very nervous. These folks look nervous, too, but they immediately try to pounce on him, and he gets one of them in a kind of chokehold, preventing him from breathing. Instinctively—I never actually did this before—I think I kicked him and I managed to help wrestle the chokehold off. And they get this guy, and they take him into a room where Mrs. Bailey comes, and they ask me to wait outside. And then you could hear the beating. It was very eerie to listen to the sound of fist on bone, the kind of muted grunts over time when someone is losing their capacity to feel pain.

I really started to worry that I was an accessory. It was one thing watching a drug dealer's exchange. In some ways you're not going to be able to avoid that. Another thing is actually kicking somebody and getting involved in physical combat. I thought I had crossed the line in some way.

Q: Did it occur to you to try to intervene?
A: I was dizzy and I was seated on the floor. I couldn't really. I was having trouble breathing. I was really kind of shook up by this whole thing.

Q: More than any other event you describe in Gang Leader, the Bee-Bee incident signaled to me that you had become a participant in your own research. How did you feel about it at the time?
A: The 24 hours after this I had several thoughts. The first was that J.T. and Mrs. Bailey were going to kick my ass basically for not leaving the building. Because they had been doing everything they could to try and protect me and make sure that I wouldn't become involved in this way, and I felt this was the time where I would not be able to come back in the building again.

The second was, I really started to worry that I was an accessory. It was one thing watching a drug dealer's exchange. In some ways you're not going to be able to avoid that. Another thing is actually kicking somebody and getting involved in physical combat. I thought I had crossed the line in some way.

Q: What happened?
A: For about 48 to 72 hours I remember thinking, You know what? At the end of the day you went after a guy that had been abusing these women. And I started realizing at that moment—that's when the shivers and the chills came over me—that I was actually going through the same rationalization process as the people that I was studying, that I was embracing what was good and what was bad about their lives.

Q: How did that make you feel?
A: I think I'd had a real problem feeling human. And that's what it made me feel. They—J.T., Mrs. Bailey, other residents that I got to know—would consistently tell me that I'm no better and no worse than them, that I was hustling just like they were, using them to get ahead. And I think they were right: I couldn't hide behind my academic guard any longer.