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Gang Leader for a Day

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Gang Leader For A Day

SECTION 1
1.) How would you respond if a graduate student from an elite university turned up at your door and announced his intention to study you? If a graduate student from an elite university showed up at my door with intentions to study me, I think that I would allow him access. I would like the chance to hear what they had to say about my lifestyle. I’ve always questioned the way I live and if other peoples lives’ are similar. I don’t think that I live an odd life, but it would be interesting to see how a stranger viewed it. I know at first that I’d be a lot like J.T. in regard to certain aspects of my life. I wouldn’t behave the way I always do, I’d be on my best behavior at least until we familiarized ourselves with one another. If we became friends like Sudhir and J.T. then I would have no trouble letting my guard completely down.
2.) How would your reaction differ from what Sudhir Venkatesh encountered in Gang Leader for a Day? I think I would have had a very different reaction from Sudhir, at least in the beginning. If my first run in with J.T. was like his, it would have also been my last run in with J.T. First and foremost I would have been very scared, I mean he was held hostage in a stairwell over night. Secondly, I would have taken the fact that I was just held hostage very personally. Then if I did find it in my heart to go back there and hang out with J.T. and his crew at the first sign of real violence I would have been out. I in no way condone selling or using drugs, but it’s one thing to see that happen, it’s a total other thing to see a group of young men beat an older man for using the basketball courts at the wrong time. That would’ve been where I parted ways with this entire ordeal.
3.) In Gang Leader for a Day, Venkatesh continually compares the Black Kings' drug trafficking with more conventional forms of

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