Short Summary: Gang Leader For A Day

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Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh is an ethnographic study of a Black King Gang in the Robert Taylor community. Venkatesh accidentally stumbles upon the gang lead by J.T. and decided to study him and the gang. J.T. is familiar with sociology because he a taken a sociology class so he allows Venkatesh to shadow and document the gang which includes the way J.T. uses violence to maintain his power. Venkatesh also worked with Ms. Bailey, the community leader. She helps him learn how she solves problems, the impact of her power and affiliation with the gang, and how to extort money out of the community members. In his journey Venkatesh learns from the violence and illegal activity he witnesses that “in the projects it’s more important that …show more content…

One day, Vankatesh came to Taneesha’s rescue while he was working with Ms. Bailey. Bee-Bee, a gang member, violently attacked her over some money issues. Venkatesh faced the tough decision of whether he continues to observe and record gang behavior or he intervenes when a fight breaks out between Bee-Bee and C-Note. Unfortunately, Venkatesh decides to intervene and he started “running over to them, I [Vankatesh] kicked Bee-Bee in the stomach, which made him relax his grip on Blue” (Venkatesh. 2008: 170). His action was ethically wrong, especially because he was not a member of the gang. Sociologist should not physically nor mentally hurt people in the study. Kicking someone goes against this ethical principal. There is a difference between what is morally right and ethically correct. With an established procedure in place, Venkatesh could have chosen to do something that was both morally right and ethically correct, and in this case the best action was to call police. Calling the police is lawful way to help the situation without using violence or anything that can hurt people. He was also involved in situations when he brought mental harm with his reasoning and decisions. Harming people to save someone else is still uneasily wrong but has a different moral ideals then wrongly perceiving an

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