Venkatesh begins to go back to visit the neighborhood with the permission and blessing of J.T. There he learns that J.T. and the others do not like to be asked questions directly from the survey, but they preferred that he would listen to their stories. Venkatesh later learns about J.T.’s past and it would seem from the way he worded it, this was not the kind of story he was expecting. He discovered that J.T. received a scholarship and went onto college, graduated, and gained a job in a paper company; however the social stratification of the work site was one in which J.T. was not valued as much as the other employees who only did half the work and that made him very resentful of the situation he found himself in. So he went back to the culture …show more content…
to where he is, but it his rise to power was made possible by his willingness to engage in controlled brutality, just like the beating of C-Note for breaking the rules. It was at this juncture that Venkatesh began to understand that the residents of the Robert Taylor apartments not only relied on J.T. for regulating the Black Kings to conduct themselves as a functional gang, but also as a de facto enforcer and protector. They would come to him with severe problems instead of contacting the police, like the instance of the girl being raped, because they knew he would do something actively about it in order to bring the victim a sense of …show more content…
it comes to light that Venkatesh still does not believe that J.T. really “works”, so they come up with a wager where Venkatesh would actually assume the role as the Black King’s leader for a day. With the stipulation that Venkatesh would not do anything critically illegal, the deal was struck between the two men. Venkatesh was of course nervous, especially in regard to his moral compass “this compass is not necessarily reliable…, I (Venkatesh) was a bit overwhelmed,” (Venkatesh 118). The next day Venkatesh finally realized the difficulty of J.T’s job and how he is on par with any corporate CEO or mayor of a small city. The book goes on to where the university wants Venkatesh to look at the women, and he realized exactly how difficult living in this environment is and what jobs are technically available to them as they do not technically enter the ranks of the gang like the men. But as Venkatesh goes on with his research J.T is always worried about his notebook until the last chapter. Nevertheless, he “hopes that (J.T.) at least reads these pages one day,” (Venkatesh