Book Reading #2: gang leader for a day

Chapter 1:

Sudhir is a college student who is doing research on African American. He was a the University listening to seminar, and he felt those are lifeless that he want to "actually" know the answer. He approach to a professor, but the professor told him his project going on. However, this still doesn't answer his questions. He decided to go to black neighborhood and he meet many gangs there. They first threaten him a lot, but after he meet J.T. , the leader of this gang, he decided to hang out with them to study more about them. And J.T. invited him to hang out with them, therefore, author shows up and hang out with them.

Chapter 2:
Sudhir gets more to know about J.T. who's the gang leader. He found out that J.T. is not an average gang leader, he actually is a mindful person. He would give some question to Sudhir to test on him. One day, J.T. took him to Rober Taylor to meet Curly, a gang in Robert Taylor. After the conversation, J.T. needs to move to there, and he invited Sudhir to meet him there too. One day, he meet J.T. 's mother - Ms. Mae. She persuave Sudhir that this is a community, not a project.  At the end of chapter, C Note got beaten up by J.T. This really question Sudhir is J.T. had some other side that he never show him.

Chapter 3:
Sudhir witness another beat up case,  which is Brass. J.T. and his gang members beat up Brass because he didn't pay his squatting fee. This bring even more question up for Sudhir. J.T. explained this is necessary to hold his authority. After that, Sudhir attend Lenny' talk about how to live in this community. One afternoon, a woman was scarming out and everyone try to see what happend. She claim a man raped her daughter and gave her S.T.D. which found out is from other people later. They use another way to found out the truth. Rober Tayler A only has three apartment, and Robert Taylor B has large group of children. And there is problem from A trying to get over to B. Autry invited Sudhir to a basketball meeting which J.T. is really mad about.

Chapter 4:
In this chapter, Sudhir has his chance to be gang leader for a day. He had to deal with issue that J.T. normally does. He promise not to use any weapon and violence to settle things down. There is a case, Billey and Otis who both saying they own each other's money. In the end, Sudhir concludes that Otis stolen the money from Billy which is Otis's fault, and he punished him.

Chapter 5:
Sudhir takes his focus from J.T. to Ms.Baily, who takes in charge of the community. She is a chair man for the building which hold a tennat meeting on daily basis. During the meeting, people try to blame her for having a new tv, but not helping others. Ms. Baily turns back to them and accuse them for other new stuff she help them on. She never do anything for free, such as the way she get donation from people. It's not a actual donation which is exchange for what they need. There is one more instance that shows how powerful she is and how she fix problems for people. BeeBee was beating up by her manager and she called C-NOTE to take care of this. She can actually takes care of anything in the building.

Chapter 6:
Sudhir talking to Ms. Bailey and J.T. about legal obligations such as having to tell the police about any violence he see's. J.T. and Ms. Bailey were aware of this and give Sudhir the 2 options: go to jail or rat on the gang.
At the end of the chapter Sudhir goes to a council meeting held by Ms. Bailey. Many women are not happy about Sudhir's appearance at the council and yell things at him. Finally he realizes women think their daughters and sleeping with him during the writing workshop. Sudhir ends the chapter realizing it's hard to think of any tenants that weren't mad at him.

Chapter 7:
 the residents of Robert Taylor were out and about around the building. having a barbecue in the summer heat. Everyone was relaxing and having a good time until a car pulled up with a few of men in it and started shooting. Sudhir was asked by J.T to attend the next regional BK meeting with J.T. Reggie had invited Sudhir to the bar with him to hopefully further his insight of what the police men do on a daily basis, while at the bar on of Reggie's fellow cops started to become arrogant towards Sudhir and sending threats towards him. Just a few days later Sudhirs car got broken into at the Boys and Girls club.

Chapter 8:
The Robert Taylor research, had finally rewarded Sudhir a junior fellowship at Harvard’s Society Of Fellows. Announcing this news to J.T left an awkward tension between the two. Everything relatively related to the Robert Taylor Homes had fallen apart. Ms. Bailey and J.T were struggling to find employment or any sort of pay. As the months passed, Sudhir and J.T’s friendship fell apart. Sudhir’s last thoughts were “ How could I learn so much, absorb so many lessons and gain so many experiences at the side of a man who was so far removed from my academic world.”