December 14, 2006
Sudhir Venkatesh Runs the Voodoo DownEconomics
“The Wire meets academia” is how Slate describes Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, the fascinating new book by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. Here’s Emily Bazelon’s summary:
Venkatesh, who is now a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia, spent 1995 to 2003 following the money in 10 square blocks of the Chicago ghetto. He finds an intricate underground web. In it are dealers and prostitutesand also pastors who take their money, nannies who don’t report income, unlicensed cab drivers, off-the-books car mechanics, purveyors of home-cooked soul food, and homeless men paid to sleep outside stores. Venkatesh’s insight is that the neighborhood doesn’t divide between “decent” and “street”almost everyone has a foot in both worlds.
Readers of Freakonomics will remember Venkatesh as the University of Chicago graduate student whose fieldwork in the ghetto led him to realize why, for instance, drug dealers still live with their mothers. But his really important previous credit is his first book, American Project (2000), which intricately described the life within, and the social and physical disintegration of, several large blocks of South Side housing projects. Like Mitchell Duneier’s Sidewalk (1999), which investigated the social and economic life of the brothers who sell used books and miscellany on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, Venkatesh’s projects are urban sociology of the most compelling type, and well written to boot.
Yesterday Sudhir was on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC [disclosure: I work for WNYC] and you can hear the conversation, punctuated by some interesting listener calls, here. But all y’all macacas might also enjoy taking a look at the prologue and first chapter of the book, which Harvard University Press makes available on its website. Here’s a quick excerpt from the prologue that points out, among other things, a desi angle:
Simultaneously, I must admit that I benefited greatly from my involvement as a broker in underground dealings. Many people perceived me as a disinterested mediatora characterization that helped open doors and allay concerns. For example, some people told me that they were hesitant to speak with me until they saw me settle a dispute and realized I was not a police officer or a friend of any particular hustler in the neighborhood. As important, I was neither white nor black, so I was not immediately identified with the police (white) or as a resident of the community (black) who might have a reason to monitor the behavior of others in public space. My South Asian identity gave me an indeterminate and unthreatening presence, and I was known more for my status as a university student interested in the historical experiences of black Chicagoans. Over time and in this way, even though I tried to limit my direct involvement, I came to be like those residents who tended to perform similar adjudicative and diplomatic functions. Many people viewed me as part of a class of brokers and mediators who could solve a problem.
Residents still viewed me skeptically, however, when I would not accept payment for helping to mediate a conflict. And rumors expectedly followed: I was working with gangs to move drugs in Asian neighborhoods; I was bringing college students to local prostitutes for a fee; I was a police informant. In other words, despite my claims to the contrary, many felt that I was like the local mediators who carried a brokerage fee and that I was also a hustler. And if I, an absolute outsider and utter anomaly to the world of Maquis Park, could become a part of that shady world, we can see how enormous, and ever-growing, this world truly is.
There are plenty more important points to be made about this work, but it’s nice to see a macaca who has found a way to use the accident of his race and origin as an advantage in generating knowledge about our society that everyone can use.
siddhartha on December 14, 2006 08:40 AM in Business, Economics, Profiles · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Waddya mean 'runs the voodoo down'? Sorry, the title escaped me. Do you mean, as a mystery?
This guy has some major cajones. Reading the section in Freakonomics on him was interesting as hell. Thanks for the post, I look forward to reading his stuff.
Coach: "Run the voodoo down" = tell the truth, keep it tight, do what you do at the highest level. Here's a Cassandra Wilson song on the topic:
Speaking of music, have you sent in your Macaca Music poll entries?
I hope he didnt walk around in those threads while penetrating the ghetto. Man, that was an awesome project he embarked on. Makes me wish I was involved in it.
That's a pretty interesting and accurate description of the kind of racial categorization that goes on in this city. If you're not from the neighborhood (Anglo, Irish, Italian, black, Asian, Latino, etc...) or one of the "bad guys", you can pretty much be invisible.
It's interesting that you use that phrase. Referring to 'Voodoo' in the dirty south (as I hear it around here) pertains to a mystery, the hidden aspect of a person's perceived success.
-"Dat girl got some voodoo on her, slim as she is, wit all 'dem chilren."
I'm listening Sudhir's interview right now. The most striking thing so far, is he mentions how the usual surveys didn't work (the wording and scaling). Basically he's saying that the language is all wrong. My stance is that understanding language is the best way to understand culture. That's probably why his immersion worked so well. A'ight?
I've read Freakonomics, but I totally forgot about Mr. Venkatesh's contribution. Time to add to my ever expanding backlog of books that I will someday get around to reading. His research seems fascinating. Great post, Siddhartha.
Also, the Cassandra Wilson song, she's one of my favorite vocalists BTW, is taken from her tribute to Miles Davis (decent album, but she's done better). The original track, sans vocals, is called "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" and is on his Bitches Brew album.
excellent post, I read American Project, i thought he did a great job of putting the vicious cycle of poverty and subsidized urban housing into non-academics thoughts for us laymen. refreshing for uchicago grads.
When I was at UChicago, I took Econ of Crime with Levitt, and Venkatesh's escapades were described at length by Levitt. He really hit upon a good strategy, though, by describing himself as a broker and an observer and showing up with beer for everyone. Levitt's lectures from my year may still be online - in my notes, he talks about Venkatesh in the 13th and 14th lectures.
Here's a really entertaining talk by Levitt about his work with Venkatesh:
http://tedblog.typepad.com/tedblog/2006/09/steven_levitt_o.html#
The girls really can't complain that we're not equal opportunity eye candy on this site. It's not just Sin any more.
If you're interested in this subject, I'd recommend "Waiting for Gautreaux" by Alexander Polikoff. It's about the legal efforts to dismantle Chicago's legendarily awful, segregated public housing complexes. And it's by a fellow U of C grad too ;)
Can we please stop using the word macaca now, please?
Glad you blogged about this. I really enjoyed the interview yesterday and the people who called in to talk about all the underground economy support and how drug dealers live with their moms.
Years ago I used to do market research in the urban markets and that was the first thing I learnt. They are really into their mothers and grandmothers and give a lot back to their own community on a grassroots level which was amazing.
I remember going out and taking freebees with me, hats, tshirts, bags etc and these guys who I talked to would go nuts over the stuff. It wasn't till much later that I learnt that they actually took the stuff back to their neighborhoods and handed it out to the kids.
One hell of a macaca right there. Did he grow up in America?
Thanks for this, Siddhartha. The interview was great, and the issues underlying the topic are really interesting. It's great to hear about Venkatesh's work outside the context of Levitt :)
I have read the chapter on him in Freakonomics and it was great. His book itself should be fantastic.
"I hope he didnt walk around in those threads while penetrating the ghetto."
I don't know. Sudhir look harder than a mug.*
*Dirty South colloqualism implying that Sudhir looks capable of handling himself.
I'll most definitely add this to my list.
I hope he didn't give away too many secrets. ;)
2004 Chicago Tribune piece on Cabrini here.
I hear you brother. Hopefully the laws of slang will phase it out soon.It could become our version of the N-Word.
Maybe if George Allen had won. Possibly if Michael Richards starts using it. But we caught that one fast and brown folk now own it. The macaca issue is dead, but long live macaca!
However, I think we could use some other iterations of it. Like a play on the pidgin Hawaiin term "high maka maka" (I am unclear on the spelling but it means one who thinks he/she is all dat)
i.e.
"Venks may look all high-macaca-caca in them threads, but macaca runs the voodoo DOWN!"
Macaca.
Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that, after that whole "Indian men don't measure up" issue. I just can't see it past it when I look at a brown man. ;-)
On the other hand, Freakonomics was a fantastically interesting book, and I was instantly proud of my fellow Macacan (yeah, I said it) when I read it.
AlMfD,
I knew it ! Your ongoing use of this word, whilst couched in an attempt at post-modern, post-ironic humour despite the neo-colonial oppressive connotations implied therein, is nothing else but a Freudian reflection of you actually being a colour-obsessed, darkophobic chromatofascist !
And you probably don't like Two And a Half Men either. Unforgivable.
I'm now going to buy a copy of Freakonomics and think of some more ways to debunk the continuing crypto-neo-zionist conspiracy to subtly induce the word "macaca" into South Asian culture via the use of Sepia Mutiny as an unwitting Trojan Horse, particularly involving the deployment of Abhi & Co as sleeper agents in this horrific endeavour.
I knew it ! Your ongoing use of this word, whilst couched in an attempt at post-modern, post-ironic humour despite the neo-colonial oppressive connotations implied therein, is nothing else but a Freudian reflection of you actually being a colour-obsessed, darkophobic chromatofascist !
I stand exposed and plead guilty.
I'd like to read the book American Project. His work in Freakonomics to me just seemed a different sort of 'exoticism' You mean black kids weren't just shooting each other up to see if gangs that wore blue had the same color blood as those who wore red? Gee whiz there is actually a hierarchical structure to the gang? Gosh it almost sounds like they can think, fancy that! A TINY-(regressive/in denial/defensive) part of me responded to this- as he was just a more politically correct Dinesh DeSouza-- out to help me understand my plight when all the time I'm wondering if he cared so much about the underclass did he really have to travel to the South Side of Chicago to find one, cause aren't there like massive ghettos in India. And no, I wouldn't have been happier if the [white] man made the "discovery" that black gangs were just as organized and profit driven as other crooks.
Who has the right to investigate/criticize/explain one community to another *--(I write sheepishly as I'm all over the Desi website&deep in the cookbooks)
I know someone is was literally inundated with surveys form U of C after buying property in a new development on the west side of Chicago- (the 'real' west side)- the grad student had an Indian name and the questions were along the lines of why did the person want to own a home, had his parents owned a home, etc. Important work to be sure but why does it require graduate level research to figure out that a [presumed] poor black person just might want the same things that any other person might want? Prof. Ventakesh has left a legacy at that school for real yall.
*I don't think I'm alone in that small mindedness- I've read Maximum City and while the author was very honest and open about the underclass in Mumbai the meanness/grinding poverty of some of their life styles, he seemed to make sure he took it to the a new sub level when describing the African drug dealers. On the other hand-- big ups to Sudhir being a prof. of African American studies-- he's paving the way for me to open my vegan soul food /Balti house restaurant with Bhangra in the backgroud.
Jai,
You like 2 and 1/2 men and Friends? This is unforgivable. You have to check out 'How I met your mother' for quality American laffs. BTW, us yankees want to thank you for Jimmy Carr. He's quite fantastic.
I stand corrected, it has become our version of the N-Word.
Fascinating topic. I have to pick up the book.
I have some experience w/ the underground economy. back in the early 90's i was a stockbroker and we were trained to uncover wealth in unexpected places (the book "the millionaire next door examines this phenomina and is required reading in brokerage houses). somehow i ended up in a housing project in the bronx. all my clients were grandmothers whose adult kids lived with them. well, all of them had anywhere from 50k to 500k to invest (not including their pensions/ira's/annuities/etc.) i don't think their neighbors knew this as people will tell their brokers a lot of stuff they don't mention to friends.
the problem was that american blacks, even those in the middle class, are notoriously skeptical of the stock market (i don't know if this is still true) so most of the investments were in fixed income and did not deliver the return (to the client and firm) that the stock market does. furthermore, ibanks (unlike commercial banks) don't accept cash so we had that additional hurdle.
anyway, my partner and i convinced a local church to let us give seminars in the basement, hoping the church backing would create trust. but sadly, we still could not convince people to put their money in the market. but the insurance guys, pitching whole life policies that include a cash value, were cleaning up...these policies have a fixed rate of return and no tax reporting. i believe these policies remain enoumously popular in the inner cities; much to the chagrin of clueless public financial advisors like suze orman.
Because in this country, and especially in this city, that simple fact is often ignored in the policy narrative.
There are a lot of things that would seem obvious to most observers that policymakers simply will not accept without data because of the ideological implications. You need to collect a huge amount of data to document racial disparities, and to measure trends within them. With the communities I'm guessing you're talking about (Austin? Lawndale? Bronzeville?) there's a lot of attention being paid to gentrification too.
And there is a whole body of conservative racial theory that argues that disparities in housing, healthcare, wealth, and other social sectors are due more to individual factors than social ones. The argument there says that disparities are due to things like a lack of motivation, desire to stay in the ghetto, illegitimacy, etc... You need data to test those hypotheses (and, imho, prove them wrong).
Traditional conservative thought places a lot of importance on self-responsibility. A lot of people don't believe that its society's responsibility to fix these problems and that somehow poor people need to miraculously improve on their own accord. So even setting race aside, there are more fundamental ideological hurdles.
Peter Schrag talks about the problem of main stream society not identifying with the poor classes in his book: California: America's High Stakes Experiment. He argues that its not so much racial discrimination as it is that people just don't identify themselves, socially or culturally with the poorer classes, and so they have little inclination to go out of the way to aid these people. In California, a lot of the fiscal problems arose from a court ruling that basically said public education spending must be evenly divided and since most of the voting block is older middle class whites, they don't particularly want their tax dollars going to pay for the education of younger minorities with whom they don't identify with nor do they necessarily feel responsible for. Over the years, education spending has fallen drastically. Similar parallels in all other public infastructure expenditures.
I get you Neal- I was being slightly sarcastic. Unfortunately sometimes hard cold facts still don't prove conventional wisdom wrong. Manju- its definitely an education process- there is a whole branch of heretical IMO,Christianity that has has grown in the African American "church" and many other community's* its known as the prosperity gospel. *Strangely enough I got a flyer to attend one such event on GREEN STREET -- (Devon street X1000) east London
Some of the mega Churches do hold sophisticated investment workshops that seek to "bless"/empower congregants with the financial tools they need. In the run up to Y2K I knew of a number of people who had Gold Bullion accounts thanks to a 'word' from a man of God. Suze Orman is a big draw on this circuit.
great topic, great post, great comments.
P.S. Siddhartha, how did you resist a Beatnuts reference? Its off the hook this year, makin mad money off the books this year.... aint nothin but crooks in here, gettin mad money off the books this year... ta na ta tana
And Big Tymers broke down that Freakonomics chapter on ganstas:
aah... the lessons from rap music..
I actually agree with that mindset in many instances. I think government involvement in most sectors of public life usually has major drawbacks that can hurt the people it's supposed to help. But sometimes that flawed involvement is still better than the status quo.
Chicago has a much more regressive history with race than I think people realize. This is the city that drew a jeering, stone-throwing mob to greet Martin Luther King, Jr. There were still minor white race riots to try and prevent residential integration here as late as the 80s. Our first black mayor (Harold Washington, in the 1980s) was greeted with "Council Wars" that even his opponents admitted were proxy wars for integration battles. Intimidation was still very widespread throughout the 1990s, and is prevalent in some neighborhoods even today. Chicago's housing projects were recognized as models of segregated, defunded "second ghetto" creation as early as the 1960s, but they were not replaced until the late 1990s, creating an entire generation of people who grew up in some of the worst conditions any American has ever had to face. Our current mayor is directly linked to police torture cases, and has made comments in the past to the effect that he sympathized with white homeowners trying to stop residential integration.
Racial policy here has created deep divisions and barriers (sometimes physical barriers, like the Dan Ryan Expressway) to keep the ghetto overcrowded, dangerous, and lacking in public services. Which is why I personally have such a huge problem with conservative racial theory. Even if you are a firm believer in personal responsibility, it seems silly to expect people to single-handedly rise above government-imposed inequality. Particularly when that government-imposed inequality has only really wound down in the last 10 years or so.
Anyway, putting away my soapbox...
This 'Macaca' s*#t is getting old. 'Macaca' is not the new 'Nigga'.
siddhartha, what do you do for WNYC?
neal, i think one of the points of this post is that you're not going to find much of this data b/c there is an underground economy that is...well...secret. so u have to rely on the anecdotal to some extent. you have to be on the street as a man of the people, like a drugdealer or stockbroker.
btw, this phenom is not restricted to the inner city. the vast majority of small biz owners, in my anecdotal experience, do not report a significant (and in may cases a majority) % of their income.
i've heard of this. in my time w/ the black churchs, the lady who helped me get in the door was very passionate about blacks needing to exploit the stock market. she made me feel like i was malcolm x. sadly, we were before our time (me, her, and malcolm).
didn't mean to dis a fellow former stockbroker. noble profession it is. she's right about whole life policies in teerms of ROI, but just clueless about the need to "hide cash" and avoid taxes for certain entrepreneural classes. nothing preserves weath more like dodging taxes. some of these guys in the inner cities would do a bang up job running some of these fortune 500 companies. they understand the essentials.
um, the "ghetto?" what is this, 1979?
yes, one must be careful with one's language when discussing issues relavant to afro-americans.
hilal, huh? "Ghetto" is still a term in common use, both in the black popular culture and in academia. I'm not sure I see where you're going with this.
And Manju, I was referring to the kinds of surveys, etc... that dilettante was talking about, which is mostly demographic information to study social trends and the like. That doesn't really touch on the underground economy (although, as this story shows, it IS possible to study that economy too). But you always need data to validate your theories.
Amazing, i had the exact same experience working as a community organizer in Chicago. This is a highly complex issue, I think - since Sudhir's time the race politics in the city have mutated a little bit, and I think desis sometimes do have a determinate and potentially threatening presence, specifically in terms of the classic merchant relationship many corner store owners have with community members. However since I also occasionally pass for Black, Mexican, or Puerto Rican, I think I blended in a bit more.
Since then I've realized that my role there was problematic in many ways, which I'll leave alone for the moment, but I've definitely expressed this sentiment.
'Ghetto: A social, cultural isolation placed upon a minority group. A derogatory term, (it) is mostly used to indicate a neglected, poor and filthy neighborhood, usually crime infested, in a city.'
Also see: http://www.blackcommentator.com/132/132_guest_ghetto.html
Is it just me or does anyonme else think Sudhir sound like Elvis? Mitchell, that is.
Interesting work his.
hilal, huh? "Ghetto" is still a term in common use, both in the black popular culture and in academia. I'm not sure I see where you're going with this.
If you use the word ghetto, it must be said with a wink. Ghetto is not a place now, but a state of mind.
-Why you gotta be so ghetto, huh?
Try getting up in front of a group of 38 kids who live in crumbling row houses or public housing and using the word ghetto. You'll be jeered after they've recovered from falling out of their chairs laughing at you.
Try getting up in front of a group of 38 kids who live in crumbling row houses or public housing and using the word ghetto. You'll be jeered after they've recovered from falling out of their chairs laughing at you.
True that!
"has some major cajones"
cojones, I think. Cajones would be large boxes though possibly the feller has some of those too.
Nice to bring in our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters, though.
I am pretty sure Ghetto is still an acceptable term, not sure where you guys are getting this from. Unless you want to be really ghetto and call it the 'hood'.
@Neal, was there an uproar over that new supreme court ruling about school integration? I agree that it does probably have more to do with race than anything else.
Hopefully, it wont turn into a real tense relationship like with Koreans and Blacks in LA.
Since I spend time in the ghetto, allow me to let you in on a secret. It's all a big practical joke that blacks are playing on whites. once the use of the n-word became as bad as denying the holocaust, blacks got together and decided to move the goalposts. So they took words that (unlike the "organically" racist n-word) had absolutely no racist connotations, first negro then afro-american, and declared them racist. Hysterically, whites followed suit.
so then they decided to take the joke to an incredibly absurd--almost andy kaufman-- level. They decided to start using the n-word themselves! while maintaining the taboo!! Ridiculously, whites fell in line.
Now, theyre moving onto words like "ghetto" that only tangentially refer to blacks. Next up "white christmas" will be banned. I'm telling you, theyre all uptown now laughing their asses off.
AlMfD,
I am pleased to see your gesture of voluntary self-emasculation and am sure that it will contribute to the further empowerment of our disenfranchised chromatically-challenged brothers and sisters everywhere in the supra-South Asian diaspora.
Bliss,
You like 2 and 1/2 men and Friends? This is unforgivable.
Well, I really like Frasier too.
I saw a couple of episodes recently screened by the BBC here in the UK. It seemed okay although not as snappy as Frasier or 2.5 Men (maybe I'd need to watch it continuously to really get into it). Some hot women, though, which I noticed and appreciated.
Yeah he's good. Takes badmaashi to a whole new level ;) He can be quite wildly politically-incorrect, but I don't find him gratuitously offensive like Ricky Gervais sometimes is during his live performances. There's a line between being borderline-risque and just being a jerk in the name of being "cheeky".
Anyway, enough threadjacking from me :) Back to the debate about the ghetto, or as some of us in the UK used to jokingly refer to places like Southall in West London, "the pind".....
Venkatesh did a story for This American life a few months ago. You can find it at www.thislife.org in the archives
4/14
Episode 311
Act Two. Everything Must Go. Nellie Thomas sold ammunition illegally on the South side of Chicago. He made a good living in cash. And that was his problem. The money was driving him crazy. He was ashamed to tell his family how he earned it, he was afraid he'd be robbed, and he didn't know how to get rid of it. So he kept it in big black garbage bags which he hid around his house and yard. Then one day, he came up with the perfect way to get rid of the money. Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh tells Nellie's story. Sudhir's a sociology professor at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor.
I am personally tired of hearing about the 'hood. Why dosen't someone research middle and upper-class African Americans? It's as if they're invisible. I'm beginning to believe that African Americans who fit preconcieved stereotypes are the only ones worthy of academic research and/or public interest.
Presto
Thanks Manju...I should have stated clearly that there should be more scholarly research pertaining to middle and upper-class African Americans. Lawrence Otis Graham has received some flack for his work, but it still represents an alternative, flaws and all.
Neale (44), I listened to the podcast today and thought the very same thing.