Gang Leader For a Day

Venkatesh tells us that residents speak of Ms. Bailey in the same way that they speak of J.T., “with a mixture of reverence and fear” (91). He wants to learn more about her and what she does as the building president of the Local Advisory Council (LAC). This is an elected position with a small salary; building presidents are responsible for liaising with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and fundraising for tenant activities. Given that one of his advisers, Jean Comaroff, has suggested that he’s spending too much time with men and that he should try and learn more about women’s role in the projects, Ms. Bailey seems like an ideal person with whom to talk.

When he first visits her to explain his research, she asks him is he’s going to interview white people for his study. Venkatesh is confused, but after some prompting he understands her point: people outside Robert Taylor determine how the tenants live. At the same time, she doesn’t want him portraying the tenants as victims. While Venkatesh finds their conversations helpful, he finds Ms. Bailey very formal and distant; he doesn’t know how to earn her trust. When he asks J.T.’s advice, J.T. tells him to give it time.

One winter, Ms. Bailey asks him to help her with a clothing drive and he borrows his friend’s car to collect donations from participating stores. First they go to a nearby liquor store, where Ms. Bailey loads the car with boxes of beer and bottles of spirits. These will later be exchanged for coats, blankets and portable heaters at the various stores they visit. Venkatesh asks her when she started doing this kind of work and she explains that she grew up in the projects and remembers a time when churches and charities used to organize events like clothing drives, but things have changed. These events are important and might prevent young women exchanging sex for food, like Boo-Boo’s daughter Coco.

Back at her office, Ms. Bailey organizes the donations into baskets and hands them out to the families who appear at her door. However, Venkatesh notices that not everyone gets a basket and he wonders if Ms. Bailey is playing favorites. The next day, the drive is still on and an intoxicated Clarisse walks into Ms. Bailey’s office, skipping the queue. Ms. Bailey’s assistant, Catrina, tells her to leave but Ms. Bailey beckons Clarisse into another room and admonishes her for not taking better care of her children. When Clarisse tries to leave she stumbles and vomits over some of the baskets. Venkatesh helps her up and back to her apartment where he finds her two daughters watching television. He takes the girls for something to eat while Clarisse sleeps on the couch and buys groceries on the way back to the apartment too. The next time he sees Ms. Bailey she warns him not to be too kind to any of the young women he meets, as they might try to take advantage of him. Venkatesh protests that he was just making sure Clarisse’s children had something to eat, but she retorts that they had eaten at her apartment earlier—she doesn’t let any child in her building go hungry.

A few weeks later, Ms. Bailey invites Venkatesh to the building’s monthly meeting, a forum for tenants to air their grievances. Much like the public meeting held to discuss the drive-by shooting, these meetings are largely ineffective but Ms. Bailey thinks they are important symbolically. The meeting Venkatesh attends has a small turnout comprised mainly of older women. When a young man complains about the noise made by Black Kings’ parties, Ms. Bailey asks her secretary to make a note of it, even as she reminds him that he is living in the building illegally. Ms. Bailey then announces that Pride will be coming to the building during the week to register people to vote and she encourages people to attend. One woman asks if Ms. Bailey minds helping the Black Kings, as they’re the only one’s who’ll get anything out of the event. Ms. Bailey replies that “It’s better than them shooting each other” (99). The atmosphere of the meeting grows increasingly tense, with tenants accusing Ms. Bailey of benefitting financially by allowing the gang to operate out of the building. Ms. Bailey retorts that her relationship with the Black Kings is a creative solution to the problems she faces and allows her to help the tenants with their problems in turn. In fact, she asserts that the gang members help out more than most tenants do.

As Venkatesh’s relationship with Ms. Bailey develops, he finds that more of the tenants are willing to speak to him and, like J.T., she seems to enjoy his attention. Despite her claims that she is helping the tenants, Venkatesh suspects that Ms. Bailey’s relationship with the Kings is not merely a matter of pragmatism but also one of ego; it helps her fulfill her personal ambitions. However, Catrina, Ms. Bailey’s assistant, urges him to watch look out for how she helps women in the building and declares her “the most amazing person I know” (102).

One day, when Venkatesh and Catrina are returning from a coffee run, Venkatesh has the opportunity to see how Ms. Bailey protects women in the building. A young woman named Taneesha has been badly beaten by a man named Bee-Bee, who was acting as her modeling agent. Ms. Bailey organizes for Taneesha to be taken to the hospital—the ambulances never come to Robert Taylor—and for Bee-Bee to be apprehended. Venkatesh follows C-Note and his friends as they search the building for Bee-Bee and even joins in the physical struggle that ensues when they find him. He’s then taken to Ms. Bailey’s office, where he’s interrogated, beaten and thrown out of the building with a warning to stay away from Taneesha. Catrina later tells Venkatesh that it’s common practice in the projects to form militias to deal with problems like domestic violence. Venkatesh is critical of the way the situation was handled, and can’t understand why they didn’t call the police. Catrina tells him that he doesn’t live in the projects so he can’t understand and forces him to reconsider his earlier judgment.

Venkatesh would like to talk to J.T. about Ms. Bailey but knows that it’s a touchy subject for him; he doesn’t like the fact that her authority occasionally clashes with his own. Instead he goes to Jimmy’s Bar on his way home. This has become a habit for him; it allows him to process what he’s seen and heard at Robert Taylor and write up his notes before he returns to his “normal” life. He finds himself increasingly frustrated with the field of sociology and the abstract way in which it deals with poverty and other social issues. This frustration is evident in his aggressive attitude in his classes, where he acts as if he is the only person in the room who understands what poverty is. Part of the problem is his inability to discuss what he witnesses in the projects, or his role in events like catching Bee-Bee, with anyone. He doesn’t think his professors, his friends, or his girlfriend would understand.

When he returns to Robert Taylor, he decides to ask J.T. about what happened with Taneesha and Bee-Bee. J.T. reveals that Ms. Bailey is telling people that she’s angry with Venkatesh because he helped C-Note catch Bee-Bee. However, J.T. suspects that she’s really annoyed because she suspects him of spying on her for the Black Kings. J.T. is also upset because Ms. Bailey didn’t ask for his help in resolving the incident; Catrina had previously told Venkatesh that Ms. Bailey didn’t like asking for their help in those situations because gang members were known to physically and sexually abuse women. Venkatesh is surprised that Ms. Bailey thinks he is allied with the Black Kings and feels that he is being asked to choose sides in a situation where he is supposed to be impartial. Venkatesh confesses his role in beating Bee-Bee to Ms. Bailey but she tells him that that’s not what bothers her: she’s afraid he’s getting too involved and that people will start to expect things of him and blame him for things.

In February, the Wilson family’s front door falls off its hinges. Worried about being robbed as well as the cold, they call the CHA to fix it but, a few days later, having received no response, they turn to Ms. Bailey. She immediately has the Black Kings secure the apartment from thieves and uses her contacts in the CHA to get the door replaced. This treatment costs the Wilsons a couple of hundred dollars. Venkatesh recognizes that Ms. Bailey is effective at what she does but disapproves of her methods. At the same time, life in the projects is so unpredictable that it requires “a different set of rules for getting by” (112). This means that having an influential tenant leaser, even a corrupt one, can make living in the projects just a little bit easier.