Sudhir Venkatesh, Columbia sociologist and author of “Gang Leader for a Day,” is back once again with his chronicle of watching “The Wire” with a group of gangland acquaintances. His past reports can be found here.
I should have seen it coming. But I didn’t.
The Thugs informed me that they were not interested in watching the last 2 episodes of season 5 of The Wire. I’ve been pleading with them to reconsider.
“We’ve seen this s–t already,” Shine told me. “This is fun if you work all day behind a desk, or you’re sitting in some suburb. But for us, it’s like watching somebody make a movie about you — someone who doesn’t really know all that much about your life.”
“We did this for you, Sudhir, if you want to know the truth,” Orlando barked at me through his cellphone. “I mean, we can walk out the door and see this stuff every day. And we thought you were going to make some money on this. But you’re doing it for nothing, so what’s the point?”
I appealed to their need to entertain and educate the public, and perhaps even to enjoy themselves while frightening the public.
“No, I don’t get off on making a bunch of white folk nervous. Obama’s already doing that,” laughed Tony-T. “And anyway, Flavor‘s not here, and we ain’t heard from him. So, it’s…”
Tony’s voice trailed off, but I understood. The Thugs were worried about Flavor, and watching the show made them nervous. (Readers will recall from the last posting that Flavor got himself in trouble with a rival gang leader). Whether they admitted it or not, commenting on the show was akin to weighing the likelihood of Flavor’s demise.
I was hoping that they’d change their minds before Sunday evening. But while I still had their attention, I posed this question to them: “If there was another season of the show, and you were directing it, what would you focus on?” Here are their top four answers.
1. “I’d let a black man write it, first of all,” said Shine. “That way, you’d have real winners and losers. Like I said, white folk want you to believe that everyone is screwed up, everyone is getting their piece [of the action]. True, but it’s different if you’re white. It’s never as bad as it is when you’re black.”
2. “Sex,” said Orlando. “They missed out on the prostitution game and all the people making money selling their bodies. That’s a huge part of making money. And it brings white folk and black folk together.”
3. “Women,” said Tony-T. “Where I come from, women run most of the things [that the show] talks about. It’s the women that have the power in the ghetto. This show totally got it wrong when they made it all about men. Women are the politicians; they can get you a gun, they got the cash, they can get you land to build something on.”
4. Kool J sighed and answered the question in somber fashion. “Death. But not like how they do it. You don’t see none of these n—rs suffer. And I bet a lot of white people think we run around killing each other all the time. I mean, it’s not like we like seeing all these people die on our streets. It’s hard, man, and a lot of us get scared off. We leave the game. Suicide, man. People don’t want to talk about it, but we’re killing ourselves. Slowly.”
I asked each Thug if he had any final comments. To my surprise, they all said that they enjoyed reading the comments on the Freakonomics blog.
“I don’t know how,” said Shine, “but if people want to know about us, if they have questions, I’m cool with answering anything people want to know.”
“It’s weird,” Tony-T said. “I don’t talk to a lot of people outside my ‘hood, so I liked the questions and the things they were telling us. For me, I got to learn about ‘those’ people. You know, the ones who drink Budweiser and have trouble getting it up.”
Orlando felt particularly gracious. “Maybe I’ll throw a party and everyone can come over. I live in Harlem. Do you think they know where that is?”
Touché.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Good write-up, but bad art.
Sudhir, you’d do all us skeptics a service by posting a photo of the thug Wire roundtable. Even if you have to obscure the faces to protect their identities, it would demarcate the line between fact and fiction. I’m calling your bluff on this and I know others are as well.
Very dissapointed that this had to end prematurly
Either the thugs just dropped it on Sudhir which is out of order really or the writer just neglected to warn us this may be coming.Either way im pretty annoyed was really enjoying blog.Oh well, good luck to all even Flavour who to be entirely honest sounds like he has nothing to complain about to me.
In my mind this blog should have played till the end or not bothered playing at all.
Peace
I really liked watching the Wire and will miss my Sunday nights but I’m also finding that I really look forward to reading this column. I’ll miss hearing from people who actually live the life. I’d like to say thanks to the guys for taking the time to weigh in, even if they only did it for you.
Hey Jay-
Why would you think Sudhir is making this stuff up? It isn’t as though his connections and relationships with gang members aren’t well documented.
Thanks, Sudhir, for a great column while it lasted.
To Jay B (comment #2)…
Let me get this straight, you wand Sudhir to ask guys who are admitting to crimes to pose for a photo? Even if he promises to distort the faces and delete all originals, that’s asking a lot from a group of guys who don’t really want to end up with a high profile. It’s also asking a lot of Sudhir to have him over extend himself like that.
If you think that this is fiction (which I don’t) then think of it as such, but don’t ask a bunch of guys to put themselves out to satisfy a curiosity.
The comment about ” we thought you were going to make some money on this. But you’re doing it for nothing, so what’s the point?” was interesting to me.
You are not “doing it for nothing”. This is “value-added” material that helps to sell the book AND yourself for future projects.
I have a client who has the same sort of outlook on things as well.
He has made that same comment to me when I try and tell him about some project I am working on.
He is a Rich White Male that does not seem to understand why someone else does anything if there is no money involved. Either buying things (collecting) or selling things.
Any sort of “work” or project that is for some as-yet undefined monetary reward is something he does not “get”. There must be a some sort of monetary end-game to everything that he or anyone else does or….what’s the point?
I have been trying to wrap my head around this perspective on the world for awhile, partly because I am fascinated by it and also so I can explain things to him in a manner he wants to hear: deals/economics/numbers/profit.
I really think that the thugs and my client would get along quite well, seriously. Their general outlook on life is basically the same, just from different ends of the spectrum. He does not like to hang around other Rich people either. He prefers the company of others that see the world as he does no matter what their social standing.
You can tell Orlando I live in the BX so yes I know where Harlem is and not everyone that read this blog is white and from the suburbs. The thugs need to remember this was supposed to be about Baltimore and friends of mine said for the most part west Baltimore is like that. It would have been nice to see pimps and hos but it wasn’t built into the dynamic of the show after the strip club was gone.
I think the real loser in this is HBO. I only watched the Wire because the series of blog posts on the topic was so interesting. Thanks to the Thugs and Sudhir for giving a guy who sits in an office all day in DC some insight into a life far different from mine.