In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

The author’s research in Harlem almost ends when he inadvertently disrespects a drug dealer named Ray. Ray is instrumental in Bourgois’s acceptance into the underground world of drug dealing, so this social faux pas jeopardizes both the author’s access to this world and his safety in it. This mistake, Bourgois admits, is part of “learning street smarts” (19), knowledge which is initially at odds with his academic knowledge. Surrounded by Ray’s friends and hangers-on, Ray is in a rare good mood. He’s told Bourgois about his past as a thief, and has even bought the writer a Heineken, which is a step up from the basic beer everyone else is drinking. Due to this intimacy, and also because there are still some who don’t trust Bourgois who they think is an undercover cop, Bourgois decides to show everyone an article of him having an interview with Phil Donahue about violence in East Harlem. Ray is asked to read the caption, and it isn’t long before Bourgois guesses correctly that Ray can’t read. Embarrassed and angry, Ray storms off.

Primo, another of the main characters, is close friends with Ray.