The Stickup Kids: Race, Drugs, Violence, and the American Dream Cover
Podcast Mentions

The Stickup Kids Race, Drugs, Violence, and the American Dream

Prof. Randol Contreras

Randol Contreras came of age in the South Bronx during the 1980s, a time when the community was devastated by cuts in social services, a rise in arson and abandonment, and the rise of crack-cocaine. For this riveting book, he returns to the South Bronx with a sociological eye and provides an unprece...

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Quotes 1
The Ezra Klein Show

It was described as a beautifully written account of South Bronx youths after the crack era, illustrating core sociological ideas.

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The first and most relevant to this conversation is a book by Randall Contreras called The Stick Up Kids. It is about a group of the author's peers in the South Bronx who reached early adulthood at th...

— Episode: Why Is Murder Spiking? And Can Cities Ad...

Episode: Why Is Murder Spiking? And Can Cities Address It W...

It was described as a beautifully written account of South Bronx youths after the crack era, illustrating core sociological ideas.

"

The first and most relevant to this conversation is a book by Randall Contreras called The Stick Up Kids. It is about a group of the author's peers in the South Bronx who reached early adulthood at the moment right after crack cocaine had hit its peak, right as the police had started to crack down and the market began to dry up. And it is a beautifully written book that illuminates what I think of as a core idea of sociology, which is how our lives unfold through the interaction of our own decisions in combination with a set of forces that lie outside ourselves.

Note: The book recommendations on this page are discovered automatically from podcast transcripts, and may be incorrect or incomplete.