of junior members of all those street gangs like the Black Gangster Disciple Nation? The gangs already owned the territory-real estate was, in essence, their core business-and they were suitably menacing to keep customers from even thinking about ripping them off. Suddenly the urban street gang evolved from a club for wayward teenagers into a true commer- cial enterprise. The gang also presented an opportunity for longtime employ- ment. Before crack, it was just about impossible to earn a living in a street gang. When it was time for a gangster to start supporting a fam- ily, he would have to quit. There was no such thing as a thirty-year-old gangster: he was either working a legitimate job, dead, or in prison. But with crack, there was real money to be made. Instead of moving on and making way for the younger gangsters to ascend, the veterans stayed put. This was happening just as the old-fashioned sort of life- time jobs-factory jobs especially-were disappearing. In the past, a semi-skilled black man in Chicago could earn a decent wage working in a factory. With that option narrowing, crack dealing looked even better. How hard could it be? The stuff was so addictive that a fool could sell it. Who cared if the crack game was a tournament that only a few of them could possibly win? Who cared if it was so dangerous- standing out there on a corner, selling it as fast and anonymously as McDonalds sells hamburgers, not knowing any of your customers, wondering who might be coming to arrest or rob or kill you? Who cared if your product got twelve-year-olds and grandmothers and Drug De aler s Living with T heir Moms     preachers so addicted that they stopped thinking about anything ex- cept their next hit? Who cared if crack killed the neighborhood? For black Americans, the four decades between World War II and the crack boom had been marked by steady and often dramatic im-