Transcript Slide 1

Bernard E. Harcourt
University of Chicago
April 5, 2006
“I had me two baby 9's. I fell in love with
those. They look beautiful to me. They
were chrome, like perfect size, they had
some power to them. I was like damn, I
really don’t use them because I don’t want
to get them burned. Somebody’s body to it.
I have them at home in a shelf, I don’t really
use those. Those just like, I’m gonna keep
those for a long time. . . . They’re like tight.
They’re just all chrome” (CMS-10: 35).
“We used to get in robbing houses
that have a lot of guns, and
trade’em for pounds or ounces of
cocaine or just sell them. . . .
Living close to the border, guns are
very valuable to the drug dealers.
If you know the right people, you
can get good deals for a gun. . .”
(CMS-14:7)
When I was younger, I used to kick with those fools and I
was looking, “There’s a bad mother fucker right there.
Look at that shit. Nobody fucks with that fool.” And I just
wanted to be a bad mother fucker.. . Like, nobody,
nobody crosses him. . . Fools just always trying to start
shit with you. Everybody always trying to like, I don’t
know, kind’a like trying to like, punk you, or whatever. . .
Like tell you, or just punk you, like, “Fool, you ain’t this,
you ain’t that...” And then, . . . when you’re younger,
that’s when you got to fight back the most, because . . .
once you start a reputation, you got to keep it. . . If you
start off as . . . getting punked and stuff, it’s not good.
Cuz then everybody tries to punk you. (CMS-16: 35-36).