For the individuals researched in the book, selling crack is a method of securing finances and coping with life. Most of the people who Bourgois befriended were both crack users and dealers. Primo and Caesar often spoke of needing to sell crack because they couldn’t get jobs in the legal job market. Moreover, their money from their job as a crack dealer often went to purchasing drugs and alcohol for themselves. As such, crack is symbolic as a way of life for the people caught up in drug-dealing East Harlem. Even kids are victim to the effects of crack, with most going on to become crack dealers and users, thereby following in their parents’ footsteps. Others fall victim to the violence that rises up around streets imbued with drugs and crackheads. Abuse and violence often go hand in hand with drug culture.

Crack can also be seen as a symbolic indictment of mainstream American culture, which refuses to give minorities like those in East Harlem a place in the legal economy, whether through internalized racism or flatout exclusion. Because of the inability to make a living in the legal economy, people like Primo and Caesar turn to selling crack.