Beer Symbol
Beer is a symbol of friendship and of something in common between two people who on the face of it have nothing in common at all. It is also a symbol of acceptance. When Sudhir is first trying to develop a friendship, or at least, some kind of relationship based on trust, he suggests that the two men grab a beer together. When JT is ready to include Sudhir in their activities, he invites him to join them for a beer. Beer is a universal currency of friendship and brotherhood in the book and is a symbol of the two men's acceptance of each other.
Robin Hood Allegory
JT is a drug dealer who is making a great deal of money by essentially exploiting young men who have no other options for making any money at all. However, he sees his own role in the community as an allegory for the role played by Robin Hood, in giving to the poor using money from the rich. He is strict about education, requiring his "boys" to graduate high school. He gives money to poor and struggling families, using the logic that the money is from the drug trade (the rich) and is being plowed into the community. His own vision of himself is of an allegorical urban hero, rather than as someone making money off drugs.
Money Symbol
JT sees the money he is making as a symbol of success (somewhat ironic since in his previous existence as legitimate executive he was actually successful). This is apparent in that he does not see his college degree, his previously stellar employment status and his potential for promotion as success, because he is making more money being a drug dealer. He sees money as the only symbol of success, primarily because it is the only thing that is making any difference in both his own life and the lives of the other people depending on him.
Poverty Motif
One of the recurring motifs in the book is poverty and it is seen in many different guises. From the perspective of Sudhir's professors, it is seen in an abstract way, as a theory, and something that affects black urban housing project dwellers, and needs to be studied, but in a socially scientific way that involves disconnection from the study subjects themselves. They also see poverty as something that happens to people who are not middle class.
From the perspective of the residents of the housing projects it is more of a part of their daily grind and this is why JT's business thrives. Drug addicts have no money and therefore their poverty is self-induced in that they spend all of the money they do have (and much that they do not yet have) on feeding their habit. The women in the housing development are predominantly single mothers and are feeding many mouths out of an income that will barely feed one. Poverty is a cycle because it is never possible to get out of it. It not only recurs in the lives of the people in the book but also as a motif that recurs throughout the book.
Councilwoman Symbol
The councilwoman is a symbol for the corruption of local government as it pertains to the people who voted to put her in office. Yes, she makes sure that the people on the housing project have what they need; when they need food, she provides it. When they need their housing improved, she finds a way to make this happen; yet, this still means that the people she is "helping" are kept in their cycle of poverty because they are never in control of the financial side of their lives. In contrast to this, she is making a great deal of money by procuring this "help" because every time an organization or a company donates or sells supplies to the community, she skims a little commission from the top. She is therefore a symbol of why certain communities are kept in poverty and also of the way in which those who rise to the top of a community do not always give those still struggling a hand up; there is far more money in it for her if she arranges a hand out.
