Commentaries on this Media!

Race and Class on the Council Estate: Top Boy Clip #2

by jheanelle brown

In this clip, Dushane, the ascendant gang leader, is maneuvering to take over the Summerhouse estate’s drug dealing operation for head drug dealer Bobby Raikes. Dushane has been angling for a face-to-face with Bobby for some time, and after one-upping Bobby’s lieutenant Lee, is granted a meeting. Dushane tells Bobby that running the Summerhouse operation is his only hope of securing a good life for himself, which Bobby counters by telling Dushane that he himself was born and bred in Summerhouse. Here, Bobby’s life trajectory is positioned as aspirational for Dushane. Class commonalities unite characters across racial lines.