HW # 34 - The Cool Pose and Various Approaches to Life Rooted in Class, Race, Gender, Age, etc.

When Gwendolyn Brooks talks about her poem that begins “We real cool. We left school,” she says that she was trying to get inside the heads of some local boys in her community who were playing pool when they should have been in school. She said they were “thumbing their noses at the establishment.” When you think about it, it’s almost
always cool to go against the establishment. It’s what many heroes do if the establishment is bad, and it’s what makes certain outlaws very cool like pirates and
other outlaws who don’t fit into the establishment. If school doesn’t seem like a place where you can be cool (get self-esteem) because you don’t have the role models to inspire you to work hard or you don’t have the help you need to do well or, like the working class boys in the “Learning to Labour” article, you think society isn’t going to let you get rewarded for your hard work the way higher class people get rewarded, then why make the effort?

Regarding black kids in poor inner city communities I think Orlando Patterson is right
about the importance of cultural explanations for behaviors that hold a lot of them back from being successful in this American society. Obviously, when it comes to feeling a
part of a middle or upper middle class family where there is support for you and money
for you and career expectations for you, they don’t. I don’t think there is a big difference
between the kids themselves. The majority of us do what we are expected to do in our
communities. Most middle and upper middle class kids plan on going to college because that is what is expected of them. Most poor black kids don’t plan on going to college because they are not expected to go. And their communities have created a culture that
is highly successful for some like athletes and hip hop artists who bypass college and make tons of money. As Patterson says, there is also a lot of respect coming from white society and white corporations for this inner city culture especially for music and sports stars, but that is not all. These kids have been trend setters for America and the world with songs, dances, language, clothing styles and gestures and body moves ( pounds and chest bumps). And they should get credit for holding onto it. When establishment white people start talking about “in the house” or “in the hizzle”or learn the crip walk and corporations put the language and the moves in commercials, then the black kids often from the Bronx or L.A. come up with new expressions and new dances like “the jerk.”

Unfortunately, the downside of this culture is very down often resulting in prison and
early death. The fact that selling drugs is so profitable and guns are so available makes the culture a really dangerous one. The cool aspect, that is the tryingto be cool aspect of cool, is really strong because it is so hard to get self esteem inpositive ways if there aren’t good role models around. The assignment asks about who to blame or what to do. I blame racism for the good and bad in black culture. Slavery produced the blues and racism helped produce jazz and hip hop. I think there have to be more organizations that give kids good role models and opportunities to develop talents and do well in school on a daily basis. Some of my brother’s friends who have done well in school say that if it hadn’t been for Boys Clubs, they would never have even gone to high school.