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

What's cool, as has been (too) often pointed out, varies from person to person and from culture to culture (the kind of first thought as last thought that thuds like a frog dropped from a tall building or a first thought that sparks other thoughts like a bushfire in Australia).

For instance the Central American kid who lives in East LA and joins a gang rather than the few afterschool opportunities - or a Black kid who lives in a housing project and buys Prada shoes rather than saving for college - or the Asian girl who spends hours reading manga and tattoo magazines instead of feminist books - or a white rich kid who decides to join a fraternity rather than a social justice club at college - or the immigrant boy who gets crossed up between wanting to make his parents proud and wanting to be cool at school and finally decides to become a doctor after all.

Are there patterns to our understanding of what's cool? Do some of us get cooler cools than others? Could coolness be a contributor of racial or class or gender marginalization? Does coolness compensate in some cases for worse job opportunities, earlier death, and higher suffering? Is coolness a consolation prize that marginalized peoples pilfer from the Cultural Carnival after they lose the ring toss for the better prizes?

How does our position in our culture determine what will look achievable and cool (heroic and attention-worthy) on our given cultural maps? How does our sense of cool further mineralize our current position in society?

To get at these questions please read the following pieces -
A poem by Gwendolyn Brooks (be sure to listen to the audio), an African-American poet

An op-ed piece by Orlando Patterson, a Harvard sociologist of African heritage
A brief summary of "Learning To Labor" by Paul Willis (also of African origin, according to contemporary scientific theories, but not in the way people usually mean, English white guy)

How does our enactment of cool for the audience of our immediate social circles (ala Goffman) lead us to our major life choices, limit our options, and imprison our bodies (ala Foucault's gaze)? Is coolness an important factor of the sometimes startling choices made by people in disadvantaged situations? Should we blame the people who make the choices or should we change the choices offered to them (or both or neither)? What paths is coolness leading us down, and should we get our maps out again, and maybe even try to make new maps?

Please write a 3-6 pararaph analysis of this phenomenon drawing on the texts above and your own observations and experience. Due Wednesday January 13 8:30am.