Image via Wikipedia
Blogger Chuck Ross has penned an essay over at his blog where he purports to examine the American phenomenon known as “cool” (http://glpiggy.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/on-coolness/). Stirred to act in the wake of a series of heated and lively exchanges between myself, Ross and a number of his regulars, Ross finally decides to investigate the matter for himself.
Ross writes:
“What is “ cool “? More importantly, what are the mechanisms by which this aesthetic navigates through our culture and what are the social consequences of it. Herein, I will state my case that “cool” is an arbitrary term meant to behave much like the vermin in the popular childhood arcade game “Whack-a-Mole” – where white people represent the mallots. “Cool” is an arbitrary or fluid term that parallels black culture; in fact, “cool” *is* black culture; it is a tautological argument in that “cool” in America becomes whatever black people are doing, saying, listening to, or valuing at the moment. Since “cool” can only exist as diametrically opposed to white/mainstream/Western culture – aka the status quo – it follows that whatever white people are doing is “not cool”. This has debilitating consequences, as I’ll point out.”
Ross mentions the work and observations of Yale U African art historian Robert Farris Thompson, who has written quite a bit on the matter; Ross’ argument? That, among other things, “cool” is a factor which inhibits Black progress and achievement:
“This artificial valuation – stemming from white guilt – has, in essence, crippled black youth in this country while also cracking the armor of white youth. Since black people became the arbiters of cool and because cool had real observable power in society and popular culture, one aspect of positive social valuation was at the mercy of black people. As a result, “cool” has become synonymous with the gangster, thug, and underachiever.”
African Americans who are familiar with critical theory of any kind will not find the above bombshell that Ross drops as anything new; blaming Black folk for their problems has been taken to a high artform among quite a few voices in the public square. The “causes” of what’s “wrong” with Black folk run the gamut, and usually, seem to change with the current clime: for Ross, both the HBD meme-which posits that Black folks are in aggregate, innately inferior to Whites and by extension, Western (read: White) civilization, and by extension *anything* that springs from Black culture, like the concept of “cool” is therefore inherently incompatible with Western (read again: White) notions of progress, stability and achievement, is the order of the day. Don’t take my word for it; see for yourself:
“In that “cool” is inherently antithetical to mainstream Western values which traditionally valued education, achievement, progress, and lawfulness, black male youths have opted for other life paths. From Orlando Patterson’s NYT piece “ A Poverty of the Mind…”
And
“Because black youth are only defined and identified through their coolness they mostly try to mimic the purveyors of cool: gangsters, sports stars, and entertainers. What we end up with are a bunch of youths trying to be cool rather than productive citizens. It is no surprise, given the dearth of socially feasible options available to black youths, that black culture tends to be relatively homogenous compared to whites. Since so many are chasing the cool and trying to live fit in to one of only a handful of acceptable scripts, each individual winds up not being much different than the next.”
And Ross sums it all up in the following statement:
“So on the one hand, “cool” is about nonchalance and on the other hand it is antithetical to Western culture. No wonder blacks can’t fit in to society. As Orlando Patterson argues, the problem lies within black culture – not in the racism of white culture. At least not today. Of course, in their desire to meld the world together, mainstream society has had to bend to meet the valuable aesthetic of “cool” that is all of a sudden so important. To not bend to that aesthetic is racist or close-minded. But keep in mind, if you have a bunch of non-chalant youth running around, how are you to build and maintain a society, a state, a city, a neighborhood, or even a household? Some vigilance – some sort of caring for higher principles – is required.”
Alrighty then, some correctives are deeply in order.
For one thing, “cool” has been around for a very long time-in the modern historical context, at least since the Jazz era, where the term first originated. While present day Hip Hop culture no doubt continues on in the tradition of “cool” by no means did it originate there; being “cool”, while often associated with nefarious underworld activity, is NOT synonymous with it.
We can say this, because figures like Miles Davis and Malcolm X (in his later life) were NOT criminals, yet were and still are considered to be exemplars of “cool”. Indeed, the newly published memoir of NPR journalist Michelle Norris, The Grace of Silence” gives a deeply moving example of “cool” in the form of her father, who was shot by the police after coming home from fighting in WW2; he handled the matter in an almost textbook “cool” way.
Which brings me to Ross’ next point-if indeed “cool” is “oppositional” to Western and more specifically, American life, it is because American life has made it its business to keep Black Men from fully participating in the enterprise.
Consider the following (and which, surprise!, Ross mysteriously leaves out in his post):
“Marlene Kim Connor connects cool and the post-war African-American experience in her book What is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America . Connor writes that cool is the silent and knowing rejection of racist oppression, a self-dignified expression of masculinity developed by black men denied mainstream expressions of manhood. She writes that mainstream perception of cool is narrow and distorted, with cool often perceived merely as style or arrogance, rather than a way to achieve respect.”
But wait! There’s more:
“‘Cool’, though an amorphous quality—more mystique than material—is a pervasive element in urban black male culture. [ 18 ] Majors and Billson address what they term “cool pose” in their study and argue that it helps Black men counter stress caused by social oppression, rejection and racism . They also contend that it furnishes the black male with a sense of control, strength, confidence and stability and helps him deal with the closed doors and negative messages of the “generalized other.” They also believe that attaining black manhood is filled with pitfalls of discrimination, negative self-image, guilt, shame and fear…”
“George Elliott Clarke writes that Malcolm X , like Miles Davis , embodies essential elements of cool. As an icon, Malcolm X inspires a complex mixture of both fear and fascination in broader American culture, much like “cool pose” itself.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_(aesthetic)
So, we can see that, at least in part, WHY “cool” doesn’t really work as well for White Males as it does for Black ones; it is partly because “cool” was and continues to be, a reaction to being marginalized, from full participation in American life-something that no White Male, including Ross himself, can say with a straightface. We also plainly see, in the examples of Davis, Malcolm and countless other Black Men like Norris’ father, that it is entirely possible to be BOTH “cool” and decidedly “Western”-after all, Norris’ father actually fought on behalf of the United States; Malcolm trained his mind in the canons of American and Western letters; and Davis made his music using an instrument that is undoubtedly Western. Yet all of these Men, and many, many more, imbued these Western concepts with a certain something that no other White Man could, and that’s the “cool”.
And that brings me to the nation’s 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. He puts the lie to Ross’ ideas that being “cool” is somehow incompatible with Western ideas of progress. Ask any school aged Black boy if they think Obama is “cool” and see what they tell you. Ask the rapper Common, who spoke of the “Obama Effect”, if he thinks Obama is “cool”, and see what he tells you. Indeed, a big part of Obama’s appeal, not just to African Americans, but to a goodly portion of WHITE ones, is that he’s seen as “cool”-all the while literally embodying the ideals that demarcate Western culture and ideals as exceptional to all others in the world. His graduating from Columbia and Harvard, being th latter’s first Black president of its prestigious law review, becoming a state and then US Senator and finally, President, doesn’t preclude him from jamming to The Fugees’ “Ready or Not” or from enjoying viewing Omar Little’s exploits on the hit HBO series, The Wire. There’s room, for both-indeed, so much of life for African Americans, whether they liked it or not, whether Whites like Ross believe it or not-has been a “both-and” kind of thing.
And yet, as Clarke and Connor notes above from the Wikipedia entry on the concept of “cool”, Obama also suffers from the very same marginalization so many Black Men have faced and continue to face in our time, right now, at the hands of the wider, and Whiter, society. Indeed, it is hard with anyone to deny that so much of the opposition to Obama has racial, if not out and out racist, undertones to it; no other president has had his personal life given so rough and probing a proctological examination-invasive, undignified, indeed, just downright ugly. There have been shows of armed Men massing on Washington, DC. His religious affiliation is rendered suspect, his familial history and ties are under constant microscopic inspection; his martial choice is the fodder of righting talkers’ bromides, his very citizenship is called into question. The latest marginalizing attempt in recent days, is the notion that Obama is imbibing Mau-Mau era, Kenyan anti-colonial agit-prop, that he is nutures an abiding anti-Western and more specifically anti-American animus, and that deep down there’s a Muslim Socialist, just waiting for the right moment to spring out, much like the chest bursting scene in the film Alien. NO other president in modern memory, has been the subject of, and subject to, so much ridicule, suspicion and straight-up meanspiritedness. Not Reagan, not Clinton, not either Bushes, not even Nixon-at least in all of their cases, NO ONE questioned their fundamental citizenship, or humanity.
And yet, Obama is the very picture of the “cool pose”.
What’s really eating Chuck Ross, is this:
White America-which is a lot bigger than “elites” and counter cultural beatniks-has been, and continues to be, fascinated by the exemplars of “cool”-Black Men. Obama, is a case study in “cool” if there ever was one-as noted above, he shoots down any notion that “cool” is in someway, incompatible with Western norms of progress and improvement. He also proves that it ain’t in Black folks’ head-racism is still a very real thing, and that it ain’t the fault of Black people, either. Obama proves that even if you do all the things asked and required of you, you can still be met with racist recriminations and passive-aggressive assaults on your personhood, as only White folk can do.
It’s the push-pull of the fascination on the one hand, and the reviling on the other, of the Black Male on the part of White America, that confounds Ross. Moreover, he is deeply dismayed by the fact that Black Men, for all their marginalization, can and sometimes do hold a sway over him culturally, that to his mind, makes no sense. It doesn’t have to; what he thinks about the matter, ultimately, is irrelevant.
Finally, what bothers Ross the most-hence his ode to Western Civ-is that his days, are numbered-and he knows it. What I mean by that, is the simple act that the days of White Male Hegemony, are over. True, they still do retain control of the reigns of power and influence; but ever so steadily, they are slipping away. Merely being White and Male, no longer carries the cache it once did; it no longer guarantees admittance into American life’s upper echelons of success and contentment. It no longer grants one the presumption of competence and talent. And it no longer assumes that White guys will be granted a presumption of pre-eminence, simply because they’re White. The very fact that Black norms and ways of being-such as “cool”-are the “default” setting of attractiveness in American life, spells big trouble for guys like Chuck. In fact, their discontent and agita can be measured by how much, and how quickly, they will resort to blather about “saving Western Civ” and other such silliness, like the idea that Black Men can “only” get “low class Women”, especially if they’re White. It all comes off as a desperate attempt on the part of HBD-inspired bloggers like Chuck, to remain relevant in a world that has clearly begun to move on without them…
…and if they don’t get with the program, they will find themselves being the subject of an exhibit at the Smithsonian:
The late, great White Guy, circa 2050.
Now adjourn your asses…
Obsidian’s iPod is now playing: Stay Cool, by The Roots
The Obsidian
