hw 34 the cool pose

In new york city, it is very easy to be considered cool and most of us are. We are surrounded by things that we want because we think it will give us that notification from others that allows us to be known as cool. the kid that buys prada shoes is cool because now he falls into this category of a kid that "gets paper". We are obsessed wht being stereotyped and stereotyping. meanwhile this kid as fresh as he looks may have many other problems in his life. What i noticed is that almost every year, there is a new thing. Like this year, it is all about polo. whoever has polo is "fresh" because since polo makes nice clothes and is expensive, you buying it makes you seem like you have money to spend on 80 dollar shirts. The kid who has polo isn't cool anymore though, once you wear it, you already establish yourself as cool. It has now become a competition, who can wear the most polo in one day. My friend the other day showed me a picture of his friend who had only polo clothing on. from the dress shirt to the hat, scarf, and shoes. He the says to me, "this kid is madd cool. look at how fresh he is." In the back of my mind i was like he probably doesnt even like the things he wears, he wears those thing to get notice and be accepted, after all he is asian going to a school in harlem with almost 5,000 kids, so if you don't stand out, you will spend your years in high school being unnoticed. Also having marmot jackets is considered cool now. It also highly symbolizes some trouble for some kids. I have seen kids and so has my friend. he tells me that if more than 4 kids with marmot jackets walks up to you, you better start running because they are planning to rob you. He has seen this very frequently. It seems like if you are with a group of kids that dress alike, that is your coolness. You are stereotyped as troublemakers, yet you never get caught and always get girls, and get fresh. You have nothing to lose which makes you cool because you are a badass.



I think that gender and race has a lot to do with being considered cool. If you are chinese, the chances of you being cool is very slim unless you drastically change your appearence with clothing or something to make you stand out. If you are black, it seems that you already have a head start, all you need now is some gucci shoes and some cargo pants, oh and the marmot jacket, then you are cool. You get respect. This is mainly something that men do. For women it can be the smae thing, but mainly for women it is how they look physically and how they interact with others, and sometimes some fresh clothes help.



In the article that i read called " a poverty of the mind", the author talks about how typically black males are flunking out of school and hanging out. This is a problem when people care more about what the look like and what they do in the present, rather than think about the future. Usually by them dropping out and hanging out with your crew everyday seems cooler than learning and being an intellectual and, as Andy said," having tons of money and buying all the prada shoes you want." Instead black kids in society wait for an oppritunity instead of pursuing something. They decide to take the easy way out, and become rappers and make it big. this isn't a problem if you do make it big. But majority who dont have to resort to other ways to make money, such as stealing and selling drugs. It is becoming sort of an epidemic that african americans can only do so much, and mainly follow their culture maps. Sort of like they evolved to follow the norms.