"We Real Cool" vs "Those Boys that Ran Together"

The two poems "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks and "Those Boys that Ran Together" by Lucille Clifton have similar imagery and messages. Both poems depict young people who played pool and went to bars, and eventually died/were imprisoned. Both poems are about how black boys' lives in America are disproportionately stifled (either by death or early imprisonment for extended periods of time), and the verdicts/attacks are unfair. The people depicted in both poems are also unnamed, pointing to the commonness of police brutality and systematic oppression in America, and how it has become normalized. However, both poems also have important differences. 

"Those Boys that Ran Together" is told from the perspective of the boys' community, while "We Real Cool" is told from the perspective of the boys. One poem has a sense of nostalgia, while the other has a sense of foreboding. "Those Boys that Ran Together" also explicitly states that the they are young black boys, while we do not learn the gender or the race of the pool players in "We Real Cool". This could point to a difference in the messages of the two poems. "Those Boys that Ran Together" seems to have a clear message that "fine black boys" are being imprisoned or killed even though they are good people (hence "fine"). "We Real Cool" does not identify the narrator as black, which could point to the message being slightly different. It shows a contrast in the treatment of white and black people. The black boys in "We Real Cool" are behaving just like the white boys, but for them it ends up being fatal. The two poems protest the same problem (police brutality, a racist system) in two different ways: one portrays the boys innocence and the effect the loss of the boys has on their community, and the other portrays them as like everyone else and shows the inequality of their treatment. 

This might be too much of a stretch but it was just something I thought of, what do you guys think?


Comments

  1. Martin DOctober 12, 2018 at 10:19 AM

    There definitely is a difference between the people in "Those Boys that Ran Together" and "We Real Cool". While the boys in "We Real Cool" are portrayed as ones who are misbehaving kids there is an innocent sound to them, while the boys in "Those Boys that Ran Together" seem totally fine. I suppose that this shows that innocent and misbehaving boys aren't discriminated when white people are looking to kill black kids.

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  2. Harmen AlleyneOctober 13, 2018 at 9:34 AM

    I feel like what Martin said is correct. The "We Real Cool" boys are "delinquents" but they're probably forced into their lifestyle by societal pressures. Meanwhile "Those Boys that Ran Together" describes boys that were most likely caught in the crossfire of greater society and were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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  3. Ayat JaberOctober 14, 2018 at 3:04 PM

    I liked your analysis. I think "We Real Cool" is critical not just of the society that pushes young black men to lose the potential success in life they could've pursued, but it is also critical of the men themselves in that they think they'er "cool" for what they do. The fact that it doesn't specify black men either is critiquing all young people who think that they're cool by skipping school and hanging out in the poolrooms.

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