"We real cool. We
Left school. We"
Analysis
This first stanza of the poem's main body associates the notion of "being cool" with the decision to leave school, which logically would lead one to the conclusion that the institution of school and other mandated institutions are inherently uncool, at least in the mind of the speaker(s). Leaving school is an act of resistance, and the poem does not propose to judge the pool players as if they are taking an easy way out, or shirking their studies out of laziness, but rather to try and understand their feelings about themselves.
There is a strong self-consciousness in the very utterance of the line, "We real cool." This is the paradox of that ever-elusive quality: to say or even think you're cool—to display any concern with your own coolness—is decidedly uncool. Part of being cool is being unconcerned with what other people think, or being confident enough with one's own image not to need affirmation from others.
If coolness is a manifestation or performance of masculine resilience, and leaving school is a form of resistance, then it makes sense that school, to these players, is an oppressive force. This poem was written almost twenty years before Chicago schools were forced to integrate; going to school, for these young men, was to participate in a system where, because of their race, less was expected of them and less was afforded to them than was expected and afforded to white students at white schools. Thus, leaving school is an act of independence and self-reliance, an attempt to cleave oneself from an oppressive institution—even at the cost of one's future.
