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(Editor´s Note: This is part five of an article urging men to let God renew their minds through faith in Jesus Christ.)
Pleasure outside of the righteous will of God, whether it is personal escape through illicit sex, highly emotive religious expression, abuse of alcohol, drugs or any other means, is typically brief and/or unsatisfying. Hedonists are left empty and driven to duplicate their experience repeatedly. They work destruction in themselves through a vast array of natural consequences and finally the judgment of a holy God who takes no pleasure in human corruption of His will (Psalm 5:4-6; Proverbs 21:17; I Timothy 5:6). Eternal pleasures await and full joy now fills those who obey God through faith in Jesus Christ (Psalm 16:11; I Peter 1:3-9)!
The separatist worldview calls for blacks to separate from the white man and has been seriously espoused by various Black Nationalist groups since the turn of the last century. Marcus Garvey is the best-known back to Africa advocate. The Nation Of Islam today under Minister Louis Farrakhan still seeks a separate black state somewhere on American soil. The thinking is since blacks are enduring victims of white tyranny, the only hope lies in separation to their own nation, to be masters of their own destiny with their own god.
The coping strategy of the separatist worldview is of course, isolation. In isolation, the separatist idealizes himself no longer dominated by the white man. While for a minority of victimized, angry, frustrated, fed up and proud black males this worldview has a tantalizing appeal, the majority has respectfully declined to adopt it. Even those who are not Christians have a deep concern about the righteousness and wisdom of black separation into isolation. Christians of the Bible know that as He did with ancient Judah in bringing them to Babylon, so the One, true God has brought blacks to the Western Hemisphere with a plan (Jeremiah 29:1-14). To resist in pride is foolish, futile and self-destructive (Proverbs 16:18).
Blacks holding the conformist worldview go to the other extreme. They think that since they cannot beat the apparent might of the white race, they may as well join them! As a result they embrace every form of thinking, doctrine, attitude and behavior that will curry white favor. The conformist copes with being black in a white world by being accommodating in every way. He deceives himself into believing his black skin and features are somehow cloaked by his total sell out to all things white. Daniel, in the Bible book carrying his name, clearly shows He understood God´s instruction to the Jews was to submit to their captivity, not abandon Him or their heritage.
Cool pose is a worldview possessed and acted out of by many young (and not a few wanna be young) black urban males. I talked and walked a form of it in my days before coming to Christ. It is a worldview that has its similitude in the tough, "rebel without a cause" attitude youth in many cultures of the world might display. However, the black male in his cool pose worldview sees himself as a rebel with a cause; the cause to skillfully out maneuver his oppressor´s attempts to take every bit of his dignity, self-respect and manhood.
Cool pose appeared in and has been purposely refined from slavery by black males as a unique means of functioning among themselves and whites. According to the authors of a book entitled, Cool Pose, classic American virtues have not yielded the same rewards for black males. As a result they have historically been angry, frustrated, embittered and alienated. The cool pose worldview has evolved as a major black male response.2 This response is more caught than taught.
Cool pose is the victimized black male once again surviving but this time it´s about his inner self. Through this worldview, he gives himself entitlement and permission to protect his soul from discovery and harm. Central to the arsenal of weapons the black male uses to protect himself and his coping strategy in the cool pose worldview is masking. One such mask is the display of a cool pose--the look, talk and swagger "epitomizing control, strength and pride." 3 On the inside however, the cool posing black male "hides self-doubt, insecurity and inner turmoil" among other issues. 4
The cool pose thinking is "never let the white or any other man see you sweat or reveal who you really are on the inside." Frequently, among hostile whites and rival black males, escape or harm has hung in the balance of a well-performed act behind an appropriate mask. Cool pose has also allowed black males to develop their own cultural mannerisms and social customs apart from whites. Today´s rap culture, saturated with gang and sexual imagery, has taken cool pose to a new level and packaged it so that now kids across racial and socioeconomic lines have adopted it.
Though it is uniquely black and clever, cool pose and its coping strategy of masking are built on pride and deceit. These twin pillars of evil are never acceptable in the sight of God who dwells with the humble (Isaiah 57:15) and upholds the man of integrity (Psalm 41:12). Also, a man who wears a mask all the time will never know real intimacy and eventually forget who he really is. Cool pose is self-defeating.
2 Billson and Richard Majors and Janet Mancini, Cool Pose, The Dilemmas Of Black Manhood In America, (New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1993), p.1.
3 Ibid, p. 2.
4 Ibid, p. 5.
To Be Continued Next Issue
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