So according to Bird "they started their own clubs (Crips and Bloods, 2008). This is a perfect example of Cool pose a term described in the book titled "Cool Pose" ,"Cool pose is constructed from the attitudes and actions that become firmly entrenched in the black male's psyche as he adopts a facade to ward off the anxiety of second-class status" (Majors and Billson, pg. 27). Instead of accepting the feeling of rejection and hurt for not being accepting, they masked it by forming their own club. A club they knew they would be accepted in. Ron Wilkins explains "the gangs made me feel like I had an identity, sense of family and a sense of acceptance". Those are things they could not find in society, so they went against society. Not only did America keep blacks out of their clubs but also out of white neighborhoods ,this was done with violence and fear by the Los Angeles Police Department. .
Bird tells the story "I was in the wrong neighborhood just walking and the policed stopped me, asked what I was doing in this neighborhood and said I looked like a robbery" (Crips and Bloods, 2008). This is all too common to young black males. Basically police are telling them they are not good enough to be around white neighborhoods. According to Dr. Todd Boyd, "The LAPD was run like a military at war and their enemies was blacks" (Crips and Bloods, 2008). Now the blacks were fighting a war they did not even know they were in. "Watts, the part of Los Angeles that the blacks lived is surrounded by rich neighborhoods that blacks were not allowed to visit without harassment from the LAPD" (Crips and Bloods 2008). This is a very difficult to deal with always been told that you are inferior to every other race. The black males could not show that their feelings were hurt or that they were bothered by this, this is another form of Cool pose, "For many black males cool pose is a way to say "You might break my back but not my spirit" (Majors and Billson pg.