Bravado in the Face of Insecurity

This post was inspired by Ta-Nehisi Coates’ (2015) discussion in Between the World and Me of the “fighting weather of early spring” (page 19), how “the first days of spring were laced with fear” (page 57), and the theme throughout his book about bodily control and policing.

It was about 10:30 am on a weekday, and walking toward me on the sidewalk were 3 teenage boys in school uniforms. Their baby faces and the signature blue track suits with the name of their school printed on the back revealed them to be in high school. One was smoking, his cigarette expertly resting between his forefinger and middle finger, his hoodie pulled up just past his ears so that his delicately gelled and combed hair was exposed. He had a fashionable chin beard—the kind that is not grown on the cheeks, but very thin along the jawline and on his chin. All three were swaggering like gangsters that owned the place, all three with unlaced Timberland-style boots.

In the spring, the teenage boys start showing their faces on the streets late at night again. Walking together in groups, young boys of 13 and 14 swagger past me with cigarettes between their fingers, Nike high tops and leather jackets, laughing with their arms around each other. In their coolness, I see only the cruel need to grow up faster than is age appropriate. Perhaps because their mother is over-burdened—whether from poverty, patriarchy, or state oppression, or all three, it perhaps doesn’t matter why—they exude the need to be cool and independent; to own their space, to own the streets. They show a need to escape somehow the surrounding Chinese oppression of everything else in their life, talking loudly in Uyghur in front of the Chinese police they know can’t understand them, putting on airs of bravado amongst the reality that they have no control over what happens to them or their bodies. They openly make fun of the Kitay: laughing loudly and hysterically at the Chinese soldiers being forced to do push-ups in the street. Perhaps because they know that the Han officers carrying the rifles could take their lives if they wanted to, they cannot help but laugh at their ridiculous appearance, making fun of their slinty eyes, calling them ugly, dirty, godless dogs.

Are displays of teenage masculinity and rebelliousness an important part of creating a distinct culture here? They are definitely different from the more effeminate Han boys. But is this related to trying to create a distinct cultural identity and recognizable social membership, or are they just insecure and rebellious against authority as most teen boys are, especially in the midst of instability and uncertainty in most spheres of life?