Last Monday, The Crimson White ran a letter to the editor, “Stop stereotyping the greek system’s view of race,” that felt very familiar to me. This is my ninth semester on this campus, and I swear that every semester there is a piece like the one to which the letter was responding, that complains about the current greek system’s racial biases. And every semester, there is an outraged response from someone in that system, who claims that they have been unfairly accused. I don’t often care about campus issues, but I will throw in my two cents here.
I am a GDI, but I have never had any real animus toward the greek system. I think block seating is a highly inefficient system and find the implicit racial barriers disturbing, but those are systemic issues, not the fault of each individual. I have friends in greek organizations, and have generally found greeks as individuals to be good people.
The quality of the people I know in white greek organizations makes the continued de facto segregation of these groups even more bizarre. I know that “segregation” will come across as a harsh term for some of you.
If you doubt my use of it, then I propose the following experiment: Pick one of your white friends in a greek house, go to a picture on their Facebook page from their last swap, and look for someone who isn’t white.
While I have been here long enough to know that it would be unfair to think of the majority of greeks as bigots, the most vehement racist sentiments that I have heard during my time here have come from members of fraternities.
For example, while attending the National Championship game this year, I expressed my displeasure with one of our players for a mental error. I believe that I unfairly called him an idiot. A drunken young man, who I did not know and whose specific fraternity affiliation I remember but will not reveal, responded, “That’s because he’s a nigger.” I cannot decide whether it is to my credit or my shame that my response was not harsh enough to cause my ejection. I will leave that to the reader.
What is clear is that his friends, if they disapproved, should have been vocal about their disapproval. That man’s opinions do not wind up associated with me, and I might have gotten into a fight. He might have listened to them, and they are associated with their friend’s opinions by their silence. That sentence was galling. It would certainly make me less likely to pledge, and I would imagine that nearly all young black men on this campus would be turned away by that. Anyone who cares about inclusion should be worried to be associated with this.
I am aware that all fraternities and sororities are nominally open to members of all races, and that some are more serious about inclusion than others. That does not matter. De facto, there is not much diversity. All greek organizations should actually accept members of all races, and they should be of such a character that members of all races feel comfortable enough to join. I do not know that we can write rules to make that happen, but we shouldn’t have to consider it.
I am certain that most students of any kind on this campus are not bigots. But if you want people to correctly surmise that you are not a bigot, then you should not be passive in the face of prejudice. Concretely, you need to police your own. When considering members of a group with whom you are associated, particularly if you are wearing the same letters as identification, you should be concerned with their self-expression.
If your compatriots say something awful, you should let them know that you do not agree, at a minimum. If you do not speak up, then you seem to agree with them. It is important to impose social penalties on people who do or say terrible things. It is a pointless act to tell me that you are not a bigot. Go out and prove it.
Leading in today’s Crimson White:
Murphy, team looking to make new identity in 2013
Women’s golf team must replace Pancake
Alabama basketball team still faces tough road toward NCAA tournament
