Before We Were Colored

I attend The University of Alabama and in many aspects our Greek systems is somewhat elite. It’s like the way we do things are just different than other Greeks on other campuses. We’re known to have elaborate probates that we charge to get into, many of are Greeks amplify the stereotype of their organization, and when we see Greeks on other campus we are sometimes in disbelief in the things that are seen and done. In other ways it seems our system is really fucked up. The same problems and negative stereotypes manifest in generation to generation in a never ending cycle.

The other day I was a NPHC event and someone suggested that we all take a unity picture of all the Greeks. A silence literally fell over the room, and then there were sounds of disgust. People returned to eating and talking and the person interested in the picture continued to encourage the unity picture. Finally people finished eating and at her persistent pushing she got people to slowly to move towards the couches. It was really sad how long it took to take the picture. What was even worse was the tension that could be felt in the room. It was really that bad. Even in the unity picture the Greeks were still separate. True there was a lil intermixing, but only between the groups that don’t have social problems anyway. A lot of people didn’t want to participate in the picture because it would be fake. I’d have to agree with that point. It would be fake, because it doesn’t truly exist across all of NPHC.

What I don’t agree with is how prophites basically brainwash there neos to dislike the groups that they dislike. It’s almost like learning how to hate is unofficial part of their process. I understand that not everyone will get along, and I’ll admit that there are people that I don’t like that happened to be Greek. But that’s just it, I don’t like them…not their organization. People tend to assume that a person and their org are one and the same, and completely forget that they are individuals.

What’s amazing that people allow their personal beef to grow into chapter beef. Wait, I don’t even think they allow it to happen, they force it to happen. They go back to their prospective org’s and talk up the situation to make it much worse than it really was and getting everyone else wound up in the process. Now org A is ready to fight org B just because someone bumped into someone else at the club or someone looked at someone funny in the Ferg. Just sad.

But we weren’t always Greek. We didn’t always act like that. Yes people were still messy, and groups still beefed, but it wasn’t the same. The groups were smaller, the beef didn’t last as long. Most people’s freshman and sophmore’s they were friends with the people in the very org’s they’re feuding with. They were friends with the same people they are ready fight with now…and probably don’t even know the real reason they’re fighting.

It’s ridiculous how letters and influence changes people. People need to learn to think for themselves. To stand on their own. To allow letter and colors to just be that…letters and colors. To act like they did before we were colored.