I don’t know, you can sit there and claim that all frats and sororities are as open and kind and loving as anything but that is not in the realm of many people’s experience.
To list a few of my own:
We were part of a south asian association.
We have had resources taken away from us, that we reserved weeks in advance, because the frat boys needed them. The Friday before, sometimes.
There was clear and obvious favoritism towards the frats by the Powers That Be.
And non-whites or non-blacks just didn’t join them. We weren’t welcome, and it was made quite clear to us that we should go and join our own organizations.
A significant portion of the troubles, the underage drinking, the crimes on campus, the sexual assaults, came from the frats.
Like someone else said, all of the graffiti was from frats.
Now I am not going to name my alma mater, nor the frats involved. Why? Because I don’t care that much and was never interested in joining one anyway. But the more I hear about it the more it seems to me it’s only good if you’re on the inside. Other people’s experiences match up close to mine.
So I think you can defend your own but you still won’t change people’s minds. I see no good to come of them, really. I think there are better ways you can form up into groups. But let them continue to be, for what little I care.
My experience at the University of Tennessee was that a couple of frats made the rest look bad. Whenever something got written up in the campus paper the culprits were inevitably Sig Eps or ATOs. Fights, house raids or any other mischief usually seemed to come back to them. I hung out at other frat houses and found the atmosphere generally welcoming. One of my good buddies was Delta Tau Delta. His house had some knuckleheads in it but, on the whole, was a nice (if somewhat unkempt) place to hang out and shoot pool.
That being said, another of my good friends was ATO at Belmont in Nashville. They were almost the exact opposite of ATO in Knoxville. They were good guys (with a couple of obligatory knuckleheads). My brother-in-law was a Sig Ep at the University of Memphis, I want to say Sigma Phi Epsilon but I could be wrong. That was one of the coolest houses I’ve ever visited.
I really don’t think it’s any different from an Army platoon or a theater company. People create a tight-knit group where exclusion is a part of its identity. Social networking is a vital life skill. Greek life hones that skill.
If you don’t like the Greeks go form your own club.
Oh noes! The poor, oppressed Greek system! Why ever would anybody develop a negative attitude of such a fine organization filled with such brilliant humanitarians? Must be pettiness and jealousy. That’s the only answer that makes any sense. Same reasons people talk shit about Wal-Mart and G.W. Bush, no doubt.
So it is in many cases nothing more than thinly-veiled racism, even if you rationalize it as “we’re not going to let that black guy in because he won’t fit in well.” Exaclty how many black members were there in your fraternity at U of F?
I think this is BS. The decision as to who “naturally fits in” is made by the GLO, not the applicant. The applicant may truly feel they “naturally fit in” with the pretty popular girls, but if the pretty popular girls disagree, she’s SOL. On some southern campuses where Greek life is A Very Big Deal, some candidates – especially girls – have been know to LEAVE SCHOOL if they don’t get a bid from the “right” sorority or fraternity. Now, private organizations, they are free to associate with whomever they want. But as a personal matter, if you can choose to associate chiefly or solely with others that look like you and act like you, I can choose to think less of you on that basis.
Well, golly gee, I wonder why not! Might it have something to do with WEARING CONFEDERATE UNIFORMS? I love this thinking – hey, black guys! Not comfortable with us wearing 140 year old uniforms to our formal, from the side that fought to retain slavery? Guess that’s your problem and not ours – you “don’t fit in.” For cripes sake, how about making an effort to be inclusionary instead of overtly exclusionary? Wouldn’t that help with the whole problem of continued de facto segregation?
AFAICT, especially in the South, the “sound reasons for not bidding” include race and socio-economic status and the “thought that goes in to each choice” includes race and socio-economic status, and there’s nothing “natural” about it. There is a lot of space between “we must give EVERY applicant a bid” and “we don’t bid to minorities, ever.”
The vast majority of white southern Greek chapters discriminate based on race – I don’t think a serious argument can be made that they do not. Do black GLO also discriminate based on race? Yes, but the BGLO were formed as a direct result of black students’ inability to get in to the existing (white) Greek system. Both southern and northern Greek chapters are clique-ish and exclusionary. They work to set apart certain subsets of students based on socio-economic status. Frequently they are vehicles for drunkeness and bad behavior. AFAICT, they encourage look-alike-dress-alike-think-alike mentalities, as opposed to independent thought; as such IMO they are not consistent with the larger goals of going to a university.
I have seen very little to recommend the Greek system either to me personally or as an entity or ideal. If universities abolished the Greek system entirely tomorrow, I would think it was a good idea. That is not to say I think less of specific individuals for going Greek, but IME the Greeks that I have liked (and there are lots) I’ve liked for who they are as people, not because they’re Greek or because I think being Greek has improved them. I dont’ think it’s my job to disapprove of other people’s choices – but neither do I have to applaud them. If that makes me a mean ol’ anti-Greek baddy, fine with me. I don’t care for the system and I’m not required to pretend I do. You think it’s the best thing since sliced bread? Fine, but your opinion isn’t mine.
I’m a little disappointed to see stereotypes being perpetuated, but can’t blame folks if they’re relating their experience. I just wanted to stress again that the Greek system can provide a wide variety of experiences, and it’s definitely not a “one size fits all” proposition. In my own fraternity, chapters spanning colleges all over the country have markedly different experiences, depending in large part on the culture of the school where the chapter is located, the composition of the folks involved and more.
I think it’s silly to insinuate that everyone who rushes a Greek organization does it because they’re seeking validation from their peers. If that were the case, everyone would rush the most popular GLO on campus, instead of rushing a number of them. There are plenty of reasons to want to rush, including wanting to be a part of an organization that provides outlets for philanthropic activities, a compelling social calendar of organized events, and the support of a national organization that provides a number of bennies. (For instance, while at Delt, I participated in a federally-funded training program that gave me the skills to counsel fellow Delts on alcohol abuse.)
Also, while I agree that GLO’s aren’t necessary for social networking, they certainly do help. Our Rush would help develop skills that most members would use in job interviews and other important social interactions. I fail to see why it’s “humiliating,” unless you’re confusing Rush with pledgeship, in which case I’d say that pledge programs vary from organization to organization and from university to university. Not every pledge program humiliates the people seeking to join the organization.
Now, that’s painting with a really big brush. I saw a lot of differences beyond superficial ones when I went to school. And I don’t buy the argument that clique-ish behaviors are necessarily encouraged. Our fraternity in particular was pretty inclusive. Most of our parties were open. We mixed well with just about every other fraternity on campus and I counted people in other fraternities among some of my best friends in college.
Dues aren’t a prerequisite for people hanging out together. They’re what keeps the chapter going. They fund events, meals, operating expenses and such. During my entire Greek experience, I never once felt pressure to not hang out with people who hadn’t paid dues to the chapter, whether those folks were GDIs, members of other organizations or fellow brothers who decided they didn’t want to be part of the formal organization anymore.
Aside from events and things where we encouraged folks to wear their letters or the fraternity coat of arms, I can’t think of any instance where somebody pressured me to dress a certain way. That’s just silly. Even more silly are the comments about partying a certain way or befriending only certain people, in my experience.
That’s not the case at my campus. Most of the Student Government officers here are not Greeks.
The rest of my point is that Greeks are not the be-all and end-all of either campus life or community service. I’ve known campus leaders (myself included) who learned a hell of a lot more about leadership by participating in other campus organizations than by joining a fraternity/sorority, because in addition to leadership, we’ve also learned how to truly respect diversity and to be as inclusive as possible, not by riding herd over a bunch of people exactly like us.
Bullshit. The friends I’ve made over the four years of my educational experience are also lifelong friends. I’ve also made significant contacts with alumni for professional networking purposes. So I’m not buying the line that the best bonds are with initiated brothers.
But if you’ve convinced yourself that the best way to live is the Greek way to live, then have at it.
That’s the other thing. At my college, all of the student government as well as the Council that sat over the other organizations were both comprised of Greeks. That’s some awful grammar but I think it’s understandable.
Bolding mine - this are the best bonds there are to have, when you graduate and want a cushy guaranteed job right out of school at your ‘brother’'s dad’s company/law firm/bank/brokerage; that’s ultimately what going Greek is all about, no?
I am a member of a men’s social fraternity, one already mentioned in this thread as a trouble maker at another campus. I was also on academic scholarship all three and a half years of college, I was a two term Student Government Association Senator, I was the president of the Student Government Association my junior year, I graduated from the Honors Program cum laude, I attended a top tier law school from which I also graduated with honors and I am currently a senior associate at a large law firm and a candidate for vestry at my church. Of my closest brothers in the fraternity, one is an investment banker with Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, one a professional athlete, one is the editor of a major salt water fishing publication, one is the president of a multinational citrus concern, several are managers at big four firms and many, many more are doctors and lawyers. While in school these men were campus leaders. Many of these same men were Division I Academic All-Americans in college. None of them have, to my knowledge, ever raped someone, started a fight or picked on someone smaller. One of my brothers has since “come-out” and has been accepted lovingly by his friends – we were waiting, it was obvious. Some my fraternity brothers are the worst people you will ever meet – shallow, bigoted, mean drunks who have abandoned their families in search of a second adolescence. The letters they wore on their chests in college did not make them this way. To deny the influence of members of Greek communities on American society is willful ignorance. To cast all Greeks, or the system itself, as inherently bad is the product of the sort of unexamined thought that calls the thinker’s intellect into question.
THespos, with respect, I wonder that you don’t see the irony in these statements:
“For instance, while at Delt, I participated in a federally-funded training program that gave me the skills to counsel fellow Delts on alcohol abuse.”
The national benefit of “training” you receved was how to counsel your fraternity brothers (only, one assumes) on alchohol abuse.
“And I don’t buy the argument that clique-ish behaviors are necessarily encouraged. Our fraternity in particular was pretty inclusive. Most of our parties were open. We mixed well with just about every other fraternity on campus and I counted people in other fraternities among some of my best friends in college.”
Your idea of non-cliquish behavior is “some of my best friends were in other fraternities.”
I think I need a several of these: :dubious: :dubious: :dubious: :dubious:
My experience with frat sounds pretty much the same as a lot of people on here. I have no doubt that some of them do some good things, but most of what I saw was bad.
The frats at my university were either organization specific, like the engineering frat, or just the regular kind. The engineering frat was just a group of engineers that lived together and sometimes did stuff with the other frats, there wasn’t any of the ceremony or other stuff like the regular frats.
I lived down the street from frat row, and had to walk past them to get home. I hated walking home during rush week. Groups of buttmonkeys wandering around throwing beers at people or houses, parties with music loud enough to fracture concrete, cars/houses/people defaced. Every single year. Apparently it was a tradition to set the Sig Ep house on fire, because it happened four times that I know of.
The greek organizations all seemed to have a ‘We’re greek get the hell out of our way peon’ kind of attitude. They expected to be able to commandeer things simply by announcing that they were with $greek_org. And the school would back them. They could do no wrong. I was a member of an official school group that used a certain set of rooms in a certain building every Saturday. It had been that way for decades. There was an ‘unofficial’ greek event in an auditorium near that building on a Sunday, which left the place trashed. We got blamed, and had to raise holy hell just to get anyone to listen to us, and get the huge cleanup and repair bill deflected. The officials wouldn’t listen to us that it was a greek event, they kept insisting that we had no evidence. Nevermind that they didn’t have any evidence that we had done it.
I think the thing that bothered me the most about greek organisations was the amount of control they exerted over the people I saw in them. I had some friends freshmen year who went greek, and after a while they just stopped doing things with us. We would ask them about doing something, and they would always reply something like ‘Oh, I cant that day, $greek_thing’. The frat just took over their whole lives. The either wouldn’t socialize with people outside the frat, or didn’t have time to.
I realize not all greek orgs are bad, but I just didn’t see a lot to recommend them when I was there.
And, not to Robyn personally, but doesn’t GDI seem just a bit, oh I don’t know, goofy as all fuck to you? Goddamn Independent? Guess what Goddamn Independent, you can’t goddamn spell, because goddamn is one goddamn word, but I guess GI was already taken.
KA’s Alpha chapter was at Washington & Lee (where I went to school). Granted, I was there from 1990-1994, but I remember seeing the confederate uniforms and the women dressed in the Gone With The Wind dresses. When I attended school, an invitation to Old South was considered a high honor. Don’t know how it is today.
I thought it was a remarkably stupid idea (at the time and now). Back in the day, my fraternity got together with two others and threw a “Sherman’s March to the Sea” party on the same weekend as Old South. Didn’t really rile the KAs too much, but they definitely didn’t like the T-shirts, which pictured a basketball scoreboard on the back with “North - 1, South - 0” featured prominently.
Nor did the letters on your chese make you a high-achiever (although big gold star for being a senior associate at a large law firm and vestry candidate), nor did they make your friends bankers, editors, athletes, doctors, and lawyers. So what? Unless you’d like us to assume the great positive influence of a fraternity in your life, while discounting the negative influence of a fraternity in the lives of your less successsful “brothers”?
I don’t actually think they have a large influence on “American society” – fortunately. I do think that what influence they do have is on balance a negative, not a positive.
Ah, yes: “I’m right and you’re stupid” – always a winner of an argument. :rolleyes: I do think the Greek system is on balance a negative social construct. It promotes exclusion and clique-ish behavior based on at best socio-economic status. It may have provided benefits to you as an individual, or to your “brothers,” but there is precious little indication it provides a larger societal benefit. Now, maybe you’d like to call my intellect into question for concluding this, but that doesn’t means that I’m wrong.
Oh, come on. Are you serious? “Goddamn” may be one word in your world, but it isn’t in mine. And if the spelling of “goddamn” bothers you, then you may consider that “GDI” stands for “God Damned Independent.” Beyond which – the best critcism you have for “GDI” is that IYO they’re spelling it wrong? Because, hey, the Greek letters you identify yourself with may be meaningless, but at least you’ve spelled them correctly!
Allow me to clarify on the alcohol training thing… At the time, we were cautioned not to use the skills we learned outside the organization for liability reasons. That doesn’t stop that training from being valuable to me, or from being part of a shared experience.
Also, I don’t see what’s wrong with rebutting the notion that fraternities promote cliquish behavior by saying that I was friends with people in other fraternities. I probably should have qualified this by saying that nearly every male on campus went through Rush (96% when I was a freshman) and that the school was close to 90% Greek overall at the time. So my frame of reference is a bit different from many other folks who might have lower percentages of Greek participation at their respective schools.
That said, most of my female friends were unaffiliated (fewer sororities on campus, and much less female participation in the Greek system). And I was friends with plenty of GDIs.
Because then 18-20 year olds would cease dressing the same, drinking too much, excluding others from their social groups, making bad decisions . . . to borrow from you I think I need a several of these: :dubious: :dubious: :dubious:
You don’t just think that maybe the kids in the post-Greek holocaust would form some sort of exclusive social organization to take the place of the now gone social fraternities? Nature hates a vacuum. Would you break those up too? Ever consider the constitutionality of this restriction on free association?
It seems to me the GDI crowd is guilty of the sin the lay at the feet of the Greeks, i.e. they want everyone else to be just like them in their rejection of conformity. How conformist.
Seriously, you’re being a raging ass. Maybe it doesn’t measure up to whatever lofty heights you’ve ascended to, but I was offering it as a counterpoint to the “all Greeks are drunk, underachieving assholes” mantra that’s created a din in this thread. Take your fucking gold star out for a drink, or better yet sell it and put the money toward buying a fucking personality you hoary bitch.
Remember, if you reply, I first said “member of Greek communities” had influence. With that said, so you don’t think Presidents and vice-presidents have an influence (24 and 17 Greeks, respectively), or leaders of industry (Forbes, Iacocca) or supreme court justices (Brennan, Ginsburg), or world renowned artists (O’Keefe) have had influence? Mind you, this is only a small sampling.
Not what I said. I said “all Greeks” and “inherently bad” not “on balance negative.” So far, it’s only your reading comprehension or your integrity vis-a-vis this argument that is in question.