Week 10

A few days ago, I saw a Twitter trend about racist declarations that a Southern Methodist University sorority made about African American pledges. After seeing so many similar incidents over the past few years, I was actually surprised to see that nothing has changed in the Greek system. I know it’s not fair too blame the entire Greek system for someone else’s ignorant comments, but such blatant racism in fraternities and sororities is getting really old and we should be past such narrow thinking and ignorance.
In an anonymous post on Greek Rank, a sorority member at SMU laid out a list of reasons why “black women do not and will not get bids.” They start off by calling Black women racist for creating their own sororities which is one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. Then they go on to attack their appearance, personality, and reproduce stereotypes about their background, wealth, and education. The last point in the post says that they only accept a few black girls for the sake of being diverse.

The post lists all of these reasons of why Black women would not fit into a sorority, but in reality minorities have never been treated fairly in the first place. The people in the sorority who have the power to choose are the ones who not welcoming of people of color because they have a preconceived idea of who they are as people.

Before I came to USC, my mom really wanted me to join a sorority to meet people and enjoy all of the opportunities that come with it. I was slightly interested, but seeing the underrepresentation of minorities turned me away. In a way, I felt intimidated by Greek life because I thought that I would always be the outsider or the odd one out. I never rushed, but mostly because I was scared to face any potential discrimination or rejection.
From my knowledge, sororities are supposed to be a place where so-called “sisters” engage in academic, social, and philanthropic activities, but it always looks like more of a exclusive social club where only the seemingly popular kids are accepted. I have friends who are minorities in sororities, but they’re always placed in the same in the same ones. The sororities that are considered the “top-tier” mostly consist of white girls, and the same goes for white guys in fraternities. Just as we saw with the racial slur hurled at Rini a few weeks ago, racism is still very much alive and well. I cannot believe that I’m still reading about incidents like these, but I’m glad that they are receiving national attention.