Alh,
I know you are not ignorant about sororities. I put you on the other side of the “or” in the sentence in my last post.
I agree with your support of skinny white blonde girls who want to attract guys. Those who judge these women negatively for their physical attributes and social goals are racist and sexist.
But not all of them ENGAGE in “systematic misogynistic behavior” or racist attitudes / beliefs.
For the hundredth time, different systems are different. I have no doubt that there are campuses / fraternities where it’s indeed all rich white boys who wouldn’t let one of them there Jewboys or n-words near them because what would daddy think. These are the same places where they are cleaning their shotguns and think that’s cool.
And there are OTHER places, where there IS diversity in background, race, religions, part of the country, political attitudes, etc. and where they ARE “good guys” who support one another and form friendships.
Why is it so very difficult for some of you to get this concept? It’s not a hard one. You evaluate each one as it comes.
It’s possible that before the internet few members of greek organizations had any idea what the rest of society thought about them. And maybe there was no reason for them to care. How greek organizations respond to all this recent negative publicity will probably be important, if they want society at large to have a positive opinion of them. If they don’t care what society thinks, no response is necessary. If a defense is seen as a useful exercise, it should be a positive, successful defense. Attacking detractors probably won’t do much good. imho. ymmv.
It’s hard not to be defensive when you know the negative stereotypes are not true in general. Like if your awesome kids were Engineering majors and people on CC who had no experience with Engineering majors were constantly berating them as nose-picking, socially incompetent nerds, just because there are some who fit that description. (I come from a family of engineers).
Well, I wish the “bad ones” (whether it’s racism, treatment of women, hazing, etc.) would clean their acts up because it causes people to unfairly tar the “good ones” with the brush of the bad ones. However, that doesn’t mean that people who lump them all together are justified or smart in their thinking.
It’s a waste of energy to be defensive all the time when subject to a variety of negative stereotypes. It is. You can either continue to bite and snap at those who believe stereotypes are true or provide a testimony that suggest the stereotype is untrue and keep it moving.
Bay, #123: Can we prove the negative stereotypes aren’t sometimes true? At what point does the negative outweigh the positive? Not for one person, because all of us probably had positive greek experiences, but at what point does our individual positive experience not justify the existence of the greek community?
There are some good fraternities. My son was in one. Your son is, or was, in one. PG’s son is in one. There are some bad fraternities. I don’t think those belonging to the good fraternities will be as disadvantaged by fraternities being eliminated as the victims of the bad fraternities have been disadvantaged by the actions of the bad fraternities. I think we are past the tipping point.
Forgive me for my sentence was not specific enough. I will correct it. I am not debating or playing with the idea that stereotypes are just “made up” or appear out of thin air.
It’s a waste of energy to be defensive all the time when subject to a variety of negative stereotypes. It is. You can either continue to bite and snap at those who believe stereotypes are true for an entire group or provide a testimony that suggests that isn’t the case and keep it moving.
It says more about a person who believes stereotypes and takes no initiative to seek out if it is true or not than those who the stereotype is about.
Frequently, especially when recurring discussions like this one takes place in a small group such as CC, both sides become burned out and frustrated when they continually defend their position. It doesn’t hurt to step back and take a break when need be and recollect. Someone will pick up the slack.
Alh,
I did not argue that the negative stereotypes are not sometimes true. I met some douchey fraternity guys and bratty sorority girls in college, but I also met plenty of those types who were not Greeks. The system is a reflection of the age-group at large, in my opinion.
I don’t see the “no worse than society at large” as a very good defense. I thought greek organizations were supposed to be positive forces. If they are an easy place for the douchey guys and bratty girls to find their like minded contemporaries and nothing more, I really don’t have a problem closing them down. And that has nothing to do with eliminating social hierarchies. Though I don’t find social hierarchies a positive in campus culture.
I have to take a break now from this discussion. As Niquii points out, there are always others ready to join the conversation.
I don’t think your opinion of “positivity” is or should be relevant to whether they exist. All that is important is that no one will ever force you or your family to join one, again or ever.
Being one of the few men of color who post here, I will again preface by saying, relative to my experience I do find it to systemic. Speaking again from my own personal experience, I was straight up told by a couple houses (because the members were drunk and within the confines of their own environment) they would not accept a black person. Further, if one were to do a capitation of sexual assault relative to the general student population and you would see statistically much higher numbers. Or the paltry numbers of people of color–for it to be a systemic problem does not mean it has to be a formal agenda item or discussed; it is like most things in life reflected by the actual numbers and outcomes.
And my son’s house has all races, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc. so now what does that prove?
This is like saying “a black man once stole my wallet, so therefore blsck men are all bad.” Would that fly?
I think I shall call it King’s Law…yes.
I’m speaking of the total numbers and the dearth of improvement on said numbers over the decades–they are telling. Would you take the posture and tone with the mother of a young lady assaulted at a fraternity? Or maybe you didn’t catch that little ditty sang on the bus in OK, or the comments of their house mom?
And please don’t misconstrue my words–I never said once "“all are bad”–where did you get that from? I said on a relative cost benefit analysis, prefaced against my own personal experiences and statistics, they have outlived their purposes.
Treatment of women???Maybe those type of niceties helpyou reconcile the actual horrific things that have happened, but excuse me plainly --it’s rape, sodomy, gang-rape, serial photographing and video taping of passed out coeds, some during the course of sex…treatment of women, way to underplay the most violent and brutal of crimes.
What does that have to do with the “good” ones who would never engage in such behavior?
Missed this thread from the start. I usually don’t respond when these anti-frat threads are started but I guess it’s time. My son joined a fraternity. He had ZERO interest in doing so when he went off to college and thought poorly of the whole concept of fraternities. However, the fraternity came after him and persuaded him to join. His fraternity permitted absolutely NO hazing of any kind. They consistently had the highest quarterly GPA on campus of any group. They did charitable good works, raising money for worthy organizations. They did not engage in the type of behavior that has been described earlier in this thread. The fraternity proved to be a wonderful place for my son to make good friends with guys I know he’ll stay in touch with for many years to come. Please don’t paint all frats with a broad brush. There are many “good guys,” like my son, 
who are fraternity brothers.
It’s telling you never address, face-on, the binary numbers, that reflect significant and serious problems with the system. As I will say for the umpteenth time, I never said “all frats” which you presumptuously placed in my mouth, however when you have more than a few major college Presidents saying that need to reconsider this entire issue-it speaks volumes.
From everything I’ve read, there are no stats showing higher rates of sexual assault or rape by fraternity men. If you have them, please bring them, as it would be important news. The only stat I’ve seen posted on this site is University of Minnesota’s sexual assault report in another thread, which actually showed lower rate of assault for fraternities than the general population for several years. There is also the “3 times higher” study, which is bogus in the sense that it contains no data on actual rapes whatsoever, just interview results of freshmen men at one college, but is often cited and should not be.