Alpha Phi and a racial slur...again???
 

https://oklahoman.com/article/564184...ng-use-of-slur

Isn't this the same chapter that was in national media a few years ago because a member dressed in black face?

This is horrid. National leadership needs to make sweeping changes in SO many areas of operation.

This one feels particularly icky - previous incidents have been single members and snapchat or instagram posts, which you could argue as just a couple of bad eggs that have been removed. However this was two organizations using a slur as a team name in a public charity soccer tournament. Yuck

I just sent a fucking SCATHING letter to EO. I am sick of this fucking bullshit and the silence coming from EO. They need to get off their asses and do something - because obviously there is something in our recruiting, new member or programming that is not only encouraging this, but seeking it out.


I encourage all Alpha Phis to let EO know that you want them to take some harsh action for a change and actually do something - including an internal review of not only our programs (yes, including all their shiny new ones), but also of the people in charge of reviewing these incidents and the entire recruitment team of the organization.


The fact I hear about this on social media and not from EO saying "Hey, this awful thing happened recently and this is how we dealt with it" is gross.


Something is broken.

Bbbut...”Innovation!”

The article is actually unclear what role Alpha Phi played in the incident.

Let’s see if I read this correctly- it was a soccer team comprised of a group of Kappa Sigs and 1 Alpha Phi.
That name is sooooooo clearly, plainly, disgusting racist. I still struggle with condemning the entire chapters for the acts of a few (booting individuals, hell yes).
That said, Jen, I would love to read the scathing letter to EO, as silence is not the appropriate response here and my heart breaks for what you and your sisters have been dealing with with your EO.

The article also mentions the event was an Alpha Phi sponsored charity event and it was other students at the event that called for the student conduct investigations. The exact process for naming a team in this event is unclear in the article but the Student Government seems confident that they did the right thing in suspending both organizations and even goes as far as saying the student vote is enough to call for the closure of both chapters if they decline to suspend operations. I don’t know how valid that claim is but they do seem to believe it goes beyond just the single member on the team in question.

The article is kind of a mess. There are 2 separate racist situations being covered. One involves students and the other involves staff.

I basically said I'd like to see a zero tolerance policy, charters yanked, members kicked out etc when this shit happens. Also, that they need to get off their asses and DO something.

I said I don't feel comfortable donating money to the sorority any longer, because I have no idea what I'm supporting. Am I giving a scholarship to a white supremacist? Backing a program that's turning out racists like an assembly line?

I want EO to stop being wishy washy with lame apologies at best and at worst, silence which is complicity. I want them to stand up and DO something. You know ... show some character, which is supposed to be part of the new values programming.

I wrote over 20 recs this year. Three of those recs (so far) have gone Alpha Phi and two of those PNMs are women of colour.

I am terrified of what kind of organization I just recommended them into.

I am so, so angry.

It was one Alpha Phi and they picked an inappropriate name for a team. I am not sure why your post is so dramatic? I don't think this very poor judgement call by one individual is akin to white supremacy and nationals supporting one. I honestly think you should have more respect for your national officers and not trash them like this on social media. Sending them an email, calling them personally, volunteering to be on a committee on the national level are all better options than talking like this about your organization on a public forum.

This article at least discusses only the APhi/ KSig incident. Students involved do not appear to have been disciplined just yet.

https://kfor.com/2019/09/25/ocu-soro...er-tournament/

I think you might be remembering a black face incident by a University of Oklahoma DDD member back in January.


Blackface at University Oklahoma

No, in 2015 a member dressed as Jay-Z in blackface at a party.

ETA: Beat me to it!

Did I tell y’all that I love my little? She rocks.
I was on the way to the airport when I heard about this :mad:

Or maybe she was thinking of Alpha Phi January 2019 at Old Dominion University? OCU...ODU? :(

Link: https://www.wavy.com/news/old-domini...t-allegations/

I don't want to jump to conclusions but...are we to assume that nobody outside of the team members heard about the name of this team before the tournament? That there were no "come out and support team abc!" type announcements that usually take place in advance of events like these? That the teams weren't registered in advance, and all of this happened on the fly?

Because that is hard to believe. And that also means that nobody said a THING. That's really really horrifying.

I commented on a FB post EO made asking them to publicly address this issue which is in the media and totally public news.

Guess what they did?

Hid the post so no one could see it.

:( :mad: :(

Jen, I hurt for you, and every other Alpha Phi.
Sadly, it could have been so many other GLOs, but I would still rather see a better response from EO.

I was hopeful when the ED contacted me by email yesterday wanting to chat by phone. Since I can't do phone (gives me panic attacks), I said I was glad to talk via email more. So we'll see.

There's still been no acknowledgement that this happened though, and on a campus that had a previous incident. It's really disappointing.

I went to OCU for law school.

Their undergrads tend to be very white and very sheltered. That's not so much of an excuse as it might be an explanation. Kristen Chenoweth is an alumna--and she's pretty representative of the student body.

As far as the "previous incident," are you sure that was at OCU and not OU? They're about 30 minutes away from each other, but easy to confuse.

And to make things even more confusing, my bachelor's was at UCO, where we have had zero incidents of this nature.

martha1872 posted a link to an article about a blackface incident at OCU involving Alpha Phi in 2015.



It's this one - https://okcfox.com/news/local/outrag...ensive-costume


So this is the second racist incident at the campus I've seen and the second where Alpha Phi is involved in some fashion (enough so that the school called for a suspension of the Alpha Phi chapter).



Here's another (better written) article about the most recent event - https://kfor.com/2019/09/25/ocu-soro...er-tournament/


My favourite part is "News 4 reached out to local and national chapters of Alpha Phi and Kappa Sigma and we haven’t heard back."


Haha, of course you haven't heard back. If members can't get answers, why would anyone else? (They'll come out with a statement as soon as more news outlets report on this, I'm sure ... )

Since I am not an Alpha Phi, I have been hesitant to comment. Yes, I am shocked at the number of horrible incidents of collegiate women flexing their power to degrade others they see as weaker than themselves. (To me the true measure of a person is how they treat those with less power, is it with helpfulness / kindness or is it to manipulate / degrade?) This is the 21st century, shouldn’t we be behind this??
So, Alpha Phi wanted to increase their presence and be the most sought-after sorority on campus (as we all do) so decided the most straightforward route is to recruit on looks. Afterall collegiate men usually only seek out beautiful women and “GreekRank” intensifies this. (See the missive about University of Michigan recruitment that showed a case where a lovely and very accomplished young woman, who most of the chapter wanted, was denied membership by the HQ staff member because she wasn’t pretty enough.)
Unfortunately, there is a higher percentage of entitled and “mean girls” in the beautiful young women category. So, now several chapters had had to contend with the consequences. And the consequences of closed chapters and unflattering PR have not been enough to promote a culture change. While there have been a number of closed chapters, Alpha Phi continues to be chosen for extension frequently. (I just saw APhi will present at Randolph Macon.) So, none of this has hurt Alpha Phi with PNMs (this is not surprising as the pull of being in a “top” group outweighs almost everything to an 18-year-old.) However, I would have hoped that being chosen for extension would entail College administrators having a voice (at least on who is invited to present) and they would not want the potential headache of an organization giving voice to racists or “mean girls”.
So, as sad as this is, I cannot see the situation changing until Alpha Phi HQ feels negative consequences in terms of numbers (i.e. not being selected for extension opportunities, fewer PNMs highly ranking APhi chapters.)

I'm a grown ass adult who has been around a bit and lived in many places. At the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, I have never heard this particular racist term before. If something including this term had come my way for approval, I wouldn't have known any better. So, I've learned a valuable lesson to check out all terms online before approving anything in the future. But it also makes me wonder if those involved understood what the term meant.

However, Alpha Phi's failure to address this issue (again) is inexcusable. I am in full agreement with others here that something is very broken there, and they don't seem to give a flying fuck about it as long as they remain the hot girls.

^^Nowadays it’s better safe than sorry. If you refer to a “yard ape” in this neck of the woods, you mean a bratty child. But that is not what it means everywhere. So yeah, Google is your friend.

Quoting for truth!

You guys have every right to be ferociously pissed. I'm so sorry.

Well well well

https://www.instagram.com/friendinheaven/

^^^I’m glad to see whoever set up this IG account is working to seek change and also bring awareness to these issues. BTW for anyone who reads this post I’m not an Alpha Phi, nor do I have any involvement with this IG account. I am going to follow to help them get traction though.

I wish I was smart enough to come up with it. I commented on a pic that it would have been an AMAZING campaign if the fraternity had done it themselves. But no. I guess that's asking too much.

But I wouldn't know since no one has contacted me after their initial offer to chat :/

WHOA.

WOW.

BOLD MOVE, BUT I LIKE IT.

It's VERY well done.

Sororitysock- I haven't heard this term in DECADES!!! I asked around to several of my American friends through Facebook, and most of them had either never heard it, or hadn't heard it in so long that they had forgotten it even existed.

It makes me wonder if the girls had ever heard the term before, or even had an inkling of what it meant. Would it even occur to them to research the origin of the term? Did they think it was something along the lines of Brass Monkey? And if the person registering the teams in the Greek Life office for the event was a student on work-study, she had probably never heard of it either.

I'm not sure that immediately castigating these kids before an investigation has occurred is entirely fair. I am interested in finding out more about this entire situation before jumping on the girls. But too, I am always being Devil's advocate. I think it's just very sad that these girls' reputations, and their sorority's reputation, has been damaged by something so preventable as picking a benign name for a team! Use your sorority's mascot, or something related to your sorority, as the team name.

This situation was sooooooooooo avoidable!

I never heard the term until one of my college sons overheard a friend's California girlfriend saying that friends at home said she should use it.

Y'all know I'm from Birmingham, Alabama....I can assure you that if anyone uses the word "monkey" they better be talking about the ones in the Birmingham Zoo or else it will be hell to pay. NOT acceptable in this town.

I can understand maybe not having heard the term before. However... I've been in enough rec sports leagues in my life -where we've had to come with a team name - to know that when someone throws out a suggestion, people either understand the name immediately, or there are questions.

If you were on a team and someone threw out a name like the one this team used, your 18-year-old self wouldn't question why it was funny or a really cool name? And these young people all have smartphones in their pockets. I find it really hard to believe that everyone was clueless.

Exactly!! Like I can understand naming teams after stupid inside jokes and such but unless there was an incident where a bunch of actual primates were on the Alpha Phi house’s actual lanai, it’s a great big no.

Hahahahaha! Trying to imagine this, maybe some chimps escaped from a circus and attacked the house screened porch--

Given the public reveal of alleged pressure from APhi Nationals to focus on looks above other traits (this made the national news and was also talked about on GC, so I don’t think it falls under MS? I’m not an APhi, though), could that be driving the seemingly increased numbers of racist scandals coming from APhi chapters? I.e., the pressure to put such an extreme value on looks be pushing some PNMs to the “bid” side when those women would have previously been screened out for character concerns?