What to do if you spot a random guy wearing your letters?
 

Some time ago, 2 of my brothers told me they were in downtown Chicago and before they got onto a bus they spotted 2 random guys across the street wearing our national convention T-shirts with the *letters* Lambda Phi Epsilon on them. They were most likely not lambdas because they were African American and my bros didn't recognize them (I know of only probably five black brothers here in the midwest and none of them are in the Chicago or Evanston chapter).

My bros kinda just stood there shocked. They left a short time later when the bus came, and then told me about it. At first I wasn't very happy ("you didn't DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!"), but the more I thought about it, I realized that I wouldn't have known what to do either. They were most likely too stunned to think straight, and none of us were ever taught what to do in this situation.

Some weeks later, another group of my fellow lambdas spotted a mexican janitor lady in the cafeteria wearing our letters. Again they were at a total loss of what to do, and she was gone before they could even figure it out.

I pretty sure I know where they got them from, because our house was broken into in the winter, and in addition to every laptop and video game console we owned, a pile of our clothes including gear lying on the sofa was gone as well (I'm not accusing these guys for having stolen our stuff, but they most likely bought them or acquired them somehow from our burglars)

The real question is what do we do in these situations :confused::mad:? Before any of you accuse us of being too apathetic or passive, we were pretty ticked off, and typically wouldn't hesitate to deal with the person if he or she were a student. But random people are kinda different... especially since they most likely have no idea what those letters mean. What should we even demand from them? Tell them to take off the shirt? Tell them to return it to us? Or just educate them about the Greek system and that it is extremely disrespectful to wear our letters? I don't see how they would care at all, and if they paid good money for it there is no way they would return it just because some college kids told them to. And these are random people that we would not see again (regarding the janitor, none of us ever saw her before, and for some reason we never saw her later either. Though we may have tried talking to her if we did see her again) So then what? Should we beat them up, threaten them with legal action or something? (and I should point out that the two particular bros who were at downtown were pretty scrawny and physically unintimidating, so even that wouldn't work all the time :p )

Or should we just let it go, and try not to let it bother us?

btw, sorry if this issue had been discussed before, as I couldn't find it. And I know it has some similarities to the thread about former members wearing letters, but this situation is kinda different. (besides deactivation is extremely rare for us, and the ones that do are smart enough not to cause further drama by continuing to wear letters)
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I messed up the thread title.. it should be "What to do if you spot a random guy who is definitely not a member of your org wearing your letters"

Also, I didn't really give enough evidence about the first two guys not being lambdas. Bros told me they were dirty and looked like bums, and were certainly not young enough to be college students or recent graduates.

Of course, if they were wearing backpacks and looked like students, then we'd still try to greet them even if they were African American and we didn't recognize them

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I think you should just let it go. I've seen GLO stuff even in thrift shops, so I just don't think there's anything you can really do.

I don't know your policy on biological family wearing letters, but could she have been a fraternity brother's mother?

Nope. We're mostly Asian at our chapter, and any mexican brother from other chapters would probably tell us if his mom works in one of our cafeteria dorms.

We don't like it when non-lambdas wear letters and try to keep it from happening, unless of course a bizarre situation comes up. Like my mom took my line jacket to wear to work one day because it was raining very heavily and she was in a hurry and couldn't find her umbrella or raincoat. I knew it'd be kinda embarassing for a 50 yr old woman wearing my fraternity jacket with the word "hooters" on the back, but of course what am I gonna do, tell her to just go and get soaked :D ?

I certainly wasn't going to accuse you of being too apathetic or passive.

You ask: "What should we even demand from them? Tell them to take off the shirt? Tell them to return it to us? Or just educate them about the Greek system and that it is extremely disrespectful to wear our letters."

My thinking is that if you do any of these things, it is you who will appear to any observer to be extremely disrespectful. It certainly won't add to any positive public vibes about Greeks.

As for threatening legal action, good luck with that.

You said it yourself -- these people probably brought the shirts, and they probably have no idea where the shirts came from or what the letters on them mean. They're just glad to have some shirts that didn't cost them too much.

Be glad you can afford to buy some new shirts and move on.

I don't think that anyone likes it when non-members wear their letters, however, the truth of the matter is that there is really very little that you can do about it. There is really nothing stopping someone from going to somethinggreek.com and ordering a set of your letters.

No the beating up and legal action thing was a joke. :p

Heh..to add my own story, I work with several students in a research lab. One day, they were all talking about some "totally stereotypical frat guys behind [them] on the bus. They were wearing polos and khakis and were talking about Star Wars and how cool it is!"

First off, not only did they think a stereotypical frat guy is obsessed with Star Wars, but even though they knew I'm Greek they spent over half an hour talking crap about the system. THEN...the next day one of the girls came in wearing an NPC Recruitment shirt from Florida State! I asked her where she got it and she said, "I found it at a thrift shop in Florida. Why?"

The irony was astounding.

I think when you see someone wearing your letters who is more than likely not a Greek-- you let it go.

And then you go back to your chapter and remind members not to give away letter items to non-members or Goodwill. In the case of your house being broken into, there's little you can do except to take precautions like locking doors and setting alarms--- and making sure members keep their personal items safe.

And then maybe you hold a clothing drive and donate all that gently-used non-letter clothing to a local shelter. :)

Shame, you should have laid the smack down.

I think its dangerous to make assumptions about who may or may not be a member. I understand your situation may be a little unique, but in general, I think you let things go, as other have said.

The last time I was "too stunned to think straight" I saw a person get hit by a car.

It's a T-shirt, chill out.

lol :p

Right now I'm laughing too hard at this comment to "think straight."

I like that you added the note about the clothing drive because as much as I value Alpha Gamma Delta, if it came down to it, I'd rather people in need have clothes to wear more than I'm worried about who might end up wearing my 1992 crush party t-shirt. So, with your plan, you can do both things: provide clothes for poor and request members not give away lettered clothing.

:rolleyes:

Maybe that wasn't the best way to put it. They were "stunned and couldn't think straight". How about that?

They were stunned because they never expected to see a non-lambda wearing their letters, and they couldn't think straight because noone ever told them (or us) what to do in such a situation.

However, it's kind of unfair to say it's just a "T-shirt". What the letters mean to different organizations is different.

You are absolutely right about this, and I think that's why it's going to be hard to get advice from NPC and IFCers about this issue.

I don't think anyone wants to see someone representing their organization poorly, as a random drug-abusing homeless guy wearing the lettered shirt he got from a charity might.*

But since as far as I know, most NPC and IFC groups are not that protective about who wears their letters informally, like on date night shirts or philanthropy events, we're not going to be as outraged if we suspect that a non-member is wearing our letters generally.

*To tell you the truth if I saw it, I think I'd think "how nice of that XYZ to give away his old clothes to charity."

Something else worth considering is that people may think they have founded a new local with those letters, and not realize yet the letter belong to a national organization.

Exactly, I'm glad you understand :)

And it's not like the letters mean more to us or anything, just that the physical letters are not meant to ever get put on by non-members or even touch the floor. Just a symbolic thing.

There's often a concern that you may not be viewed as a "good lambda" if you don't treat the physical letters with enough respect, and thus even though lambda houses tend to be extremely dirty and disgusting, with beer bottles, random shoes and socks and chips lying all over the ground, you'll never see anything with letters on the ground (though you'll probably see them messily piled up on sofas or chairs or sometimes any object sufficiently clean as long as it's higher than the floor :p).

The same goes with dealing with non-lambdas wearing letters, and some bros may be worried that if they don't act or are too passive they'll be met with some disapproval and lose face. We're more often concerned about how to handle depledges and possible haters who wear letters or flash our signs to spite us... that's why we had no idea how to deal with random strangers. Honestly, we didn't even know if we should consider it a big deal or not because we just never thought about it before!

So understandably, those guys were at a loss of what to do (especially since many of them were proud idealistic neos with the pledging experience fresh in their minds)

Haha, I never thought about it that way.

If you can't offer them a plain replacement t-shirt, there's nothing you can do as a gentleman.

Now there's a good idea :D

we've actually had people from a halfway house wear our letters because they found them in the trash. one way to stop it is make sure no one throws away anything with letters on it. either burn them or rip them up. because i dont think you want to be confrontational you don't know how people will react to you questioning them wearing it.

Most GLOs have similar rules about non-members wearing letters -- or at least about members allowing non-members to wear letters.

I guess what troubles me is the idea that we may be elevating form over substance if we make any kind of deal out of it when see someone clearly not a member but also clearly down on their luck wearing our letters.

The question I would have to ask myself (and I'm only speaking for myself, not ragging on anyone else) is this: If I make a deal out of the female janitor wearing "my" letters, am I living by the values and principles that those letters stand for? I obviously can't answer for anyone else and I'm not trying to, but I think I would have to say that if I did anything other than walk on, I would be disrespecting my letters much more than she is, because I know what they stand for.

(Ahghg im always poor on word choice, I've been having this trouble in writing papers since 7th grade)

When I made this thread I was really just aiming to ask for thoughts about non-members in general wearing letters and who don't have any idea what they mean. I didn't realize it sounded like we were thinking of "taking back clothes" from unfortunate people!! I know what you're saying, and your totally right, although I don't think the lady should be considered "down on her luck" purely because she's a janitor. I totally misused the word bum to describe the two guys downtown. When my bros described them, they were more just sayin that they looked like loafers who didn't do anything all day, like old delinquents or something.. they could have been homeless I guess, but they were described to me in such a way more to show that they were very "uncollege student like" so that there was no way that they could be lambdas. They weren't really described as sad helpless people.


So by the way in which they told me the details, the image of poor hobos never crossed my mind... although maybe they could have been homeless (and if that were true, I feel really bad). But seriously if we saw people who were clearly homeless and down on their luck wearing our letters, honestly we would feel bad for them like any human beings and we wouldn't really care that much about them wearing our clothes. Aghgh now I understand why you said we should feel lucky to afford clothes and people were talking about charity. I'm slow :(

I sure hope I didn't singlehandedly ruin our reputation by making people think we take clothes from the poor and helpless...

At the same time, even if they weren't "helpless" in appearance, I guess we should have put more thought into the fact that they were still poorer and may have really needed the clothes. (honestly, I think my brothers just saw the janitor and the two guys as just normal people)

Again, these events were unprecedented, and the idea of being protective about our letters was more in the context of the narrow college world immediately surrounding us (we were concerned about actual college students who knew what the letters meant), and so we just didn't even know how to think about the situation clearly when we suddenly saw people outside our campus or who were not really part of college life wearing our gear.
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In any case, it turns out from what people are saying that regardless if someone wearing your letters is poor or not, there's not much one can do. oh well.

There was a homeless guy who was hanging out around our campus and he was wearing our letters. When we saw this we actually went to the bookstore and bought him a brand new school sweetshirt/hoodie and asked that he give us our letters. We had him stuff them in a bag and then we disposed of them (I think we actually just threw them away). But the guy got a brand new sweetshirt/hoodie. The last time I saw him he had the hoodie tied around his waist.

Sigma Nu has rules that member have to follow. Only the following people can be given letters by a brother and how they fit me personally:

Fiance (was a sweetheart of Sigma Nu before we were engaged so she could already wear letters)
Wife (see Fiance)
Mother (she has a hoodie that I bought her a few months after I was initiated. She understands how much Sigma Nu means to me so she treats them as if they were her own.)
Sister (She attends the school I graduated from. In my chapter it is an unwritten rule that no other bros can give a sister letters other than her blood brother. When she started school I asked her if she wanted a set to wear and she refused by saying "why would I want your letters? I want to earn my own." She became a member of Alpha Phi and the thought of me giving her letters now is moot... Sometimes when we are out she wears mine when she is cold)
Grandmother (I never even thought about giving either grandmother her letters I don't think they would understand the significance.)

Here is a question: Do any of the other guys here carry a non letter sweetshirt in their car so that if a date or another lady is cold you have a sweetshirt for her other than your letter?

I wouldn't even be joking about getting into a physical altercation over a fraternity matter at this particular point in time, but that's just me.

I agree with some of the other posters--just let it go. The people you described most likely are unfamiliar with greek life and didn't know they were doing something offensive.

That would certainly be a good idea.

I was in a very awkward situation two years ago when I left a party with a girl. We had to wait for a ride and it was cold outside. She wasn't wearing that much, and I had my linejacket on.

The gentlemanly thing to do would be to put my jacket on her but that's basically like letting her wear my letters, which is pretty bad (it's like putting a girl above my letters or something like that). Outside, there were bros EVERYWHERE, and I knew that if they saw me do that they would never stop giving me shit about it. At the same time... I really *REALLY* liked this girl, and what would she think?:o She'd probably think I'm a total jerk and never want to have anything to do with me :(

I just kept thinking to myself, man what the **** am I gonna do??!?!

Whether they know it's offensive or not is only one part of it though. I already said in my original post that I realized it wasn't their fault. But the point is they're still wearing our letters, and in principle if we are good lambdas we should find a solution..

It actually seems now that Senusret and snuknight's ideas are much better than just "letting it go".

Exactly. Senusret, I agree.

The same thing happened to me my sophomore year in college. I hadn't been a member of my fraternity for more than 4 weeks. I was still very new to greek life. I saw a girl on our campus with a Kappa Founders t-shirt on. She didn't go to our school. She attended Ohio State. I asked her where she got the shirt and she told me a friend of her's gave it to her who was not a member of the fraternity. She said he wasn't even from this country. I asked her would she take it off if I gave her my shirt? She said no. I left and told another brother and he tried to get her to take it off, and she still declined. Of course he offered her another shirt, but she said no. We explained to her what could happen to her if she continued to wear the shirt. We told her not every member is as polite as we were being to her. Well, to make a long story short, she left the campus and came back about 3 hours later to our relief with a different shirt on.

To the OP if it bothered you that much, I would have just tried to explain to them why it needs to come off, and if they said no, then there's really nothing you can do about it.

Okay, so now you have options next time it happens, right?

Evidently I'm the only one who thinks this thread is absurdly ridiculous yet insanely hilarious at the same. I'm pretty sure I just read a post by someone suggesting that they incinerate their clothing so as to not let it "fall in the wrong hands".

LOL. I just find it baffling that anyone would expend any energy at all worrying about something like this, or about what to do "next time."

We would never incinerate our letters.


The catsuits on the other hand....;)

ETA: You're right, this is a totally ridiculous LOL thread.

No, I thought that beating someone up for wearing letters was hilarious. So I encouraged it.

I agree that it seems strange to me because just wearing the letters wasn't that precious. But it's becoming apparent that to some groups the letters are more like something borderline sacred. And if that's the case, it's going to be more complicated. The only thing I come close to this level of concern about would be official badges on EBay, and even then, I'm not losing sleep.

This is apparently not a new issue: my dad has told me stories that at his campus they would give any old IFC shirts from OTHER organizations to bums in town intentionally, so that it might appear that the old drunk dude was a XYZ or whatever. It was a low grade prank. (I assume that they must have found them or gotten them from girls they knew because I'm pretty sure they didn't browse thrift shops for the purpose.)

I have to say I do think it's weird when I see high school girls wearing sorority lettered jerseys or carrying lettered totes where I teach. I assume they must belong to an older sister or something. Date night shirts, formals, all that makes perfect sense. But the actual jersey with fabric letters attached, where the whole point of the shirt is the letters, not an event; it seems weird. And I'm surprised that they do it.

We actually had an incident on campus with a guy stealing our letters, wearing them and 'making fun' of us in pictures. Like an idiot, he posted them on Facebook. We contacted Panhel and the Greek director. There's evidently going to be action taken regarding theft and something within Greek affairs [not sure what it is] when we return in the fall.

A lot of people do give letter bags and other paraphenelia away to Goodwill. I was once in a good will and saw an Alpha Phi letter bag. It was before I found GC or I would have bought it and sent it to a member.

Also, really random, but my sis and I had a good laugh over it. We love A&E-especially City Confidential. We were watching it one day while I was visiting and there was a little country bumpkin man wearing Delta Zeta letters under his overalls. Sitting there talking about some murder he knew about. It was really funny--he was missing teeth and had a deep south accent. And, he most assuredly was not a DZ. I guess he got the shirt at a goodwill or something.

I would never give away anything lettered to goodwill or salvation army. Yeah, you hope it will end up in the hands of a sister, but you never know. I would pass it all down to chapter sisters before I would give it away.

We don't have linejackets persay but I am sure your bros wouldn't have said anything had you given her your jacket turned inside out. I have on occasion been without my reserve sweetshirt and turned a set inside out. I know the lady would still be wearing it but it shows you were respecting the letters as well as being a proper gentleman. Had you done this and explained to her why she must wear them with the letters not showing she probably would respect that you care so much about something. She may have even found it to be an endeering quality and wonder how she could get you to care about her as much of as your Fraternity. It sounds mushy but ladies go for that stuff. (on the other hand if I linejacket is what I think it is that may be a little uncomfortable to wear inside out. They are satin or nylon right?)

While it is annoying to see some random stranger in your letters when you know s/he isn't a member of your org... there's not really much you can do.

What you can do, is try to make sure your own lettered items don't end up in the hands of non-members. For example, I have some lettered t-shirts that are still wearable. When they are no longer wearable, I'll make something useful out of them. So I won't be donating them to charity, where anyone could end up with them, but at the same time, I won't just toss them in the trash.