Congrats to Michelle Obama
 

On accepting an invitation to become an honorary member of AKA

Congrats to her.

Apparently Michelle Obama's spokesperson released a statement today saying that while Michelle is happy to accept the invitation to become an honorary AKA, she wants it to be non-exclusive. Well membership in more than 1 of the divine nine is not allowed so it would seem that Michelle will have to decline...

I think she is just saying she wants to partake and assist all greek orgs in service and the like

I dont think she needs to necessarily decline, although i do see your point

Either Michelle doesn't understand yet that she can only join one D4 org or AKA is going to allow her to THINK she has "non-exclusive membership" because they know that once she is inducted, the other sororities in the D4 will not invite her to be a member.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/po...kappa_alp.html

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She must not know the rules. This is the reason Hillary Clinton initially accepted but then declined AKA. Personally, I think it best if Michelle remain neutral at least until the presidential campaign is finished.

That's exactly what she meant and she's well within her right to work with any sorority (as a nonmember).

Not sure if anyone can answer this, but would she have even been eligible for induction at this convention? According to the AKA website, there are already several women who have accepted honorary membership and are about to be inducted. This news about Michelle being asked is fairly recent, so it seems like she would inducted in 2010 or later.

That's not what she meant. According to this article (and others), she wants her membership to be "non-exclusive" which is probably why she isn't going to be inducted now during the centennial boule. Seems they have things to discuss with her.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/po...kappa_alp.html

They don't have to be inducted at conventions. :)

Sidenote.... I agree with DSTCHAOS. No offense, but I don't think the spokesperson phrased it properly. Cultural competency?

Ok. For some reason, I thought I had read/heard that honorary members could only be brought in at conventions.

Might be for another org. (That actually sounds familiar, now that you mention it.) Honorary membership is one of those things for which each NPHC has a different approach.

Whatever she meant, I don't think any of the commenters know, it'll get handled.

I guess.

When I read "non-exclusive" I had one opinion. When I read "she looks forward to working with all of them to help bring change to their communities" I had another opinion. The latter seems like she doesn't want to be AKA-only in terms of participation and social change--not membership.

The article says "...But the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to make sure people know that accepting AKA's invitation doesn't mean she'd rule out others..." (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/po...kappa_alp.html)

It seems clear that Michelle does not plan to have exclusive membership in AKA and help the other sororities as a non-member. She wants to be eligible for membership in all 4.

I'm sorry but that absolutely reeks of the Obamas political path all along. Pandering to anyone and everyone.

If you have to say "but" then you're not really sorry. :)

I think some people just don't understand that an honorary GLO membership is as binding are any other kind of membership.

I'm not saying that's the case here because I have no idea, but "honorary" whatever (membership, degrees, chairperson) doesn't usually involve the real work that the same non-honorary position would. So I don't think people get that with Greek organizations (all of them as far as I know), if you get initiated, honorary or whatever, you're initiated.

Does any GLO have purely honorary members that don't get initiated?

I agree

You know the repubs will try and throw anything at the wall and make it stick. Won't even surprise me if they dig up the hazing incident in Cali just to paint their associations as bad like they have been doing.

I think she should have chilled out as well and not accepted just yet. I have my own thoughts about honorary membership anyway but that is neither her nor there

That is also what i thought

But i see now. Someone needs to explain to her she cant have it all 4 ways.

i dont want to see her like Hillary and accept, and then deny. I thought Hill was wrong for that, honestly

You're right, some people (including members of GLO's) think that honorary membership in a GLO is synonymous with having an honorary degree or something. In my org, honorary members are initiatied members and they can be as involved as they like. They can and are encouraged to even become members of alumnae chapters where they live.

Then we need to explain better beforehand that membership in our orgs is exclusive and that accepting the invite isn't the same as accepting an honorary degree from a university or something.

I met one of your honorary members when I was a teenager, Peola McCaskill. I was also in her namesake unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians, in which she still appears to be active, according to their website. :)

Since honorary membership was abolished in Alpha, I don't know how active our few truly were beyond speaking at conventions. Which, really, is all I would expect.

I agree with Elephant Walk that this is just typical Obama style political pandering but as for Republicans using some hazing incident politically? Come on! You know just about every greek on Capital Hill was involved in some kind of hazing or prank in the 1950s and 60s!

The hazing incident that was being referenced is a lot different than 1950s and 60s hazing or pranks.

I would hope that the Repubs wouldn't stoop so low as to use it.

I'm guessing that if the Republicans want to go after Michelle Obama they'd probably come up with something better than a hazing incident in an organization that she recently accepted honorary membership in.

Just saying.

Actually, it isn't uncommon to attempt to use people's old or new affiliations, of any type, against them by ignoring the 99% that's good and highlighting the 1% that's bad.

These are hypotheticals. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Our First Grand Anti-Basileus (Vice-President) consistently reaches out to our honoraries and tries to get them involved so it's not uncommon to hear that some of them are active and working with alumnae chapters. There is one in my chapter currently. She can't make it to every meeting of course since she is very busy but makes it a point to come thru sometimes; buys tickets to our annual events, and sometimes drops a check on us...like she did recently for a new scholarship fund we just started. Because of what I've seen in my own org, I have nothing at all against honorary membership and I can't wait to find out who the new honorary members are, to be inducted at our Boule this month.

"Obama-style" political pandering, or political astuteness that just about any competent politician from either side of the aisle, would demonstrate? The latter, I think.

Can you be my cyber play-cousin? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. :)

Exactly. They have been trying to use all affiliations that the Obama's have with others ever since Rev. Wright

Rezko is another and the other guy on his staff who they said received some type of deal when he bought his home.

To think that they may not try n dig up something like this just to say that the Obama's affiliations are questionable is not far-fetched. We all know how the repubs like to do.

That's a political thing. Not a Repub thing. The Dems are also grimey when they are desperate.

None of these parties are worth a damn.

Michelle Obama is not the first politico to accept membership in a Greek organization without fully knowing the obligations. JFK was made an honorary member of Phi Kappa Theta (sans an initiation) and widely touted by the fraternity but never recognized by him in any bio materials. As was Hubert Humphrey into Tau Delta Phi under similar circumstances. Truman was made an honorary Lambda Chi Alpha but evidently acknowledged it from time to time. He may have had an official initiation -- maybe a Lambda Chi can attest to that. No doubt more than one group has made a pass at Barack himself.

^^^ Do you know what year Hubert Humphrey became a Tau Delta Phi? We were having a discussion on him in another forum.

As far as the D9 goes, we don't have members that haven't been initiated, honorary or otherwise. At this point, Michelle Obama has only accepted the invitation but hasn't been inducted yet. She will not be a member until that happens so either Michelle or AKA could still decline/reverse the offer at this point.

Not sure that is going to happen:
Sorority Celebrates Michelle Obama’s Acceptance
Michelle Obama is sometimes compared to Jackie Kennedy, but she may now have something in common with another first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. The wife of F.D.R. became a honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, an historically black organization founded in 1908, and the group announced this week at its Centennial Convention in Washington that Mrs. Obama had agreed to join. ....
The sorority said that once Mrs. Obama is formally inducted into the organization, which has 225,000 members, she can’t become a member of any of the other “Divine Nine” organizations, as black sororities and fraternities are often called. Other honorary members of Alpha Kappa Alpha include the poet Maya Angelou, the late Coretta Scott King and former astronaut Mae Jemison.
But tonight a spokeswoman for Mrs. Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said: “Because of her respect for each of the historically black sororities and fraternities, her membership is
non-exclusive. She looks forward to working with all of them to help
bring change to their communities.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/sorority-celebrates-michelle-obamas-acceptance/?scp=2&sq=Michelle%20Obama&st=cse

Another blog.

Hi Jon, welcome to yesterday.