opinion article bashes greeks
 

Ugh! Our school newspaper bashed greek orgs. last week. The author not only did his best to perpetuate stereotypes of greeks, but also included BLATANTLY non-factual information. :mad: It was horrible. We're responding by sending them tons of letters that they will hopefully ALL print. Here's a quote from the article:

Greek organizations need to take some responsibility

I hope that the paper prints your letters. Unfortunately, it sounds like this person already has his mind made up about GLOs. I don't think anything will change it.

That comment about how Greek organizations take away potential members of other campus orgs was such a crock... I really hope that someone's rebuttal letter will point out that Greeks are typically the more involved students on campus, and that many GLOs actually require that their members be active in other campus orgs in addition to their own chapter.

My advice would be to provide statistics about Greek involvement on your campus -- how many Greeks are involved in other orgs, what the Greek GPA is compared to non-Greeks, etc. Sometimes cold hard numbers make an impression where heartfelt rhetoric fails.

Yeah, there are always those poor sports out there who write these kinds of opinion columns in campus newspapers. It happened when I was in school, and we all, of course, flooded the newspaper with angry letters. What actually was surprising was that so many of the editors and students running the paper were Greek, and we all thought, "How could you agree to print this trash?" Of course, our campus paper was so bad it was almost laughable, so no one on campus every took anything printed in there too seriously.

But there are some people who just don't like Greeks. One of my very best best friends told me she thought sororities were cults. And I said, "Then don't join one."

Yeah it sucks...happened here too....
 

Responded By:


For the record, i didnt write the response - I only wish i could take credit for it, because it's freakin HOT!

Oh please. Trust me, I've seen people crawl home from parties at the wrestlers/ROTC/you name it EVERY house. I'm sure it happens there too.

And yes, the comment about Greeks taking members away is in the top 5 of most asinine things I've read in articles like this.

"Many of you might be nodding your heads saying, "So what? We are in college and we are adults. If some freshman drinks too much, well that's his problem."
No, it is not only his problem, but a much greater dilemma that faces the entire College community."

--Yes it is a greater dilemma...as in, its not just Greeks that consume alcohol...

"Why should traditional fraternities and sororities exist and be allowed to create an environment where a student feels that it is acceptable to drink too much alcohol?"

--Because freedom of association is a constitutional right, and again...WE DON'T CREATE THE ENVIRONMENT, IT'S THERE TO BEGIN WITH. We just give it an easy place to point fingers but we are not the source.

"...To this I refer to the 150-plus campus (non-Greek associated) organizations at the College that I'm sure would love the extra participation and campus unity that would be created if Greek life did not exist."

--What's funny is that I'm sure that those 150-plus orgs are full of Greek students and lead by them.

When will people start to take responsibility for their own actions?!

When the sun rises in the West.

I really think that all problems can be thrown at the feet of liberals.

The paper just came out and they printed two full pages of responses from greek organizations. And they had a half-page editorial responding to it as well. yayayayayay!!!:D

Yeah I know how you guys feel last year we had an article like that too. It's nothing new here. We do our thing eventhough non greek will not understand what we do.

Articles like this one are really too bad. They're not great journalism -- or even opinion. They're not fair.

It's true that they stereotype the Greek System and its members.

Here's the problem.

Stereotypes generally have their start in some kind of negative situation or behavior. (Or even positive behavior if they're positive stereotypes)

All of these feelings toward the Greek System started somewhere -- and not somewhere good.

They're not going to go away until we overwhelm the rest of the world with the positive aspects of fraternities and sororities.

Read the Risk Management forum. We're not overwhelming anyone overall.

In my school paper there is a comment on the opinion page refering to fraternities or sororities in some negative manner around twice a week or so.

Most of them boil down to the 'sorority girl getting dressed up to go workout' or 'drunken frat guys/parties/beer pong' etc.

I think pretty much think everyone laughs it off. There are pictures beside the articles of the person that wrote it...and more than likely they have never been to a frat/sorority party nor would the be allowed in if they did try to go.

Re: Statistics
 

John, isn't there a way to ban Fred Hatchett for good this time? :rolleyes:

I know that accusing a non-Greek of being "jealous" is the oldest response in the book, but the person who wrote the second article really does sound jealous.

Ahh, Fred. He's like the Lyndon LaRouche of Greek haters.

as anewspaper kid at my school, i wrote a kind of anti-greek commentary in which i pondered the point of greek orgs as compared to joining non-greek organizations. whatever, not a big deal, no real response from anyone. however, when i meant my now sorority sisters and joined DZ my junior year, for the last issue of the fall semester, I wrote a commentary about my experience of joining and how it broke down the generalizations and stereotypes of greeks.

i pretty much disregard these opinion pieces. the only response is that people will see and think what they want until they are personally shown otherwise. so let them to their own stupid devices.....or if you want to piss them off/show them what it is really like, invite them to come out and spead soem time with your org, maybe even do a more in depth article or research into what greeks actually do. we also have to realize that while the stuff said by non-greeks may not be true about all greeks or your group, it is a generalization for a reason - they see all the crappy stuff greeks do and see that as a representation of all greeks. just like people see politicians like bush, LBJ and NIxon and think all presidents and politicians are liars or are doing stuff to help themselves. all we can do is try harder to prove them wrong and eliminate the reasons for the generalizations.

btw, nothing makes me laugh harder than an opinion piece like these. they think they are journalists! hahahah. reminds me of the kid who wrote a front page story about worms in dinning hall food, based on one corn worm found on a non-cooked ear and discarded when the kitchen staff was inspecting the food. hahah...it is just amusing.