White men in NPHC
 

In the fall I will be a sophmore at a large HBCU. I am interested in joing a Fraternity. I would like any advice or tips on joing. I do not know exactly how to approach it. How large of a hurdle if any will my ethnic backround be.

What does your screen name mean?

Anyway, get good grades, KEEP good grades, do your research, attend events, and get to know the members. Read Black Greek 101, African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision, and The Divine Nine. Familiarize yourself with the website of the org you're interested in. Know the rules and don't break them.

This is the advice I give to any aspirant. Race doesn't matter to me.

Good luck!

Depends on how big of an issue you make it. You do your research, get your act together, be serious about it. Don't go around "I'm white, I'm white, help me, what do I do?" Nobody's going to cut you any slack for being white. Some people will be fine with you, some people are never going to like you - it's like this with people all the time over all kinds of things, whether it's race or something else, so go ahead and get over that now. This is NOT an endeavor for the overly sensitive.

Also, I second everything Senusret said :)

Good luck!

Maybe he raises Blue Merle Collies.

LOL, I'm just being silly.

I was thinking perhaps he fancied himself as this guy:

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2003_...anshaw_002.jpg



But I guess I'm just being silly with that too... ;)

Great advice, DSTRen and Senruset.

My advice:

Don't have a chip on your shoulder.

Don't assume people owe you lighter treatment or can't/won't ask you questions regarding your membership and so forth. I see this a lot with nonblack members. They're either so paranoid that they're way too humble and are pushed around. Or they are arrogant, especially when folks have made them feel like the "Great nonblack Hype" and applauded them for stuff that's not really special. Then they start to feel like we owe THEM something and shouldn't ask anything of them when they're out and about (i.e. "where'd you cross?" can become a battle).

Did you get a scholarship to the school or have a lot of friends there or something? I'm just always interested in what leads white folks to black schools.

Minority scholarships, tuition differences, the curriculum, the campus, the students, is it fun, is it educational, where it's located.....

ya know...the same stuff that draws nonwhites to PWIs. ;)

I know your question wasn't directed at me, but...

Howard University was on my list of prospective graduate schools. At one point, I wanted to move to the Washington DC area and was evaluating schools in DC that offered my program of interest.

I ultimately didn't apply (to Howard or any other DC area school), because my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer...I decided to stay close to home. However, I would have readily attended Howard - if I had been admitted, of course, and if it seemed like the best fit out of the schools in the area that would have offered me admission.

I didn't even really think too much about the fact that it was a historically black college - I was evaluating it based on its location, the fact that it offered the right program, and that I felt like I could get a good education there. Actually, the historically black aspect of it didn't cross my mind at all, until other people pointed it out to me.

I think at a lot of black colleges, the grad schools are often more mixed than the undergraduate population. I know a lot of people that applied to HBCU's as fallbacks for law school. From the sound of it, some of those grad programs are fairly evenly split along racial lines.

Its less mysterious when its based on locale or other connections. I just am interested in white folks from like California who up and decide to go to Howard. Of course, I'm also interested in people from like NY who end up at NM State without a scholarship or other connections. People just sometimes seem random with their college selections.

Sometimes that's the point - if you really didn't enjoy high school or your hometown and 80% of the populace goes to a certain school, you may want to get as far away from that as possible.

DSTCHAOS, DSTRen and Senruset all gave you great advice.

Just as a side note, I just returned from my regional conference and I learned that the photographer is a Phi Beta Sigma. He is caucasian. His photos were great!

i mean, i try not to be though

:(

You're hardly arrogant. ;)

Well, if you're from SoCal and you go to NYU or UF or LSU, thats not that confusing. But if you're from Orange Co. and you go to Georgia Southern or Oswego St., its a little weird.