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.