rocket girl...i do like the firt part of your post. i have a BA in history and the reason i have a pet peeve about being called a white sorority is because there were few, if any, women of color in college at the time of many of our foundings. hell, there were not too many women.
i don't really think most of our founders set out to form a white girl's sorority. that was just the environment they were in - all white colleges. it's hard to say how our sororities would look if society had more integrated in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
I guess what this boils down to is that when people say NPC orgs are historically white, that it sounds like we did that on purpose and we all had a "white clause" in our membership requirements (i'm sure some did). some of that is also a product of the times that those women lived in and that does not reflect how we evolved into what we are now. it makes it sounds like our founders are being blamed for not including minorities or that they are being called racist. i don't know if all of that makes sense or not.
on another point.....there are chapters around the country that have a majority of minority members b/c i work at one of those campuses. the campus is about 60% hispanic and about 80% of the chapter memberships are minority. at my previous campus (also where my chapter is) my chapter is about 50% minority and they are very proud of the fact that anyone can find a home there.
i know these campuses are usually not the norm and there are many campuses with old greek systems where whites join NPC sororities, blacks join NPHC, latinas join a NALFO and so forth. again, i think you have to look at the history of the campus and see how far that goes back. we all know how hard it is to change "tradition" and the attitude of the entire campus, including that of all the alumni, would need to change in order for that to change. it's just not appropriate to say that blacks can't join an NPC sorority on those campuses and put the blame on the NPC sororities when that view can come just as much from the black students who are telling each other that they can't join an NPC or that they will be seen as a traitor to their race if they do join.
it's just too easy to say"they don't want us," whether "us" refers to your race or religion or whatever. there are just too many other factors that come into play and to blame it on just one thing is silly.
wow, that's a lot of thinking for the morning. i hope that actually makes sense.
