Quote:
Originally posted by kristiAZD
Hopefully someday schools in the south will catch up and realize different people=better.
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Being from the South, I was quite offended when I read this comment. Our schools need to "catch up"??? I don't think so. That statement implies that Northern schools are "better" than Southern schools, which is absolutely not true. Please don't assume that Southern schools are "behind the times" when it comes to the race composition of our Greek systems. I think we're doing quite well, and I abhor the fact that a few isolated incidents are constantly used as a means of stereotyping the South as being "backwards" or inferior to the North.
If you take a look at the composites hanging in the houses of southern GLO chapters, you'll find that there are "different" people in nearly every one of them. Maybe there isn't an African-American face in a lot of the composites, but there are certainly other minorities represented - Asians, Indians, Arabs, Latinos, etc. We take the best and the brightest of the rushees who show an interest in us, regardless of color. It IS true that Caucasians make up the majority of the rushee lists. But, come on, what do you honestly expect us to do about that??? We put flyers up in the Student Union, advertise in campus papers, and chalk the sidewalks to notify people about upcoming rush parties. Somebody please show me where in all these advertisements it says "Minorities Need Not Apply."
The simple truth is that we do nothing, absolutely nothing, to deter an interested person - whatever his/her color, race or religion- from going through the Rush process. However, we also are not in the practice of dragging uninterested people into our organizations just so that we can say, "Hey, check us out! See how diverse we are?"
It may be true that some AA people don't feel comfortable rushing a historically white GLO, just as some Caucasians don't feel comfortable joining a historically black GLO. People like being around other people that they have things in common with, and I would assume that this is the case throughout the country, not just in the South. I don't know of any way to change peoples' minds about that.
If anyone from the North has some real advice on how we can make our organizations more diverse down here in the South, then I'd love to hear it. Until then, please don't act as if we Southerners are too ignorant to realize that "different = better."
**dzrose93 stepping off of her soapbox carefully so as not to trip over her antebellum gown**