To my knowledge, when the Alpha Phi Omega first came to Historically Black Colleges, we were nicknamed A Phi Ques by the campuses, not ourselves. Think about it. . .if generations of black students had been conditioned to believe that the letter Omega was "Q" by 1947 (when APO first came to HBCU's) why should my brothers think any differently? Add to that the fact that Omegas are members of our Fraternity anyway, it makes a lot of sense.
Now today, in 2002, there are a lot of black people who had Alpha Phi Omega on their yards when they were in college. When I first crossed and wore my letters to a high school function, my teachers all said "Congrats! You're an A Phi Que!" Even though my chapter says APO, I had to respect the fact that A Phi Que is how most people would know my fraternity. I can't even order para from certain stores unless I say "A Phi Que."
My Fraternity has traditions. . .some are ritualistic in origin, others we picked up along the way. Our leaders encourage each chapter to have their own traditions, and on the yards where it makes sense, we adopt those traditions.
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Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
Sounds good, but still a cop out. The majority of your orgs don't do handsigns, have calls, line #'s, step, etc, yet a few chapters do. They decide to do things very similar to established NPHC orgs and then ask that no one care. Ask 90% of the membership of Alpha Phi Omega what is an APhiQ? Q has nothing to do with APOmega. It is specific to Omega Psi Phi (with a fraternal significance) The same with the Omega brand. Why combine another sororities call when a call has nothing to do with your org? Why do a hand sign when most of your membership wouldn't recognize it? WHY? WHY? WHY?
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