I normally only respond to topics of a political or religious nature, but I have been thinking about this question for a while, and I have even asked it to members of other fraternities......
What is it about your fraternity that your founders saw and did not see in Alpha Phi Alpha that makes it fundamentally different and therefore necessitated the start of said fraternity?
Now maybe this sounds arrogant, but in reality, I think that it is a good question because I would like to know what Alpha Phi Alpha is missing so as to make the fraternity better. Inevitably, the men talk either about national programs (which really are not too QUALITATIVELY different from Alpha national programs, different name and possibly different approach, but same purpose and goal) or they will talk about what the particular chapter on their campus did or didn't do. Now do not get me wrong, there are differences in the cultures of the fraternities, but I just do not see the need to start new ones. This fraternity, Theta Phi Psi, doesn't seem to have anything new to offer. To be honest, there may not be too much of anything new to offer. I mean, if you do not fit in with any particular one, just hang with your boys and do community service. When Alpha phi Alpha was founded, they actually had something new to offer, a brotherhood of collegiate black men, something that was not happening at that time. They saw needs in the campus and the community and they labored to meet those needs. The need was for a brotherhood of black men that would support one another and instill in the college educated black men a since of giving back to the community. A FRATERNITY was needed. Now, with fraternities springing up at every whim (I mean, they were just sitting in a Dennies
) it almost cheapens the whole fraternal idea. If there is something that you see on your campus and in your community that necessitates the chartering of a whole new fraternity, a brotherhood of men, then go ahead and start one. But to say things like "We need to help people gain knowledge of self" and "represent black people to the fullest" to me doesn't justify starting a whole new fraternity, start a tutoring program or a church or a think tank, but a fraternity? Be you and do you, but does that need a fraternity?
Just tell the truth, you wanted to be in a fraternity and didn't like what you saw in the fraternities that were already in existence. That is what really happens, it really has little to do with a new idea about community service, a new fraternal idealism, or anything. They say that they wanted to be "founders" of a fraternity, doesn't seem to me to be a very high ideal nor a very altruistic reason for starting a fraternity.
Blackwatch!!!!!!