[Blackwatch]

When I was an undergrad, I was an Resident Assistant. Some of the residents on my floor pledged Omega Psi Phi one semester. After they crossed, one of the guys came to me to talk about why he pledged Omega Psi Phi. Keep in mind I didn't ask him why, I guess he had a case of "Neo-itis". One of the things he stated was that Omega represented a brotherhood like no other. The "Process" taught him that he must defend the name, colors, and men of Omega good or bad . I am not saying this is national mandate, but this is just what this particular member of Omega told me, unsolicited. He cited an example of a situation where a member of Omega was drunk and was hitting on a young lady who was obviously not interested in him, and neither was her boyfriend ammused by this drunk man approaching his girlfriend. At any rate things escaladed to where the boyfriend and the Omega got a little physical with one another. The member of Omega told me that In Omega, he had to fight with that drunk brother, even though the brother may have been wrong, and it was a one-on-one fight because Omega never lets a brother loose. Now, I recognize that this was an undergrad neo who was probably bragging more than anything that he had a group of brothers that always had his back, and granted, he did recognize that his fraternity brother was wrong being drunk and behaving like he did, but since he was an Omega, no body was gonna beat him down, regardles of his actions.

Now, I bring this up to say that I do not see where this has anything to do with brotherhood. This seems to be a ganglike mentality when a "Process" has you being controlled by a notion of group solidarity to do things that you think maybe wrong. Brotherhood, or brotherly love, is not about constraining men to do the wrong thing in the name of "brotherhood", but to compell brothers to be conscious of doing the right thing in the "true spirit of fraternity". True brotherhood is not vested in a "process", that bond is not about a "common experience" but about a commonality of goals, character, and expectations. To think that brothers in your fraternity are just good members if they haven't pledged, (as Doggeystyle82 mentioned in the debate with Bro. Divine 9)asserts a group solidarity based on an intense experience, similar to soldiers in a war, or gangbangers who were jumped in together. The critical issue here is what moral ground do these experiences have that inspire you to strive for the "true spirit of fraternity"-which is brotherly love, not male machismo?

The brotherhood that the fraternities can offer is not about making men good, nor bestowing manhood or authenticity on any man. It is about taking good men "of noble character" and inspiring them to become more fraternal and community minded good men. Make no bones about it, I know that Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity is not the Salvation Army or Big Brothers/Big Sisters, nor is it a church for that matter. What it is though is a fraternity, a group of men charged to have upstanding character, with commonalities of goals and expectations of any man with Alpha Phi Alpha in his heart to be "First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend ALL". A man with these qualities would not expect a fellow brother of his fraternity to defend his drunken disrespect of a woman, nor would he even want to be in a situation where he would require the aid of his fraternity brothers because of poor decisions that he made. Where I was made, we called this "leaning on the shield" and it is frowned upon. You should always strive to be an asset to Alpha, not a burden. That is brotherhood, to me.

Blackwatch!!!!!!