Quote:
Originally posted by MysticCat81
And yes, the response of Alexander's mother bothered me, too. But I think this is much deeper than NIC fraternities being "traditionally white" organizations and the desire for diversity, and probably has more to do with the role that the Great Eight/Divine Nine have played in African-American culture. I would be interested to hear/read the thoughts and reactions of members of the Divine Nine.
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I can only speak from my own knowledge base here but...
It is indeed more than merely joining a "traditionally" white organization at work here, I think. As others have indicated, NPHC membership has traditionally gone beyond the collegiate infrastructure. In past generations, because the reach of what black folks could participate in was so limited, your BGLO membership extended to social and service activities for you AND your family even when you were fifty, sixty years old. (I was told fondly about cards parties that would last all night with graduate Sorors and their spouses back in the 1950s and 1960s). You were a Greek member. You were active in your church. Maybe you were a member of the Links, OES, PHA Masons or teacher’s group. That was about the limit of your social infrastructure.
"Many" black american leaders were/are members of NPHCs (although granted the leaders of many Civil Rights activities were our blue collar brothers and sisters). Even today, you will hear “oh, that’s Reverend (Dr, Atty.) Duncan. He’s a Kappa,” uttered with no hesitation. To a great extent, we are still defined by the BGLO we’ve joined. Almost every middle (or lower middle) class black person knows of at least ONE NPHC sorority or fraternity (and who's who in it too). There are only nine groups, and we all pretty much do things the same way, and have for years. So while his mother may have appeared to be rather short-sighted, in her generation if you were going to be anything in this world, you belonged to a Great 8 (now Divine 9) organization.
BTW, this "not paying for tuition" threat is not quite as uncommon amongst NPHC folks: I know many a parent that won’t even pay the membership dues if their child pledges a different NPHC organization than to which they belong (and honestly, I’m probably among them). Unlike the NPC, it's pretty easy to either join a NPHC group through a city-wide chapter or simply to charter a new chapter of the campus, so using "don't have a current chapter on the campus" is not an acceptable excuse to pledge another group. People take their membership into THEIR SPECIFIC NPHC organization very seriously (I could go on about THAT, but I’ll stop there).
Before I'd started going out with him, my ex-bf had joined DKE. As an NPHC member, I was a bit critical of his decision, simply because I couldn't imagine what being in a TWGLO brought to his social life and future success. Later, having met his fraternity brothers, I could totally see why he'd joined, and certainly couldn't question his business and social connections. But honestly, his greek social life would have been WAY different had he joined one of the five D9 fraternities.
While the D9 (especially the ones founded after 1914) have always been pretty accepting of non-black members (my own chapter added both a Mexican and Vietnamese member while I was chapter president, and one of the charter chapter members was white), I can see how some would see the statements of the folks in the article as a bit of a double standard. It really is though simply a change of a major social infrastructure for black folks. It’s only been one generation (my mothers) since blacks were really on college campuses, joining any organization that pleased them. One generation is not a lot of time—most social changes in a culture take centuries, so I’m just not that surprised that this guy’s family would still feel this way about joining a TWGLO (see, they don’t have Greek Chat to expand their horizons
). Hope this helps a bit.