[Blackwatch]

Originally posted by phikappapsiman
But since you do not know me personally, or my views, or what I was looking for in college, or the type of friends I like to associate with, you really have no place to judge me or my choice. I made the choice that I felt was the right choice FOR ME!

Actually, I really am not insinuating that I know what is right for you, but you stated in your original post that it was the best for you (your exact quote was that it was the"best organization for me"). I do not know you, but your insinuation was that Phi Kappa Psi was the best, which to me entailed you actually surveying other frats, including those in the NPHC and comming to a conclusion that they did not provide what Phi Kappa Psi did. I am not judging your decision at all, I just wanted information about what your fraternity does for you that none of the NPHC frats can do. Also, you never addressed my question about any institutional racial inequalities that are cured by African American men joining IFC frats? You stated that there were no racial issues at Stanford, but apparently racial issues and racial inequalities are two different things to you, but to me racial inequalities are racial issues, and joining IFC frats doesn't mean that there are no more "racial issues" on your or any yard. Which leads me to my next question. You stated:

Originally posted by phikappapsiman
Sure, I see that my parents are still involved in their respective organizations, and that is great FOR THEM. But you see, I have had many more opportunities than my parents had when they were attending college. They both attended Tennessee State University, which at that time was one of the few schools that blacks could attend. They raised me to believe that I could achieve what I wanted if I studied hard, and I was able to make that belief a reality by getting into, and graduating from Stanford. Am I any less black because I chose to do that? I think not.

Maybe others in the past have questioned your "blackness", but I assure you that I wasn't.
It seems to me that your history belies a lot of resentment. First, you insinuate some sort of "progress" by mentioning that you were able to get into and graduate from Stanford. Then you juxtapose this notion with the fact that your parents went to TSU and then possibly you imply that they went there because there were few choices for blacks at that time. I do not know your parents, but I have heard this argument before. Are you insinuating that your parents would have rather gone to Stanford than TSU if only they had the "better opportunities" that you have? Do you think that the people, who I like to call "Civil Rights Warriors" marched, got hosed, were beaten and even killed so that our generation could start looking down on our own institutions? Does it ever occur to you that maybe schools like TSU are better for black folks today than schools like Stanford? Case in point:

Originally posted by phikappapsiman
I mean, when one out of every three black college age men in America is in prison, just the fact that I am a college graduate means a hell of a lot to me. Add that to the fact that I am nobody's Baby Daddy yet , and I think that I am doing pretty well for myself.
"...who dat is??? It's just my baby daddy" [/B]

(emphasis added by me)

Any self respecting Black man with a "college degree" should well know about those statistics, but any truly educated (read empowered) black man would also understand that the source of these statistics is not some innate cultural trait of black men, many black men in the system are there for unjust reasons (think about the recent moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois and the central park jogger case). You see, our own institutions are concerned with why these racial inequalities persist, and do not assume that they exist because black people are culturally inept due to inferior choices born out of the fact that we do not have access to their (read white, or predominantly white) institutions. In other words, black folks are too undisciplined and hedonistic to succeed in this society, as evidenced by all the incarcerated black men and "baby daddies". Therefore, any black man that doesn't end up like this is "out of the ordinary". Any empowered black man would not look at graduating from Stanford to be more esteemed than graduating say from Morehouse or any other university IF we graduate thinking that we have done something special if we haven't become someone's "Baby Daddy" yet as if that is something you expect out of black people. If you were empowered by your education, you would understand that black people (and our own institutions) can take care of black people far better than any white institution wants you to believe. I went to school at Morehouse, predominantly white U of Memphis and I attend Mizzou now in grad school and I can tell you, the black students at Morehouse and Spelman were being better prepared for this racist society than the black students at Memphis or Mizzou, simply because those latter institutions were not concerned with the black students' development as Black people in this society. They are more concerned with making race a non-factor, only in word, but not deed, and then fooling the students into believing the ideal world is a color blind (read white) world where we have no "real" differences. Yet, it is these differences that characterize our lives. Because, contrary to what your brothers in Phi Kappa Psi may tell you, we are indelibly black people in a white supremacist society. This means that we have to spend time dealing with how this society attaches negative meaning to our blackness and how we are to prosper in that context WITHOUT HATING OUR OWN BLACKNESS!!!!!! (reread Souls of Black Folks) I am really perplexed as to why the issues of incarceration and "baby daddies" even entered into this discussion, unless these are images you feel are typical of black people, thereby, you feel you are not doing what the "typical" black man does by going to Stanford and graduating. As the responses to your reply from the caucasian GCers bear out, most white people are okay with these images, but I myself am offended. As an empowered black man, I understand those images to be part of a general racial project to further demean the truth about Black people, and are not really part of an empowered perception of our reality, and it doesn't even make for a funny joke.
Blackwatch!!!!!!