[lovelyivy84]

Ahh the passive aggressiveness is in the air....

Lovely.

I don't know why people are attempting to make this into a blame game. Accusations are not conducive to any kind of real discussion. Let's discuss these ideas, shall we?

ZPhinest I just wanted to cosign on almost everything you said. It was pretty much the same thing at my school- lots of orgs, few interests (really small Af-Am community). The behavior of the Greeks on campus could and did make or break their orgs. We had to be very careful.

Also and on a different note- of the small number of black people on my campus, most came from a West Indian or an African background. African-Americans (as in family originates from slavery in America) were in the minority.

Growing up in a West Indian household you don't see much of any Greek life outside of tv and movies. Getting to college, AKA and Delta or Alpha don't mean much to Second generation black people. It's African-Americans who have that history and there just weren't a lot of them on our campus so Black Greek life was not central. What made me want it was meeting a dynamic Soror who treated me with great kindness- I was a black woman she respected and treated like a sister before I was a Soror. Her behavior is the kind that I hold in highest regard and have always striven to copy. Seeing that in her led me to seeing it in her organization. But not everyone has that experience. Not by a long shot.

It's all well and good to say that we have what "they" want, but it is our behavior that will make others see why they should want it in the first place. It is up to us to uphold the values of our orgs and make people who have no history with them see what they're about.

I personally think that the "Greek Decline" is just a function of a changing society and the widening economic range of blacks that go to college. At the end of the day even though it is not something that can be BLAMED on the HBGLOs, responsibility for ending the it lies with us.

So to end, can't we all just get along?

Geez.