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[QUOTE]Originally posted by TigerLilly
To thetanustew -- Hey, another PSP brother!! Pop over to the PSP forum sometime!!! (Even though it's a bit inactive...)
I did pop over there much earlier and noticed that it was rather quiet. I tend to check out the national PSP page more often. Plus, I check up on my Alpha Kappa brothers at UNC via their site, too!
So, I still have some questions about the colors thing. Like 33girl asked, can you still wear one of the colors while pledging? Like, blue jeans if the org. you're pledging has blue as one of its colors, or your favorite pink sweater if pink was one of the colors?
Could you wear the color on your shoes? (Since I have blue tennis shoes on right now, I thought of that.)
If pink were one of the colors, you would definitely NOT want to wear a pink sweater. You may be able to get away with a sweater that had a pink stripe in it or something like that, but you would be advised NOT to cover your entire top half in one of the sorority's colors--even if it is your favorite color! I'd avoid the shoe thing, as well. But maybe that is just me.
What if you had a job, and your job uniform included the colors of the org. you were pledging? Obviously the org. wouldn't ask you to not wear your work uniform, would they?
I can't imagine that they would. I mean, the idea behind the not wearing colors is that it helps you blend in and NOT draw attention to the fact that you are pledging. If you tried to tell a boss that you couldn't wear a uniform because it had puce (or whatever color) in it, you would draw a lot of attention to the fact that you were pledging! The same thing sort of goes for jeans...how would you explain to people that you are NEVER wearing jeans to hang out in? It would be tooooo obvious! (Now the jeans and pink sweater combo if the sorority colors were pink and denim blue would probably be a beeeeeggggg no-no!)
For cammykaze1920, you weren't allowed to wear colors around sisters, but otherwise you were...but what if you ran into a sister unexpectedly, at the store or something, while you were wearing a "forbidden" color?
I know you asked someone else, but I would like to respond because of the idea that forbidding colors 24/7 is harsh. If you just don't ever wear the sorority's colors, then this NEVER becomes a problem! That's the rationality behind it. I mean, you know how it is...the ONE time that you decide to go to WalMart at 3:00 a.m. in your pajama bottoms with a holey sweatshirt, messy hair, and unbrushed teeth is the same ONE time that the guy you totally have the hots for decides to go to WalMart at 3:00 a.m. The same thing happens when you are pledging--it is Murphy's law! The minute you walk out of your room in the sorority's colors is the minute you run into the president of the sorority or one of the founders or...
And I know I'm asking a lot of random questions, but I'm curious about this stuff because I had no idea that some groups had the rule about not wearing the colors. I'm just trying to understand how it works, since it seems incomprehensible to me that you would be banned from wearing certain colors.
I can see how it would seem weird. At first I thought it was just a power thing ("Ha! Let's not let our pledges wear our colors. That'll make their lives more difficult!"), but just as the Greek letters have a special meaning to the organization's members, the colors do, too. It's sort of the same principle.
And by the way, ask questions all you want! When I was an undergrad, I knew only about NPC sororities. That is why I got involved with PSP--it was MUCH more diverse than ANY of the NPC sororities at my large, Southern university in the 1980's and I wanted that diversity. I learned more about the NPHC organizations years later as I pursued membership in Theta Nu Xi (which is not an NPHC organization) and met more and more people who were either involved in NPHC groups or who had close friends who were. A lot of the NPHC traditions and so forth seemed odd to me, too, and I asked lots of questions about the "how" and "why" behind them. I found it fascinating (and still do find it fascinating) to learn about NPC, NPHC, and other Greek groups in order to understand exactly how my sorority was influenced by their traditions as well as how we were doing something that is totally new and different.
All of this conversation is truly enlightening!
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