I'm different because I'm greek?

[damasa]

So....I'm sure this could go in another topic area...but...I was wondering (yes wondering, not wandering, as in wondering what I could get done..and what not) around campus today, getting ready for school, and doing a few other things at the student union, like securing spots and getting an office for my fraternity..and other things. So I have a black shirt on w/ yellow and white block letters on it...(colors of my fraternity) and I walk by a group of girls and they start talking shit. A few of the comments that were mentioned were, "rapist," "bastard," "frat di%$(*#$" and a few others. I was so shocked that I couldn't even say anything back...I just shook my head at them and kept walking. So, I constantly hear of ppl belonging to greek orgs that stereotype up and down about this and that, but recently, I've witnessed many stereotypes against greek orgs. Has anyone else? Why is it so "wrong" to be greek? I don't feel that I'm different than anyone else, I just feel like I belong to something special. This really really annoys me, and I don't know how to ger by this, it has been happening more and more, and it seems to be targeted mainly at members of my fraternity because we are one of the most successful on campus, and we stick out the most, well imo we do. We are known to party and such..but ERRRRRRRRRRRR I WAS CALLED A RAPIST.
Something i'm not, or will ever be.

damasa

[SSS1365]

I think it's really awful how people automatically get a bad rep just because they belong to the greek system. Unless you're group has done something to earn the horrible comments, I think it's really wrong of people to judge you that way. Stereotypes are awful and I hate when people buy into them.

[Wooglin4Ever]

You know, that's just Greeks everywhere. We are easy to point a finger at. The dowside and upside to Greek organizations is that we are and organized group of people. Take sports for instance, we have a VERY BIG IM program here. The bigger sports have up to 100 teams and Greeks play against everyone else and everytime a Greek team wins the championship. It's the same with Community service and everything else. That helps us out so much, because when we get together we can do anything. Greeks run almost every campus. My campus is 5% greek and we pretty much run the school. All of the top student leaders are greek. We are organized and we help each other. The downside to that is we are very recognizable. If a girl gets raped at a random house party, then the paper reads "Girl Gets Raped" If for some strange reason it is the result of a Greek EVERYONE knows it. You could have 100 rapes (just an example) on a campus, 99 could be from GDI's and 1 could be from a greek, guess which one would be remembered. We are easy to point at. Just remeber it take 10 good things to make up for 1 bad thing.
I also know at my school the greek parties are much safer that the random house parties. We have to have 5 sober monitors and 5 DD's. Also there must be at least 5 sober people there that are CPR and TIPS trianed. I don't see these people at random freshman house parties. When I went to those the first few weeks of my freshman year I just saw a lot of CRAZY drugs which I have never seen at one of my houses parties. I think they are just jelous. Sorry for going way off the subject and ranting so long.

[Honey77484]

Awww! It makes me so mad when people do that! That's the same reason why my parents are so down on me joining a sorority in college, because of all their preconceived ideas about GLO's from hyperexaggerated movies & news stories. Same thing when I wanted to be a cheerleader. Gosh I wish people could just open up their minds a bit.

[Kevlar281]

I used to have preconceived notions about the greek system it would be a lie if I said that I didn’t. I just always considered them as upper crust elitists. So one night I go along to a major event party and im thinking to myself how much its going to suck because I don’t even go to the school and wont really know anyone. As im standing there not really talking to anyone someone comes up and introduces themselves, talks to me a bit and then proceeds to introduce me to practically everyone at the party. Now I understand its standard for them to do the meet and greet but it really opened up my eyes to how welcoming they are even if you’re not a brother. That would never have happened at a GDI party IMO. After that night I knew going greek was for me. It just took that one positive experience to change my negative opinions. It sucks to be stereotyped/generalized but you just half to put your best foot forwards and do your best to contradict peoples preconceived notions, even if its one person at a time.

[Salience]

I am so angry for you! This is why I think we've gotten too locked into the Springer Mentality where we think we can verbally abuse whomever we don't approve of, in a public forum.

You know what you're doing is positive, but I wish there was a way to address this in a wider forum.

[LeslieAGD]

I, too, had preconceived notions about Greek before I became one. Heck, I down right hated the Greek system freshman year...mostly because of one B****y sorority girl. Greeks get such a bad rap not only from the media stereotypes, and ideas that Greeks are only carrying on High School popularity cliques, but because people that don't like Greeks look for just one Greek to be a jerk and then they feel justified in saying "all Greeks are jerks." It sucks!

[Betarulz!]

I know what you mean. I had been on campus for about 30 hours when on friday night I was hanging out with some of my new pledge brothers and some people they knew from HS waiting in line for a movie, when these two guys come up and start talking to me. I don't know if they knew I was a freshman or what, but they ask me where I'm from (i'm out of state) and then ask me what hall I live in. Of course I say I'm living in the Beta house. They look at each other, and then one of them says "YOU DRUNK F***! I wouldn't say that outloud too often if I were you" and then they left w/o saying another word, but giving me a dirty look. Now honestly I was surprised that they approached me in the first place, and they were kinda nerdy, but I wasn't going to not talk to them b/c I had no idea. But it really bothered me.

I think that greeks are hated b/c we are acheivers. And that hatred goes back to same thing that has happened all the time since junior high. Obviously back then intelligence was the quickest way to unpopularity. In HS of course it wasn't not as bad but most of the popular people (at least at my school) weren't the sharpest knife in the drawer but it was easier to make look down on them b/c of their stupidity--something a lot of intelligent not-so-popular people do all the time ( I know I did at the people higher than me on the social ladder). A lot of intelligent people kinda go to college expecting a difference. And when they get there, already here is this structured system of partying, fun, and similar exclusionistic tactics that have been a part of the daily grind for 7 years previous. However, since most greeks are smart, the GDI's aren't able to look down on us b/c of that. So they develop this intense hatred based on really nothing, but it comes from their previous hatred and the fact that it's harder to find things to look down on greeks for. That's my opinion on the matter. Obviously the media has a big influence and that contributes as well.

[Thrillhouse]

A lot of people see greeks as a group of people that are easy to stereotype. If one incident happens anywhere, they are quick to stereotype all greeks as (insert words here).
I find this very wrong because greeks almost always have higher gpas, do more stuff for the community, etc. However because it is a group, people feel as if they have to stereotype. As long as the media keeps showing mostly bad things about greeks.. the stereotypes will still keep coming.


One example that I remember is a good friend of mine liked a guy from a fraternity on campus. Well I guess after her brother who graduated from college found out and said "I don't want to see you dating any fraternity guys" but didn't say why. When she told me that, I was shocked but didn't say anything.

Being greek is not necessarily better than not beeing greek but being greek certainly has its advantages over being non greek. I just don't see how greeks can be discriminated against for no reason.

[curiouss]

The main reason why greeks, social greeks in particular, get flack because they are exclusive.

IMO, I think excluding certain people for legitimate reasons is ok. For example, excluding someone because a 1.5 GPA. However, excluding people for illegitimate reasons is unacceptable.
For istance, excluding someone because they're "uncool" for whatever reason.

Just my two pennies!

[damasa]

Understandable..but that still shouldn't be a basis for a stereotype of any kind. Even if some greek orgs discriminate, and yes...some do...that still doesn't give another person the right (a person who knows nothing of me) to call me a rapist, simply because I wear letters. I've been thinking about it the past few days, and it's really starting to get to me. I'm not a mean person, I'm not a rapist, and I try to get along with anyone that will respect me for being the person that I AM, not what I am rumored/thought/stereotyped to be.

d

[SparkliiQTMTSU]

Ok I will admit I too had preconceived notions about the greek life before I got to college. I think the reason I had them was because of a high school sorority that we had at my school. I was a part of it at first and ended up dropping out. They were a very elite group of popular girls with money and thats all they cared about and they weren't even the best of friends either like real greeks are. They were all enemies. Always trying to compete with one another. It was horrible and I'm pretty sure that's why I wasn't interested in sororities at first. Then I met my best friends ever, The Sigma Chi's here at MTSU, and they taught me that being greek is a great opportunity in your life. I met some of the sorority girls here and found out that they are all so close and they are the sweetest girls ever! I'm so glad that I realized this b/c I might have gone through life disliking the people that could really become my best friends!!

Nichole

[ZTAngel]

My anger goes to those people who assume that if you make a stupid mistake it's because you're greek. Examples:

My friend was at a local bar. She was extremely drunk. She proceeded to start dancing on a bar stool. Before I could run over and tell her that it probably wasn't a good idea for a highly intoxicated individul to be dancing on a small, towering object, she fell down and smacked her head on a nearby table. Bloody mess and 12 stitches to the forehead later, a doctor commented, "Those greeks are always doing dumb stuff......" Little does the doctor know that my friend use to dance on top of bar stools back in her pre-greekdom days in high school.

My personal favorite was when I was trying to parallel park my freshman year in college (I have since become a professional parallel parker). Parallel parking is definitely not very easy. In Florida, it is NOT required in order to get your license so very few driving schools spend the time to teach it. Anyways, I attempted several different times to wedge my car into a space in downtown Orlando. I finally achieved the mastery of parallel parking and stepped out of my car. A man was walking by giving me a nasty look. He was in a business suit and you could tell he worked as an executive at one of the nearby bank headquarters. He looked at my license plate which has one of those Zeta frames on it. He said to me, "Is it a requirement for a sorority girl to be dumb?" I was shock but me, being the smart-ass that I am, looked at him and said, "Is it a requirement for a corporate executive who is going through a mid-life crisis and a sexual dry-spell with his own wife to be such a jackass?" He muttered a few curse words at me and walked off. Now, the problem with that situation is that even when I wasn't greek I was STILL a really bad driver. Being greek didn't make any difference to my driving skills.

Being greek just gives people an excuse to point fingers.

[Tom Earp]

Small people have small minds!!!!!!

We as Greeks are damn special!

We do more on campus for the good of the school, have a higher GPA and when we graduate, we donate more money to the respective schools and participate in returning and backing our schools and our Greek Organizations!

I had a roomate who did not want to joing the local i started but yet was the 3 rd President of the chapter.
Each year he has a gathering of the brothers at his home.
This is no small task as at least 40-50 show up each year!

YES being a Greek is DAMN SPECIAL!!!!!!!
They may look down their nose but later in life then what!