African American women in CPC, opinions, please?

[USM2012]

We have a large number of black ladies signed up for recruitment already. It is still a while away, and many are freshman and might realize it's not nphc and quit, but there are wayyy more than normal signed up. I'm in the south eastern part of the us, so even though it isn't always obvious and people don't always suspect it because it isn't the "deep south," racial tension is here. There are 2 black girls though that i would LOVE to have in my chapter that are already signed up. They would be great assets and would fit in, I think.

A few days ago in meeting, we talked about some girls and there was some tension. A couple girls privately requested that we not take any black members. The don't want to give a bid to a black girl because it will split our chapter, and nothing is worth splitting the chapter over.

It's not really for "racist" reasons, supposedly, but more for a concern of what others will think (which I don't particularly think is an excuse at all, but that's just me). A few members are concerned because no one on campus in NPC has ever done it before, and we lost a huge group of seniors and our reputation is suffering for other things. We have been one of the largest on campus for years, but in the last couple months, are numbers are low and our charter is at risk, and they don't want to do anything that nobody else is doing to risk not making quota. I understand not risking whatever it is we're apparently risking by giving a bid to some random girl we don't really care for, but I think that if we really really love a girl, it's completely racist to cut her just because of her race.

This is really eating away at me and I would love some objective opinions. I love my chapter more than life itself, but the idea that we could be so shallow really hurts me. What do you guys think?

An afterthought: I don't know if this is really relevant or not, but our chapter is currently the most diverse on campus. We have Spanish, Mexican, Italian, and Asian ladies now, so I don't really see what the big leap is to take another ethnicity.