White men in NPHC

[RedefinedDiva]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Please understand that I'm not contradicting you about your, or any other organization as a whole here but in this thread as in others there have been multiple members who stated they would not vote for a white person, usually followed with "that's just what I think" or something similar. I've seen it repeatedly. It isn't hard at all to get the impression that there's a caveat to all the remarks of openness.

I'm not surprised that on some campuses interests might not feel like they're "black enough" and would be discriminated because of it, just as there are assumptions of racism in NPC orgs where they don't exist.

Ok, serious question here. Is EVERY member of your org. a member of GC? I'm guessing no. Well, every member of Alpha Kappa Alpha is not a member of GC. Considering that there are over 200,000 members of my Sorority across the WORLD, the small number of us that are actually regular posters on GC make up less than 1% of our total membership. Therefore, if folks are to take what that .08% of persons say to be the LAW as it pertains to the entire Sorority, then they have a problem with reality.

No one will know until they try. If you don't try, well, you never really wanted it anyway. All that "not Black enough" talk is a bunch of bullisht. All we can do is encourage folks to try.

ETA: Soror Jody and I must have been typing at the same time!

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by RedefinedDiva

Ok, serious question here. Is EVERY member of your org. a member of GC? I'm guessing no. Well, every member of Alpha Kappa Alpha is not a member of GC. Considering that there are over 200,000 members of my Sorority across the WORLD, the small number of us that are actually regular posters on GC make up less than 1% of our total membership. Therefore, if folks are to take what that .08% of persons say to be the LAW as it pertains to the entire Sorority, then they have a problem with reality.

No one will know until they try. If you don't try, well, you never really wanted it anyway. All that "not Black enough" talk is a bunch of bullisht. All we can do is encourage folks to try.

ETA: Soror Jody and I must have been typing at the same time!

I do understand that, that's why I said I wasn't talking about any organization as a whole. My point was that, despite the bullshit that is "So-and-so can't join XYZ because they're *race*, there are campuses on which that is the feeling given off or where, indeed, there is racism present in the membership process despite the feelings of our organizations as a whole.

I was mostly responding to what I saw as a criticism of an individual who felt ostracized by both NPC and NPHC organizations, whether her mixed race would have actually affected her chances. I suspect she never rushed nor went to interest meetings. However, I don't see that as a reason to criticize her for what she felt or experienced. Does that make sense? Her comments about membership in an NPC org are equally disheartening, but I won't turn around and criticize her how she says she was treated by people on campus, because that was how she was treated.

Also, though seperate from the poster's comments, and more relevant to the overall thread, despite a message board only being a small subsection of the population, even one member saying so can give the impression of an atmosphere of non-acceptance and doubt. Because if one member on a message board says it, expand that to the real world, and that's a significant number. And what are college freshmen but young and naive?

[preciousjeni]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I was mostly responding to what I saw as a criticism of an individual who felt ostracized by both NPC and NPHC organizations, whether her mixed race would have actually affected her chances. I suspect she never rushed nor went to interest meetings. However, I don't see that as a reason to criticize her for what she felt or experienced. Does that make sense? Her comments about membership in an NPC org are equally disheartening, but I won't turn around and criticize her how she says she was treated by people on campus, because that was how she was treated.

She didn't say that she was treated poorly by anyone and she revealed herself when she stated that she had only "heard and read" about issues in Latina sororities but still based an opinion on the rumors. What she did was project her own insecurities onto the sororities on her campus which is very different from indicating that she didn't join an organization because it didn't focus on her area of interest.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of mainstream Greek bashing among multicultural sororities because the members are often misguided as to the real purpose of their orgs. Or, in some cases, the founders themselves perpetuate stereotypes of other orgs to give their members ammo against questions about why they joined because they are unsure and insecure themselves - particularly when the organization was founded out of an isolated bad experience with a mainstream org.

[Little32]

Originally Posted by preciousjeni

She didn't say that she was treated poorly by anyone and she revealed herself when she stated that she had only "heard and read" about issues in Latina sororities but still based an opinion on the rumors. What she did was project her own insecurities onto the sororities on her campus which is very different from indicating that she didn't join an organization because it didn't focus on her area of interest.

Exactly and what we are responding to is that misinformation and how--as we have seen on this board, in this thread--that misinformation can quickly be translated into fact and perpetuated as such. Most black people (most people really--quiet as its kept) are multicultural, multiracial, or multiethnic (whatever term you choose) in some way; so the suggestion that a mixed race heritage would be a hindrance to membership in one of the D9 is really problematic and needs to be addressed.