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I think part of it is that for years Greeks made themselves the center of the social circle at colleges. I mean, sure, people went to basketball games, but there a certain decorum was expected from the team. When people went to see fraternities, they were there for a party.
And even though there are lots of independents at a Greek party, it's associated with the house throwing it. So in lots of people's minds fraternities=beer. Never mind that independents have parties too, or that they probably drank most of the beer there!
And when your non-Greek saw a sorority in action, what did she probably see? Girls in matching t-shirts chanting on the sidewalk to go give some girl a bid. So they see us at our most peppy and conformist.
Neither of these things are what a GLO is about (although parties and togetherness are certainly fun and/or important) but they are what outsiders are seeing. How much of our philanthropy is really visible to the campus? If we go clean up litter, who sees us? If we have a dance marathon, do a lot of independents come? When we're helping a sister through a bad breakup, isn't that private? And why should an independent stop to think about our grades, for example? For the most part, we think about the media's opinion of us a lot more than the average non-Greek stops to think about Greeks at all. They don't have a compelling reason to think about Greeks and whether their opinion is accurate.
And Greeks do have some sins in their past, if you will. White-only membership for many. Hazing. Dues too expensive for many people. Parties that were out of control. Some of these still happen some places. As long as people still know girls who dropped out for hazing, guys who were rejected for race, chapters where everyone drives a BMW, there is going to be a mix of understandable indignation and resentment.
A lot of things are changing - dry houses, more multicultural houses, even new GLOs. But until the whole system really is everything it claims to be, we won't change many minds. One bad apple, even if it is only one, is anecdotal evidence that things really are the way people always heard they were.
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Alpha Xi Delta
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