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Here is my experience....
Shortly after the stoneage, when I was a PNM, I remember going through Rush at a large competitive school. I remember turning my head and seeing a black member on Set 2. No two women were a like.
As much as I WANTED to be a part of the blonde-cheerleader house or my legacy house, I was a little captivated by the diversity of that house. I was not targeting a house with a minority population. It just added to the appeal. Coming from an affluent bedroom community with few minorities, I was intrigued. Sure we had a few black people and a handful of hispanics but nothing like this. I had always wanted to be part of that cheerleader in-crowd. I think that a lot of PNMs still want that to this day.
I got dropped from blond-cheerleader house. One of the Jewish houses had a black member. However, to be honest, aside from her, they sounded like a bad episode of Jersey Shore and that was before the show. That was so not my style.
I am sure that you all know where this is going, but, I wound up pledging that diverse house. We were the most diverse house on campus; Latinas, Jews, Christians, Mormon and Blacks. I always wondered what those black sisters felt like pledging an NPC when clearly, they could have gone NPHC. I was never prouder of my chapter. It wasn't easy, far from it. I think that now days, it would be much easier for us. As for that first black sister that I saw during Set 2, she had the same major as me. I loved seeing her on campus. There were few sisters in our major.
As for that Blonde cheerleader house, the following year, they took a black woman. She was half white, half black as we were told. It was a big step for them and the Greek community as whole. The campus was shocked that if any of the chapters on campus would take a black, it would not be them. They were very WASPy. I remember talking to some fraternity guys about it, one whose girl friend was a member of that chapter and no one wanted to talk about. No one wanted to talk about diversity. It was as if, no one wanted to admit that the chapters weren't diverse, especially considering our location. A few of the fraternities had black members. Everyone had several Asians and Hispanics. But, albeit my chapter and another, noneof the sororities had blacks.
I really can say that our black sisters were treated just like everyone else. No one was offered a bid because she was black. We just liked them. I even remember learning a little about hair extensions.
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