I feel you 411....
I used to love to sit around with my dad (Que '75), and my mother (Delta '73) and listen to them relive their pledging days. I even got to see my dad try to remember a step they used to do on the yard at Shaw University.
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We can't even get our film developed for fear that some nosy Kodak processor will call the cops if they see pics of what looks like hazing!
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That's trips me out because my dad has pictures of him on the yard in long johns dyed gold with a bedsheet dyed purple wrapped around him, covered in food, standing in the middle of campus all day singing "I Shall Not Moved." Now-a-days, that's your ass...suspension of the chapter and of yourself from the frat. What a shame.
But let's remember, this is a new generation. The kids in college now are two generations removed from struggle. Their biggest challenge now is to drive down the street without getting a ticket for being black. Back then, the general Black public was being fire-hosed down, attacked by police and their dogs, couldn;t even eat in restaurants or use the same toilets. They knew and lived hard times. So to go through adversity during pledging was accepted. Now you have kids who grow up with Nintendo and $100 sneakers. They aren't trying to hear about all that pledging stuff. On top of that, the ones doing the pledging are their peers, who are on a power trip. Those are the ones who bring the lawsuits. I'm telling you folks....don;t be suprised in the next few years if undergrad membership is totally done away with and our orgs become for professionals only.
Part of the answer is to change how we operate to support our clientele and potential people "hired" into the frat/soror. All of our orgs are businesses. Would you work at IBM if they beat your ass in order to get the job? Probably not. I KNOW, I KNOW...it's different. But not to these kids who are interested in our orgs now. After being on the inside for so long, we need to stop and think from their perspective. Because if there are no new members, there is no org. But, I know one thing, if we don't come up with an answer, the "bustas" will....and it will lead to less orgs in the NPHC.
ROOOO
Hybrid Mode
