Diversity in the SEC

[carnation]

Who's pretending that? Who even thinks about that? Most GLOs were formed so people could have friends and in many cases, there were few females of any color on campus. Thus sororities were born, with no thought other than friendship and standing together.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by carnation

Who's pretending that? Who even thinks about that? Most GLOs were formed so people could have friends and in many cases, there were few females of any color on campus. Thus sororities were born, with no thought other than friendship and standing together.

You must have missed years of GC threads.

Anyway, TriDeltaSallie asked and I answered. If you are proclaiming that NPC and IFC foundings were race neutral and the membership remains predominantly white unintentionally, then this discussion will remain circular.

[carnation]

Not I!

But just because something is posted on GC doesn't make it right, lol.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by carnation

Not I!

But just because something is posted on GC doesn't make it right, lol.

It makes it what people believe. And that is the point.

NPHC are not the only GLOs founded 50+ years ago that were and still are grounded in race, ethnicity, and culture. Not having any or a lot of nonwhite college students during the time IFC and NPC GLOs were founded is an obvious point. Therefore, if diversity was unavailable or undesired (let's be honest) people need to be honest about that. NPHC GLOs are honest about our founding and we do not use the absence of whites to pretend that we were unintentionally Black. Many of our founders intended to form Black GLOs. Race was not invisible and neutral in our founding.

The fact that predominantly white GLOs get to see themselves as "sign of the times" without delving further into the complexities of the matter reinforces the notion of whiteness as carefree, race neutral, and powerful.

BGLOs, MCGLOs, LGLOs are not the only GLOs that are both intentionally and unintentionally predominantly (insert identity of majority of membership).

[carnation]

I seriously doubt that any NPC group was founded with an eye to keeping blacks out. I'm betting it never crossed their minds They probably just wanted to be friends.

When I was at the University of Hawaii, there were actually sororities for different ethnic groups. They'd been there for decades. Wakaba Kai was only for Japanese girls, Teh Shih Cheh was for Chinese, and so forth and there was even a group for "cosmopolitan" girls --i.e., racially mixed girls. There were fraternities like them. You did not rush outside your ethnic group.

Apparently, none exist any more. Alpha Gamma Delta does and they have women from every culture and they form a beautiful picture of Hawaii. Do they hang out and think, "There's my Filipina sister! And over there are 4 Japanese! And aren't I cool for being in this group with all these hapas?"

No.They merely go about the business of sisterhood, including those who came from the mainland. Like some of us go about the business of teaching or parenthood without taking time out to divide our students or children racially in our heads.

[amIblue?]

NPC groups didn't have to worry about keeping Black members out at their founding because their schools already did that for them. How many schools were racially integrated in the late 19th century and early 20th century?