A Victory for Sororities: Education Department Rules Sororities Are for Women Only

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Zach

I’m not checking your post to call you out, because you’re not wrong to trip over that. But let’s really frame this with a little context, because the idea that predominantly white fraternities and sororities are the “standard” for Greek life is honestly kind of shaky when you look at the bigger historical lens.

Let’s look at the Greek letters themselves. The letters didn’t originate in isolation. The Greek alphabet evolved from the Phoenician script, which was heavily influenced by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, meaning Africa and the Mediterranean were the real blueprint for what would become the Greek letters you see today. So even the symbols that white GLOs hold up as “traditional” trace back to Black and brown civilizations.

Ahem… So, first off, I’m first generation ethnic Greek here in the States. My mother’s side is directly from Greece, so my grandparents came over with her, settled in the Midwest, and built everything from scratch. She was old enough to bring all of our real tradition with her, so when people talk about Greek life, I always laugh a little because for me it’s not just letters, it’s literally my bloodline, our language, our faith, our food, and our family values that survived for thousands of years.

You’re right, Zach. Historically, the Greek alphabet didn’t start in like some vacuum. Like you said, it did evolve from Phoenician scripts, which were heavily influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs. So technically, the letters sororities and fraternities wear today trace back through Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East before they ever showed up on a sorority or fraternity tee. That’s a fact, not just my family pride.

But for the record, I’ll mention what you didn’t, Zach. The Phoenicians weren’t African, they were Levantine, but their writing system was shaped by Egyptian scribes on African soil. That’s how culture works — trade, travel, mixing ideas for centuries. So if you trace your “proud” Greek letters all the way back, yes, you’re gonna hit the shores of the Nile. If you wanna call it Afro-Mediterranean, that’s fine. But it still goes through us — my real, ethnic Greek roots.

So like, this alphabet and all this cultural knowledge physically ran through MY family line. Ancient Greece didn’t just borrow Phoenician symbols, we built an entire language and identity from it.

So, my Greek family line literally carried that alphabet forward. Just sayin..