I mean that the sorority members who rejected her said that she had impeccable credentials and was rejected because she was black. They said this. On the record.
http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a10379/revolution-on-sorority-row-september-2014/
@“Cardinal Fang” great article! Sorry the phrase “impeccable credentials” just bothered me a little because the process is so superficial, those with really good qualifications often get overlooked and it’s sad. I recently got dropped from a sorority for talking about community service too much… and then dropped by another for not talking about it enough. Its a confusing process.
Under the pre 2013 system at Alabama, it wasn’t only 20 year old girls rejecting minorities, it was their alums and other adults setting rules and standards that some could not meet (being a legacy, getting 10 references). Things improved when they really did turn the membership decisions over to the 20 year olds.
There is also a new computer system used in matching that has really increase the likelihood of every girl going through rush getting matched with a house if she’s open to all of them.
It looks like it’s not only the Alabama chapter of Alphi Phi that has a problem. This happened yesterday at GWU, first day of Black History Month. This article does not show the picture but I saw the picture on WJLA (DC local news channel) this morning. One of the girls is wearing an Alpha Phi sweatshirt in the photo.
Alpha Phi has some serious soul searching to do, on a national level.
America’s racial landscape just isn’t symmetrical.
The NPHC/Divine 9 are not now and have never been racially exclusionary. The oldest one, Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., was founded in the face of discrimination by other fraternities at Cornell. NPHC groups are explicit about the fact that they exist in order to serve and celebrate the black community. People committed to that cause are mostly black. When exceptions come along, they may be considered for membership.
Contrast this with the NPC/historically white sororities that today have nondiscrimination clauses (which is the right move). They would never, never say that they are historically white or primarily white or founded to serve the white community, even though they are. They present as neutral social organizations founded to serve “women.” So women of color perceive them as by, for, and about white women, and the white membership says, “We’re not racist, so why don’t they rush?” and the women of color think, “Yup, not for me.”
@twoinanddone - I could see that being the case where the percentage of women of color varies in the low numbers, but when it is consistently 0 or just one girl that means there’s something afoot.
Re: #183
Article about that incident in The GW Hatchet, a student newspaper at George Washington University:
https://www.gwhatchet.com/2018/02/01/university-looking-into-racist-snapchat-post-depicting-sorority-members/
And then racist white women like Harley Barber and the one at GWU are attracted to those chapters because they are all white, reinforcing the segregation trap.
My outrage meter may be broken, but I see the GW incident as something meriting a strong talking-to and probation, but not expulsion from the sorority or from the University (GWU is private, right?). Whereas the Alpha Phi woman who made the racist rant knew she was being offensive and racist, I can imagine that the GWU women erroneously thought they were making a funny inoffensive joke. Maybe the one woman does in fact have a black ancestor-- not that having a black ancestor would excuse her, but she might have thought it would. They can learn, and if they behave right in the future, they don’t deserve a draconian penalty.
Have to disagree. I cannot imagine the thinking behind this banana=black “joke.” It would never, ever occur to me to make the joke in the first place: I simply don’t have such associations in my head.
We don’t punish thought; we punish action. Banana=black is a racist idea. But those young women many not have realized it was a racist idea. Ending up being racist is not the same as deliberately being racist. People who unintentionally end up making a racist joke when they didn’t want to can be educated, if they don’t want to do racist things in the future.
IMO expulsion from their sorority is appropriate. I don’t believe it merits expulsion from the University (I didn’t see anything that indicated that university expulsion was being considered so just responding to @“Cardinal Fang”'s comment.) I could see how the sorority would need/want to distance itself from these women and, in doing so, make a clear statement that the photo does not represent their house or values.
Okay, I’m going to confess, with great embarrassment, my ignorance. I don’t get the banana=black joke…Not really. And the young woman supposedly saying, “I’m 1/16th black.” How does that relate to the banana analogy? I know there have been very offensive analogies made about some Asians Americans being “bananas”(accusing them of being yellow on the outside and white on the inside), but black people and bananas?
I know there’s a term historically coined for black people whose phenotype indicates they have a high percentage of white ancestry: “high yellow”. But I’ve never known bananas to be iconically associated with the term. Can someone explain it to me?
Concerning the incidences of racism sometimes expressed toward people of color by some students at historically white colleges, it’s just SSDD for most us black folks of ahem…”vintage”. We never coined the phrase, “post-racial”. We know better. There was a fierce backlash against advances made during Post Civil War Reconstruction, ushering in 100 yrs. of Jim Crow. And we are currently witnessing a backlash in the wake of the first African American Presidency in the form of “The Ult-Right” and “Take America Back” movements. But progress is still being made, so at least there’s that. I just roll my eyes and try to take it in stride when stories like these latest ones surface.
I’m assuming that she is implying that black people are monkeys who eat bananas, ho ho. Maybe she’s making some less offensive joke that I’m missing.
Yes, it’s banana=monkey. You can just google it,add “Obama” if you like, there are plenty of images.