One of the more disturbing social phenomena that I have noticed during my time here at Washington University is the existence of socially acceptable stereotyping and prejudicing of certain groups on campus. Through birth, I happen to be the last person on earth who it’s OK to hate. I am a white male who attended a private Jesuit high school and I come from an upper-middle class family. I kill and eat animals, my family owns a gas guzzling, blood-for-oil pickup truck, and I like to drink. I also happen to be a member of a fraternity. You’d be hard pressed to find something that I do that isn’t OK to hate me for. Thank God that I don’t smoke; otherwise you people would probably draw and quarter me. This week’s rant, however, doesn’t have so much to do with my personal behavioral choices so much as the choice I made concerning with whom I identify myself.
Greek Week is upon us, and the Greeks have donned their full regalia and can be seen parading around campus. For some strange reason, however, this year’s display seems to be less colorful than in previous years. During the first day of Greek Week I detected a notable absence of brightly colored Greek Week shirts around campus. On Wednesday I noticed even fewer people wearing their letters. What had happened? I know that there are over 1,000 members of the Greek community; why had I only seen a handful of people proudly wearing their letters? Suddenly, I felt a bit of shame for being the only person in class wearing my letters. This blame lies directly in the hands of people like Joshua Trein, people who have jumped on the bandwagon and have decided that it’s time they proved how cool they are by slandering a large, heterogeneous group of people for their own amusement.
As an institution of higher learning, Washington University tends to attract social/intellectual snobs. This group of people hates something just because it’s popular: “It’s OK to attack them, because there are a lot of them and only one of me.” Since I’m not Greek, they think, I retain my individuality. I’m a “loner” and that makes me cool, like Rambo. Word to the wise, Josh, Rambo is about as cool as a popped collar.
The article Joshua Trein wrote which appeared in the September 27 issue of Student Life is nothing more than a hate-filled rant against a dignified, proud, and historical part of our University’s, and our nation’s, history. I’m not sure how many people read the article, but the maxim applies: “If a moron gets hold of a pen and paper, writes down his crass opinion, and no one reads it, does the moron’s existence still become validated?” IMHO, the answer is no. However, I read the article and I chose to defend all of my brothers and sisters in the Greek community.
In his article, Joshua says that he “sternly refuse[s] to call the vast majority of individuals in fraternities bad men” and then proceeds to do exactly the opposite. According to him, “the few bad apples do indeed spoil the entire bunch” because all we do is “abuse drugs, alcohol and women.” Replace fraternities with rappers and I have just become racist and would be kicked out of the University for hate-speech.
As a group, the Greek community has accomplished much more than you can ever dream of doing in your sad, hate-filled existence. So what if we have fun while raising money? What’s it to you if we wash cars for cancer or play four square for a children’s hospital? If you want to question our motives for the charity work we do, how about questioning your own motives for writing an entirely unoriginal and quite untimely article slandering the Greek Community? We actively police our members much more strictly than any other group on campus, and it shows. The bad apples are removed without hesitation, and that prevents the rest of us from spoiling. It’s too bad we can’t say the same for people who think it’s OK to stereotype.
However, I hear that the KKK is actively recruiting members. Maybe I’ve found a group with which you can identify.