A Personal Reaction to Sigma Alpha Epsilon's Racist Chant

On Sunday a  nine second viral video clip of several fraternity men chanting some very horrific things reached the email of Katelyn Griffith, an editor for “The Oklahoma Daily” student newspaper. Within hours, the story and video instantly made its way across cyberspace and the brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Oklahoma University were pulled out of the shadows and exposed.

As of today, the fraternity has been rightfully shunned by its national organization and fellow members, kicked off their local campus, their fraternity house has been evacuate, and several members have been expelled.

At the same time, people across the digital world are weighing in on the subject.

That being said, I felt it was important for me to address the actions of these men on our blog seeing that this platform is geared to Greek Life members.

Let me start off by saying, I do not, under any circumstances, condone the actions of these “men”. No questions asked, these men were wrong and deserve the consequences of this video surfacing. The very fact that several severe punishments were handed out to this “chapter” by both the parent organization and local university within hours of the video surfacing is indicative of the severity of offense and the lack of tolerance of these distasteful actions by other Greek Life members. 

However, I do not agree with others, from individuals to the media ( please refer to this CNN opinion article here), using this as an opportunity to shame all Greek lettered organizations as social cliques that pick and choose who will join their organizations based on qualities such as skin color, religion, sexual orientation or any other social issue.

As a proud member of Greek Life who comes from a chapter with several diverse women, I find it insulting that the actions of these men has become synonyms with Greek Life as a whole. 

In my humble opinion, it is morally and ethically wrong pass judgment on an entire group of people based on the decisions of the few; It is not fair to judge all Greeks based on the actions of these “men” just like it isn’t fair to judge anyone based on any other social issue.

This is one chapter at one university, there are hundreds of chapters from hudreds of Greek Lettered Organizations across the United States alone, each with their own histories, beliefs, and values. No chapter is the same even within the same overarching organization, how is it possibly fair to form an opinion of Greek Life as a whole based on one selection of “men”.

That being said, I urge people to look at this terrible offense as what it is, the actions of a few Greek Life members, not every Greek Life member.