The Herald Online

Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: Opinion

What does sisterhood mean to you? Does it include the same responsibilities that one would share with a sibling? Or is it less familial and more a social and class privilege? By now, young ladies at Astate have rushed or are making final bids to do so.

Expectations

My personal experience to rushing goes back to the day I was born. As it turns out, my fate was written in the stars long before it would be revealed to me. My mother, an alumnus of Astate, is a founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority undergraduate chapter and also a founding member of the graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in Blytheville.

She has successfully motivated many other women who were born in my family to join the sorority doing so much with overseas chapters and across the country at respected schools. She's influenced generations of nieces, cousins and sisters to be motivated young women and, above all, forged and united in sisterhood. The colors of AKA, pink and green, have been in my wardrobe in some faction of silhouette, design, custom made dress or from off the rack for as long as I can remember.

You would think that with all the experience, knowledge and sacrifice one's parent has done for the action or cause of the sorority that I'd be a shoe -in. One would think good grades, a record of community services stretching back into elementary school would make me one of the more obvious of candidates to be rushed.

Apparently, my destiny to be an AKA is not without challenges such as those Jason and his Argonauts faced. Just as the gods and Medea helped him, only time and divine intervention will lead the way to my sorority fate.

I attended all the meetings and informational gatherings. I was given inaccurate information regarding the submission of necessary materials. This misinformation led to my not getting a nomination and becoming a legacy in my sorority of choice.

As heartbreaking as that was, news of this event was sent around the AKA globe to the "sisters" of the sorority, including my family members. There was shock, outrage, hurt and disappointment.

There were words of encouragement from my brother. His criticism of the Greeks, meant as comfort went along the lines that he was "glad I'd not be joining the cult and that my day to be a snob would have to wait." He actually has harsher things to say about all Greek organizations not only on this campus but those of national prominence citing class, privilege and snobbery. He is nicest to this one due to the number of women who belong to it from our family.

Needless to say, he never pledged nor plans to join any fraternity. Don't get me started about the discussions between he and my uncles who belong to Alpha Phi Psi and those in Alpha Phi Alpha, the brother frat to Alpha Kappa Alpha. Does this even happen in your family? 

This recent event made me think and wonder- does this sort of nonsense happen in other sororities and frats? I mean, would other legacies' or founding members' children face this type of hardship?

Crossing Lines

I believe that the conflicts and problems in life are not what define us - what matters is how we respond to them.

I'm finding that perhaps some lines that are drawn to keep someone out include the same line I'm trying to cross. Is it worth it? Who will be disappointed, friends, family or myself?

There never is an emergence of the reason why you were or were not chosen or rushed.

What about those rejected young ladies? Were decisions made on the basis of looks, on the basis of being fair skinned and pretty rather than those who emit a more natural inner beauty? Is it all about turning papers in on a date despite the date being vague- dates that forced an individual get everything needed done now or never- one time only? Why does the process have to be so insane?

I mean, on one hand, I won't have to change my schedule to hear about big sister so and so, or help a big sister with her requirements. I don't have to be concerned with hazing in any way shape or form, not that it usually occurs. If it did, I'm the type that wouldn't put up with that type of systematic abuse or mental conditioning.

Physical Beauty

What about those sororities that don't make it a goal to have a rushing class that looks, as Paris Hilton would say, "Hot"? Would sororities be interested in having a cross-generational legacy daughter from a predominate African-American family in their sisterhood?

I don't even know if the sororities at Astate look over the race card when rushing. Considering my own observational experience, that doesn't seem likely to occur. The process should be cross-cultural in nature, regardless of class, ethnicity, or religious status of those wishing to join a Greek organization.

What about female empowerment? Isn't that the foundation that these organizations were built upon? Or is it a cult bent on brain washing my mind?

So are sororities a social class privilege designed only for those deemed the fairest of them all bent on being better than this sorority or that one? Is it as pervasive as Spike Lee points out in his cult classic film, School Daze 1988, where we all need to wake up from the delusion that it is not? Is that what sisterhood means to you? If so, it's certainly not the sisterhood my mother was trying to start.

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