Black members of Predominantly White Frats and Sororities are Demanding Change

Everything that is happening as a result of this movement sort of would in Greek life at UVA is encouraging but nowhere near enough a lack of response to the black lives matter movement from their peers has black members of predominantly white fraternities and sororities reflecting on racist experiences they’ve

Had in Greek life can I touch your hair have you ever straightened your hair can I straighten your hair for you and then when it is straight oh I like it straight or oh you should you should definitely just stay with it curly offering opinions on how I should dress

And present myself that they would not offer other people any time music comes up and specially rap like they’ll expect me to dance my skin was edited to be lighter in a composite in my sorority and my friend who was next to me in that composite who is white who had a fake

Tan was actually darker than I was in the photo first year during rush I had my roommate Avery who’s also black so me and him were both like going into like fraternities looking at it looking at different fraternities and I’ve had like multiple instances where like both like the brothers wouldn’t recognize like

Each of us even though we’re like distinct like two different colors like he’s a lot darker than me and like he has like a way different hairstyle than music I’ve been cool the token diversity in my sorority a lot obviously people calling like minorities just like having

A token having a token minority I think the majority of microaggressions that I’ve experienced in Greek life or ones that you experience everywhere else it’s just the frequency is much higher I guess it’s just those sorts simple like microaggressions that like most people wouldn’t like really think about but

It’s just a repetitive like action that happens or occurrence over and over again like eventually like leads people especially black people to like eventually not like associate themselves with Greek life for what reasons do you feel it important to stick around and actually make the change instead of just

Walking away do you understand students who don’t feel like comfortable and more than likely just leave the Greek life I feel like standing up for it and making your stand and selling notes is not right or we have to make a change I feel like

That’s the best way to us way to go for it I have this dated from my sorority I would like whatever I’m doing now to be continued by people who were still in Greek life and actively trying to diversify it I stay in Napoleon are among a group of

Black members who drafted a pledge to circulate on social media and hold their peers accountable for perpetuating racism and Greek life I’m a person who feels comfortable sitting silent when something injustice happening so I wanted to give members of the Greek community UVA the words they needed to

Explain what they were feeling because I think a lot of especially white people at the moment are very concerned about saying the wrong thing and so I wanted to give them an example of something they could say and think about it making the pledge and by allowing other

Brothers who may not be black but also support the movement to voice their opinion saying although I may have I may have not spoken out against it earlier I’m in full stand with Napoleon and I’m more than welcome to the help them out most black historically white Greek life

Are some of the only close black friends that these people have and so instead of seeing us as an activist or as associate conscious local person may see us as a friend who is expressing the pain and hot that they’ve experienced it is hard to make these like to change the status

Quo and change the traditional mindset that UVA has I feel like as more and more of these like racist incidents occur it like enlightens more people and makes it more aware like the things that we have to change it only goes so far when we make the chain when we make the

Proposals or when we make like the statements to call out against like systemic racism or just racial racial biases these fraternities themselves like I guess internally look at it and then find out their ways that they could like resolve it themselves I feel like

That could go a long way I found a lot of encouragement in creating a group of black members of traditionally white sororities and fraternities because it’s very cathartic we have a space now where we can say things that we’ve experienced and everyone’s like oh yeah no me too

Black members of these organizations say their peers have failed to support them in the past they have come together to demand change moving forward in the Greek community Heather Thomas W UVA news

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