An Alabama sorority has yanked its recruitment video from YouTube after getting a ton of Internet backlash one critic even called the video quote worse for women than Donald Trump people already starting to line up Alabama is the top sorority recruitment in all of the country Rush consists of four highly competitive rounds that’s
The artist I probably would not be going to Alabama if it didn’t upload up on Tick Tock history the culture at Alabama is weird This documentary could be the end of debris he confirmed for us that no sorority invited her to join I mean if we’re just talking about on paper what kind of person to want your organization I think she fits it more than your average person it should have been
White do you think she would have yeah I do Hello everybody welcome back to critical commentary I’m Taylor and today I have a very very special guest I have Ryan who was one of the biggest honestly to me like presentations to the Bama Rush documentary she’s on here to just kind of give us some thoughts about when the
Documentary to just Greek life in general and specifically Greek life at University of Alabama so thank you Ryan for coming on the channel thank you for having me chatting for a good like 30 minutes no seriously but um to kind of I guess like get us back on track
Um I want to just know like first of all what was the experience like of just being in a documentary having a camera crew kind of come into a very secretive and like Sacred Space and just like what that felt for you yeah for sure um like I was saying before we started
Like I’ve never been in a documentary like I didn’t know what to expect um but like for all the like criticism that I know that Rachel’s received like the director the producers like the team like everyone was so sweet and so supportive and so like just like family like like you know
People like just showed up in my apartment and my like college apartment where like there was maybe one light on at any given time like they just like came in and made me feel so comfortable they like talked me through everything and like quite honestly I the two people
That I met first were Zach and uh Danielle and they were pretty involved in that and like I just trusted them immediately and so like that made everything so much easier because like I didn’t expect them to be making like an Animal House kind of Greek movie you
Know yeah I knew they like cared about what I had to say what other people had to say like didn’t want us to look silly or stupid or like crazy girls like I trusted them so it was really easy yeah and to kind of uh just for people who
May not have seen Bama rash because I do feel like Bama Rush is so much bigger than this documentary it’s a whole thing on Tick Tock it’s like a full phenomenon oh yeah mine kind of like explaining what the documentary was about for anybody who’s like just coming on here
For the tea and and trying to just avoid watching anything else oh girl like if you didn’t see it and you have no idea like what we’re talking about like maybe click off like maybe save yourself um so basically the I guess do you mean like the documentary or like Bama Rush
On Tick Tock kind of both because I feel like they’re so intertwined right like you can’t really discuss the documentary without discussing how big it got on Tick Tock before that yeah so I guess like to start out and like chronologically like um the Bama Rush season one I think is
What people were calling it when like what would Jimmy Buffett do and like Dolly Parton something like the girls that like made this popular um they were just girls that were going through Recruitment and were posting their outfits of the day um and you know like Alabama they had
The accents and like they were wearing like a lot of Shame and like like the pants store and like things that you know are very Alabama culture-esque and people around the world like sincerely like around the world were like what the hell is this like what is happening in
Tuscaloosa Alabama and let me tell you after four years I still don’t know I really like I can’t answer that for you I wish I could but I can’t um but basically like people were you know just enthralled by Recruitment and Bama rush and sorority life at Alabama
Um and so the filming to the best of my understanding kind of stopped at the end of recruitment like girls got their beds they you know ran home and then that was kind of the end of season one um reminds you like I was in the house
And so like I wasn’t really keeping up with these girls I was like busy like tending to my blisters and dabbing my boobs sweat like I was busy um but so I think that’s kind of where it ended but people were still hungry for more and wanting to understand like
What all this meant um and so the documentary came I guess two years after the fact if I’m remembering correctly because Bama rush like Bama Rush was my junior year of college Rachel approached me my senior year of college it would have been fall semester so I was approached fall
Semester I filmed almost all the way through false right okay so so you know like Alabama recruitment starts in the summer so they so you know season one happened and then it almost immediately after that Rachel and the team approached me and they were like hey
We’d love to talk to you more we’d love to like hear about your experience and um you know the the documentary was kind of born and you know now that just came out what last month and you know what Bama rush like hashtag Bama Rush the documentary about was about was you know
Following these girls through I guess before recruitment because it didn’t show any of recruitment right yeah it was mostly like the pre-rush like getting the outfits together kind of like uh because they didn’t you’re right they didn’t get into recruitment which I think was what a lot of people wanted to see and
Understandably so yeah which yeah everyone I mean I don’t know why because I when I think of recruitment I think of just like my hands being really sweaty and like my hands honestly hurting from clapping so much and like losing my voice and just wanting to take a nap
After midday like I don’t remember any of the stuff that I think it’s glamorized in Greek life for sure I think that was yeah that’s definitely what they wanted to see but it was mostly like them prepping and then there’s kind of like you get to see one of them go all the
Way to bed day but you don’t actually see because I believe two of the main people dropped yeah and then the third person that did not drop just stopped filming yeah with Rachel so yeah yeah you you don’t really get to see a whole lot of that experience yeah for sure and
I feel like there was like a big gap and I think that like that’s where a lot of people were like unsatisfied because it showed these girls getting ready for recruitment no recruitment no sorority life post grad or like alumna experience um because even at that point like I
Guess they were filming my fall and spring semester or senior year but like by that point I was so tapped out I wasn’t even really in my sorority uh I was I don’t know what I’m talking about no but I know what you mean like senior
Year of being in a sorority is not the same thing as like your sophomore or Junior year when you’re like going into all the formals and you’re like paying attention to how much philanthropy hours you’re getting every semester like there is a different level of dedication because you’re kind of ready to just
Pass the Baton to the next group you’re not really focused as much about like the ins and outs of your sorority at that time absolutely and I always think about uh nothing new by uh Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers right and they you know Taylor Swift like describing like
The new like I know someday she’s gonna come around she’s gonna like I’m gonna meet her and it’s a fever dream and like that’s really what it feels like when you’re a senior in a sorority because you’ve got these 18 sometimes even 17 year old girls like coming into your
House excited to be wearing your letters like I’m gonna make change I’m gonna be the next president and it’s such a hard negotiation in your brain of being like that old scraggly like that’s like being like you you don’t know what they took from me yeah yeah you have like
Emotional scars right at that point and so I think it’s like there’s a it’s hard not to be jaded and I don’t think that’s like just Greek life I think that’s kind of totally in any organization like I was in other non-greek life organizations while being in a sorority
And I felt that way about those things too I was like I’m ready to just graduate and get up out of here seriously as far as like just I guess we you did kind of talk about how this is a bit of a controversial documentary and for sure I definitely was already
Telling you like I feel like it’s you can’t not have a controversial documentary like even free solo was dot like was controversial like it I think that what people don’t seem to realize or like critically think about is that a documentary is always going to have
Biases like for sure that is the purpose of creating it you’re trying to show light on a specific perspective so did you feel like a lot of that backlash was warranted or did you feel like honestly it was just more that people were mad that they didn’t get to see a lot of
Door chants you know hot I feel like a portion of the criticism was absolutely valid and like I don’t even want to say a portion of it because everyone’s opinion you know is is their own I get it um but I feel like people were kind of
Out to just like see the worst of it because you know you you have in my mind three main camps like women that that loved their sorority experience saw this coming out being like these are just like blue-haired Millennials that hate everything and like they just want to
Tear Greek life Treads and like that wasn’t true and then there were the people that were morbidly curious being like Oh my God like I want to see one of those girls sit on the dryer and like Circle her flab like I want to see it like you’re never gonna see that that’s
The point and then there were just the people that were genuinely curious like I saw this online I didn’t know what this would be I was interested and I feel like I learned stuff and I think the third group probably came in with the lowest expectations left with the
Most I remember being really like and I came into undergrad being like I’m gonna be a sorority girl like I was drinking the Kool-Aid like on tap I was so I remember like my sweet we literally had every single sorority um on these like big Post-its and we
Would write pros and cons about each one before getting in because we wanted to be like well what’s gonna be like the ones for us and like I actually helped one of my roommates who never knew anything about Greek life I I prepped her for recruitment because I could not recruit
We have to be sophomores at my school you can’t be a freshman but um I remember like my I didn’t have the grades my sophomore year I didn’t have the grades of my freshman year that’s why I didn’t primary regroup yeah yeah and it like broke me inside and I
Remember like being so emotionally torn up about about it and so a part of me was like if I can get in I’m gonna help someone else get in some kind of thing like I tried to make lemonade out of the situation and we ended up being sorority
Sisters but like it’s such a smaller experience for us because it was a liberal arts school where we barely had even 10 000 students so I’m assuming it is a even larger spectacle when you’re at a school that has that level of funding like going into Greek life so do
You mind kind of like just talking about that because I feel like that’s probably what everybody wants to hear anyways is like tell me about the recruitment process tell me about all that money that you’re able to spend on like beautiful bid Day decorations and like also the fact that you have these
Amazing houses because I feel like that is what people really look at the most yeah absolutely there’s so much money in the University of Alabama period so before you even get to the Greek life just Alabama is like a massive Cinematic Universe it is yeah um
Like we’re sponsored by Coke if I’m not mistaken and then like there’s one other massive supporter that I like never remember I want to say it’s Ford and I know that it’s not for like I know that’s fake news but like I feel like it’s something that has the same Vibe
Okay I’m gonna like do research after this I was clearly unprepared um but like like the the campus I always when I was going to school there I always felt like I was at summer camp I felt like I was at this insanely funded summer camp where everything is well
Manicured everything is within like a color scheme everyone looks the same everyone does the same and I I feel like that’s why Greek life is able to survive in the way that it is in Alabama because there is such a homogeneous culture there and then if you don’t fit into that like
You’re just something else and I wonder what life was like for they used to call them jeans did you call them that no what is that I love how specific sex make up slurs like what a concept a gene is a GDI a goddamn independent and that’s what Greek people called non-greek people
Um at school um I mean like we okay so we never had a slur but I definitely know that there was a level of disinterest on people who were not a part of Greek life for sure like because that’s how you got invited to all the best parties that’s how you
Got all the best internships like I got some of the best like internship and job opportunities simply because I went Greek and that I think was a lot of what propelled me to go into it because I was like looking for that networking opportunity but I never realized until I
Was in Greek life how how it’s almost like a superiority complex that oh absolutely but I think it was in the documentary that people rushed before school even starts so girls are showing up to school like two weeks before the first day of classes to rush
Um and then the sorority girls that are already actives are showing up the first of August so that they can do prep and polish week or work week as a lot of people know it case pnm’s hurt us um so that happens two weeks before they even show up right okay so
Um by the time I moved into my dorm actually Gracie who was in the documentary as well she was my freshman year roommate um yeah right it’s so funny so um you know I moved into my dorm and everybody was already in all of my roommates were rushing and so for the first
Month month and a half of school I was a gene I was unaffiliated I wasn’t in a sorority and I remember feeling so left out because like all of the sororities had group chats that were talking about like where the Frat parties were or like fried Friday
That’s like an Alabama phenomenon like I didn’t have a house to invite my friends to on Friday like I didn’t have the letters and when I would go on Tinder and like be talking to boys they’d be like oh like what sorority are you in
And I would have to say like I’m not in one which like who cares what men think about you but like back then I sure did I mean I think that’s kind of a part of it and like I’m actually kind of glad that you made that comment because I I
You said something that like really really stuck out to me and it was when they were talking about the ranking systems yeah and how fraternities create ranking systems and it’s so crazy how where you might be your sorority might be at one school and I’m thinking does
Not mean that it is the same ranking somewhere else because again it’s all about the men at that institution they get to decide who are the hot girls and who are the not girls and yeah I you know my sorority Delta gamma was new when we got there when I was there
And so we were like I guess bottom tier I honestly don’t even know where we were in the ranking but I knew we were not at the top you know like you yeah you know when you’re at the top and and it’s very obvious because you know you’re also I
Think getting a lot more PR opportunities like you’re just being thrown at the Forefront as far as like when you go to what is it like the club stuff like did you guys ever do like Club recruitments as well where you would like appear during club week as
Well and like advertising yeah so we were the only I think it was us and 80 Kai who was uh who’s like the national Christian sorority I think that we were the only ones that were tabling a good on board day which is like our equivalent to like what you’re talking
About and it was so like we so Sigma Kappa was new my freshman year and it was so embarrassing having to be at those tables oh my God Taylor so that’s like that’s like considered like a demotion to be out there I guess what it was was that like so we
Were like at the tables and we were like wrestling away like Yeti coolers and we were like trying to give away things like just to get girls to talk to us because like you can’t have a sorority if you don’t have members and that was
Where we were for a period of time and like Sigma Kappa for again for a while is going to be clawing itself out of that hole of just being new which is no fault of their own right um but get on board day is like traditionally for jeans and then also
For sorority girls because some sororities require that you be in one other organization um so I remember being at the table like wearing my letters at the table with my like Sigma Kappa and stuff behind yeah yeah hey like do you want to learn more about our sorority and it was so
Patronizing how the girls would come up and be like oh my God you guys are the new one that’s like so good for you I’m actually an XYZ but like we’re so cheering you on girl like you’re doing so good like you guys seem so cute so
Fun like girl just like like say you hate me and punch me in the face and walk away better than this so because of my school being like a small liberal arts yeah we all of us had to be there so it wasn’t as much of like
If you didn’t have to be there that was more of a sign on this the sororities that did because of all of Greek life had to appear as a club like at these events but I do know what you’re talking about like when you are a new
Organization even if you’re not a new like even if like because DG is like one of the seven the original Seven totally old yeah just the fact that they were new on campus automatically you did yeah you’re right you have to claw yourself out of a social hole and I think that a
Lot of wear that happens it goes back to the male gaze because it’s all about you know do we have not just you know the smartest and and I don’t think they necessarily care if you’re funny but like no they do care about like are you going to make us look good after
Graduation and a lot of times because you’re 19 20 years old it’s hard to look past Beauty and it’s hard to look past like do you fit in physically yeah and so as far as like your experience of like that like did you feel like once
You joined Greek life that you had to kind of Hump yourself up or kind of like I don’t know present yourself like in a way that you felt like was really inauthentic but it was more so for pnms down the line so they would want to be a
Part of your sorority because I know I did that my Instagram shows me so much about myself and it’s so it’s like it’s like embarrassing to look at my old pictures because I’m absolutely no I totally agree I mean like there was one so to answer your question directly like yes there was
Such a pressure on us because Alabama is a really visual school and a very prominent school as far as Greek life um that we like our Instagram was something that was so near and dear to our heart and whether or not it actually was like you were gonna make it
Um so you know like I remember posting with the sole intention of being on my sororities Instagram because like I was like I am Mr Sigma Capital like I am this like I love this drinking the Kool-Aid which like can we take a second drinking the Kool-Aid do you understand
How that is like insane like do we like do we ever like deconstruct that in our brains I I don’t know like I really I I don’t because I really and this was something that honestly like I don’t care if people know I cried watching this documentary I don’t care
If people had problems with like the gaps in the narrative because there were just certain parts of different interviews that really made me remember my experience in a way that like I had to look at it for what it was and it was like yeah like I I was never really like
Super feminine always trying to wear makeup always trying to like take I mean I was taking selfies but like my selfie game it got on point because of my quality but it was that pressure you know like you you almost become a mini influencer by being in a sorority because the whole
Thing is your social media even if it’s not a part of the main page you know pnms are looking for you you know they’re clicking through you because they want to see what you’re like they want to see what your swag looks like yeah you know they wanna they want to
Imagine themselves in your sorority and sometimes it’s like borderline FBI stocking I remember being a pnm and just trying to figure out how can I be the most accepted yeah and I think that is where I lost a lot of who I was and I think that’s why I did drink the
Kool-Aid because I think I felt like no one was gonna like me for me no one was gonna like me for being loud and obnoxious and a little bit over the top and so I felt like I needed to be a mean girl like I don’t even really think I
Was as nice as I am now because I think that was just something that I felt like I had to be and then there’s always those people who come in and they go oh well I’m sorry that that was the experience that you had and it’s like
Yeah come on like don’t don’t try to Gaslight me and say that maybe that wasn’t you too because I think that like it’s like you said it’s such a physical space absolutely like people like still gave out paddles and like things like that but it was like to a degree and it
Was it was interesting because again we were like my pledge class or I’m sorry my member class because we’re not allowed to help them remember class yeah my member class was the founding class and so we had twins which obviously like you’re you’re big in your aunt
Um so we had um twins my freshman year and then Littles from that and it was really interesting to see how like the sorority morphed because our freshman year we were new a lot of them were reformed jeans like a lot of them went to Alabama without being a sorority girl for
Whatever reason and then came into this thing and so I think the sorority experienced my freshman year was way more authentic than it was by the end of my sorority experience because even in those four years like yeah we assimilated we did and Nationals was so
In our ear of like you need to assimilate or you die like that is what it is and if you don’t like it leave like that is what it is there is an implicit nature of like homogeny and absolutely sorority life like yeah not everybody has to wear Lily Pulitzer but
You definitely need to make sure that you have the right outfit for formal chapter because I kid you not I actually remember a friend of mine we went through recruitment together and she was just known for being very very expressive in how she dressed and like yeah I always really loved that because
That was something that I was too afraid to do and I remember like she would come in dressed up as Barbie with like the poofy pink heels and would just be herself and I remember one of our formal chapters we had like a parent ceremony it was like a mom pinning ceremony okay
And I remember hearing her getting heckled because by my by other sisters because she wasn’t sticking to that code that unsaid code you know what I mean yeah one of the parts that I I filmed but didn’t make the cut into the documentary was um you know them talking about like you
Know Southern fashion because you know when we were watching the ootds you know they were wearing the Ruffles and the bows and the sequins and all that and like the polka dot the Pokemon the lime the pink the lavender the sea um yeah all of that like yeah I think that we
Can have a video all on our own of just like Southern fashion which like I’m not touching so you can find another guest for that because like that is not me no no thank you thank you thank you thank you um but I I remember there was a portion
And they were talking about that and I remember saying like I realized it was probably about my junior year where I like had a striking moment of like really looking myself in the mirror and like looking at my dead bleached curl pattern ruined ash blonde hair and like my peeling self tan and
Like looking at myself in this bright green like baby doll dress that I actually still own like looking at myself in the mirror and being like like what’s going on here like am I okay and it really did like start to dawn on me you know I think that’s when the
Deprogramming started you know junior year when a lot of things happened but by senior year I remember being like no matter what I wear no matter what color my hair is no matter what kind of Kendra Scott I’ve got on like I am never going to be the Sorority Girl that
Alabama prizes because I am not a size zero blonde tan girl that is just the fact of the matter and Alabama talks about diversity in a lot of ways and they have a bunch of different initiatives and like things that they’re trying to do but fundamentally Alabama does not want to be diverse
Alabama wants different colors but they don’t want big girls they don’t want disabled girls they don’t want queer girls they don’t want trans girls for sure they don’t want anything that doesn’t fit their really homogeneous skinny tan to a certain degree Christian girl that’s just the fact of
The matter and it goes back to the traditionalism that I think absolutely talked about in the documentary and I wish they had gotten a little bit more into it because yeah it you don’t realize how even though you might see another girl that looks like you in your
Sorority you don’t know how much that girl has honestly assimilated to maybe be there because one I didn’t have locks I cut out my locks before College because because I had them before and I cut them out because I wanted to be more palatable not just to sororities but to
Potential jobs at that time and I I actually had like one of so she wasn’t in my sorority but it was a different Sorority Girl that I knew she actually said that I had pumpkin spice hair which at the time I had like the red issue ground and their hair and kid
You not you can look at my senior pictures on Instagram my hair is falling out my senior year I was pulling clumps out not just because of it being dyed but because I was trying to make my hair look more white like I legit remember putting some product that was not for my
Hair that there are going to be like on commercials one day of a loved one you know like has used this product like you may be entitled to financial competition yeah yeah yeah pretty much yeah and I was putting it in my hair I was hair
Spraying my hair which like for those of y’all who don’t understand how black hair works like you do not need to be putting hair today on black hair especially like greasy and like Pat like you do not know that and I was doing it because I wanted my curls to hang enough
So that other black girls would see me and think well she’s black but maybe she’s something else because I was like really trying to almost get rid of that side of me and like it it it sucks thinking about how much time was wasted because
You know I feel like I talked about this and it didn’t make it but I don’t remember but I remember and like this ties into like the male gaze and like all of that and so like at the at this period of time I was like seeing this
Guy white blonde six two guy and I you know had known girls that he had dated before me or like had screwed around up with before me and um I remember being so insecure because like they were all maybe five two size zero or double zero because diversity
Pencil thin blonde girls and I remember going over to one of my sorority sisters houses for a wine night and she again was a little size two blonde girl and me being like and like thinking that this was a safe place thinking that like this is my sister she cares about me like
I’ve been to this girl’s house like for Thanksgiving like she loves me like this is like this is a safe place to talk and I remember telling her like I’m feeling so insecure because like I don’t look like all the girls that he’s like messed with before and dated before and I just
Like don’t like I just wonder like if he really likes me or if he would prefer to be dating a little blonde girl and I remember she was like well you’re not even like black like you’re like you’re like maybe like tan like you’re just like tan like you’re not even like
Like you’re not even Coco you’re not like caramel like you’re just tan like there’s nothing like there’s nothing you’re fine as if like being darker than tan wasn’t okay and completely invalidating what I said and like further feeding into my understanding that like being black wasn’t right in
That like I should feel insecure about this but oh I guess I shouldn’t feel insecure about this because I’m light-skinned what right and I’m I’m not even light-skinned and I know that that was something that I saw in almost every single POC member was this meeting to go
Back to that like we said that traditional aspect and that traditional aspect always is the default of whiteness and it’s and it’s like people can argue that it’s not but when we’re sitting here talking about how like a black mermaid is not how she’s you know
What I mean like these like these all might seem like they don’t make sense but they do they all kind of come back to that same place of whiteness has become a default and for a lot of people that did not grow up in diverse communities who have always been the
Only person that looked like them it’s really hard to now join a Greek organization and not still perpetuate that same really harmful ideology that happened to me as well like I remember having a frat boy that I was dating and I only honestly was dating him because
At that time I wanted to have that lavalier kind of experience because that was like a whole thing and I remember he told me he was like yeah you’re pretty cute for a black girl and that just it was just like what does that mean like what are you trying to
Say because Beauty transcends race it transcends culture like what do you like what is are you trying to say that just because I’m black I I automatically had to pull myself out of an ugly space you know you’re smart for a black girl you’re well spoken for a black girl oh
My God I got another you’re so well spoken you don’t even like sound blocks oh my gosh brought this up to my white mom the other day that like that’s a whole other thing to unpack love that woman to death like but you know I remember like being like hey Mom like
This is something that I like just recently learned that like when people say that I’m articulate even if they don’t say it they’re saying for a black girl and that’s so hurtful for someone that’s worked so hard in their lifetime to be well spoken and like quite frankly grew up in an abusive
Household where I had to be really intentional about the choice of words that I chose to make myself heard and to know that that was like my story and that I’ve been so intentional about my verbiage and my choice of words for me to be reduced to you’re so well spoken
For a black girl yeah it also just implies that the default for Blackness is none of those things yeah you know like it it really does minimize our experience because right you are you have worked your butt off not just to be at that school but to just be in general and
What might be coming off as a compliment to some of these people who are being truly ignorant like the comment in that did make in the video where one of your sorority sisters was like did you relax or wash out it was like girl first of
All it’s a lot harder than just that so do your research just stop washing out don’t just Wikipedia that but yeah it’s like it’s like why do people even feel emboldened to say these things um there is there was a comment where you talked a little bit about divine
Nine sororities and kind of like why you didn’t really pursue them and I feel like I didn’t pursue them for the same reasons that you did but can you kind of elaborate a little bit more on that because I feel like this is the perfect segue inside I’m just like so glad that
This worked out like I hadn’t yeah I had no expectation of you reaching out I’m so sorry and no no like I when I hit you up I just I don’t know what came I was literally watching the documentary when I reached out to you and I was just like
Yes and I was like I really want to talk to this girl like even if she doesn’t want to come on my channel like I just want to get to know her and like talk to her because it was just something about like how you and like it was just like
How you presented yourself and you were just so real about it you were just like yes people are ignorant sometimes when people say these things and I was like yes yeah I was like she is saying the things that I wish I as a 19 year old
Heard and that was my intention that was absolutely my intention and my therapist when I was like like nervous about this coming out because we didn’t get any information until quite literally not even a month before the documentary came out we filmed this my senior year of
College I did not hear about this until nearly a year after graduating so like the anxiety was pumping and so my therapist like asked like okay when things get bad and people have commentary about like what you have to say like why did you do this and the
Answer to that is that like I remember looking through cap Alpha theta’s Instagram and finding that one black girl I think her name was Tyler and I remember what she looked like and I remember the first time that I met her at a frat party because she was the
First black girl that I found on Instagram on a panhellenic sorority and I was like just digging through her stuff because I was so hungry to see a black girl going through this experience that I wanted to be in and like the intention of being in this was to give words to girls
That her freshmen are incoming freshmen that are going to experience a lot of the things that I’m going that I experienced because things aren’t going to change overnight despite the fact that President Bill sure thinks they are you know yes and I wanted to give validation to the experiences that
Alumna had and like you know I think that there was a lot that was cut out that I’m like sad that didn’t make it because I think there were things that like more words that I wanted to give to girls that had or would have or are
Having the experience that I’m having or had sorry yeah no you validated like you you honestly validated a lot of my experience in Collegiate Greek life and so it just it was like yeah it just really it so kind of to segue but like
Still kind of in this like I grew up not around a lot of my own people um I even don’t have the relationships that I really wanted to have with my maternal side of my family because my maternal side is like big happy Nigerian lovely Caribbean I love them so much
Um and I never felt comfortable there because I went to Montessori School where even though it was diverse I was still the only black person like there wasn’t that many black students even though there might have been more Latino or Asian or Southeast Asian students but
It wasn’t necessarily us in a big group and then high school was even worse and so by the time I got into college I did not know how to seek Community with my own ethnicity and I think a lot of that made me afraid of going divine nine like you
Know AKA was the only or is I think still is the only um nphc um sorority on Greek row so with all the beautiful mansions that everyone sees Sigma Kappa is is building their house we were in the swing house when I was in college okay um a 21 million dollar house Insanity
Um but anyway like yeah like I’m not touching that right now um but so you know we on on Sorority row even in the sway house that we were in in college like it’s still we had the formal living room and the informal living room and like the dining room and
The chefs and all of those things you know even that was still beautiful in comparison to the AKA house which like I don’t mean to say like um like that the AKA house wasn’t beautiful it was it’s a beautiful no but no but I’m not sure it wasn’t the same totally
Entirely different and I remember when I was first like coming to the house after becoming a member um and walking past the AKA house and like wondering like what was this house and like was this maybe like a facility house or something like that and then finally actually one of the other black
Girls in my sorority that actually ended up working for Sigma Kappa Nationals was like oh right oh that’s another thing to unpack um but she was like oh that’s the AKA house and I like I had a vague understanding of what AKA was I knew the delineation between like nphc and panhellenic but
Like in no way was it ever a consideration that I was going to be in an nphc sorority I kind of touched it on it touched on it in the documentary but I was raised by my white family I I you know I went to the first time that I was
In school with like a lot of black people was when I started third grade in New Jersey and at that point in my life I was still in such a denial period of my blackness because I just desperately wanted to be like my family and I wanted to be like the
Friends that I grew up with which just by a product of circumstance were also my parents friends who were white I grew up around white people my mom had long straight hair and my my brother is white with like wavy hair and the the dad that
I grew up with was white and I just I I remember being around black people in high school but still feeling like oh but I’m not one of them like I’m not I’m not like I’m Brown until seriously I think sophomore year of college I called
Myself Brown because I could not come to terms with calling myself black it was I so self-othered because I just wanted to be like my family and my friends and they were white and I didn’t know how to be black and so I didn’t even try and so
It was never even in my mind to join an nphc sorority and I say in one of my tick tocks like that could have been such transformative period in my life right I wasted four years that I could have loved and learned and embraced myself because I just wasn’t there yet and I
Regret that so much Alabama and I think at a lot of other big um Southern universities because of the history of the South and the racism that was and is and will be in the South the tone of sororities are significantly different and I think that
Um nphc or the divine nine at Alabama from what I understand being an outsider was much more based on like values personal and professional development uh community building and like more like togetherness I feel like where there was always just like animosity and combativeness between sororities and panhellenic there was like togetherness
And unity and like uplifting and then I see due to you know the systematic racism that exists and existed there that like nphc was created to support black people and you know and all those sorts of things and so being in a panaletic sorority versus a divine nine sorority were two different
Experiences and you were it’s almost like being on black uh black Twitter versus like white sweater yeah it’s different like it’s just different it’s different and I think that what I was looking for from like my college experience more aligned with my panhellenic experience I went to
Parties and I dressed up for things and I swapped with Frat Boys and I like did volunteer hours simply so I didn’t get fined like you know you don’t want that APN coming in for you you don’t match I would literally rather eat glass than sit on the third
Floor of the sigma Kappa house for standards for them to be like you didn’t do your hours what were you doing I don’t know going to college doing other things right right I do think that that is something that like is also very much I remember this being a problem because
Uh while I was still in Greek life I was also a part of her campus did you guys have that okay we had a chapter of her campus and it got really weird because I think to some degree that chapter also tried to be its own sorority in a way
And there was a lot of contention with that but um I remember like dedicating so much time to her Campus before going into a sorority and then once I joined it was so hard to maintain a lot of my outside organizations because it was like I don’t really want
To give you my Thursday because I know that like every Sunday I have chapter for three hours and like you guys are going to want to like hang out for two and I have a test in the morning and like yeah it just became like I really found myself like really distancing
Myself from a lot of my non-greek organizations or non-greek like obligations as a result of that because I feel like there’s like this they don’t say it but I do think that Greek life is kind of like that Professor that comes in and goes this is the most important one yeah yeah
Dude yeah I also feel like sororities and you know everybody calls sororities Colts and their right to a degree they definitely are totally are there’s like I think that there is like intention behind like the aspects of sorority life like I think our core values which like
Oh my God this is so embarrassing academic Excellence personal growth service and two others but I know honestly you you and I are in different organizations and those are pretty much what is in our articles yeah like it’s and I think it’s like a potential because like academics
You don’t have to be part of like an academic Club because like that’s what Sigma Kappa does for you you don’t have to be like part of other organizations that are like service oriented because you do that through Sigma Kappa you don’t have to be a part of like her
Campus or hit or any of those things because we do personal development too you don’t have to do this and this and this because we’ll do that and then it’s it’s indoctrinating because like you turn around and you are Sigma Kappa you are panhellenic like you are that
Because you just become shut off to the other to the outside world because all of your friends are in Greek organizations and like your boyfriend’s in a frat and like all of your friends are in your house or they might be next door to you but like you just exist on
Sorority row and you only venture out to go to class because that’s just like you know something that you’re there for it becomes your life and that’s the intention of it because that’s how you sustain these organizations because they are they’re money machines like that is what a sorority is they are money
Machines um and and like to know that you were a VP of Finance it’s just so awesome because I so I never so I never got to be full exec I was only on J CMT uh I know it’s like cool but um I was so I was the director of new
Members for my chapter and Godspeed dude I would hate oh so what actually made me do it was I felt I wanted to be different [Laughter] I wanted to be different different and I wanted to like really cultivate like genuine relationships between my new members and actually I saw like a few of
My new members who are still friends and I I don’t like to be like I did that but I do you did I did thank you for your friendships thank you give me all the credit but no but I it really did make me happy seeing that because
I I was like no that’s what I want like because I think that when you do have to get it dedicate that much time to being around that many people all the time like you you do not realize how much once you join a sorority you are like a
Part of that sorority even even when you’re dreaming you’re like dreaming about chapter or something about initiation and like did you bring the right underwear to initiation like you know because like those are things that like I know the documentary doesn’t really get into but like those are
Things that are very much a part of it it’s it’s very small minutiae things that end up kind of controlling a lot of your life what about like The Virginity core that happens in sororities like I don’t know about like DG’s initiation ritual whatever and like I’m I’m not
Gonna like dish Sigma Compass because I have not been stripped in my alumna privileges and I am Towing that line I am probably both are at this point right but um there is like such a bizarre virginity aspect like you were talking about um oh God what’s it called it’s um
When you were talking about your boyfriend um Bella what do you call it um lavalier like lavalier but like you know Sigma Kappa and like I think a lot of um sororities like perfect whites like you have to have your initiation white like this virginity aspect of sorority life that
Like Purity and like like young Womanhood and like all of that like really does feed into like the Christian core like weirdness yeah it’s very it’s very like maiden oriented right because like I know I don’t even know if I can say this because the initiation thing that
We do yeah I probably can say this you have to be in your purest form okay interesting okay like initiation so like you’re kind of right like everything needs to be crisp everything needs to be like so we wear black like afterwards I know a lot of people like tend to wear
White but you would wear black I don’t know if that was like just my chapter or that was like something that DG just does all the way through but I do know that that is something they they preface to you and like I remember having to be
As a new member like I can’t call myself a new member mom because that goes into the whole like you know like the pledge mom like your favorite brand yeah right but like I still have people texting me calling me mom so it was like it was the
Weirdest thing I don’t I don’t really think I loved it but I remember having to explain that to people and I remember them all kind of being like what because it doesn’t make sense because I think it’s like the opposite of what you’re expecting when you go through
Recruitment you know like you’re looking at cake you’re looking at all kinds of makeup and yeah and Flair and it’s the complete opposite at that point yeah I do remember like during uh one of like our parent thingamajiggies that we you know there’s always like a parent thing
Yeah they always have first donation dollars come from yeah yeah um and I remember like one of the VPS was speaking and she definitely made a comment about how like you are going to be there for our most important aspects of Our Lives you’re going to be here at graduation at our
Wedding our first baby and I was like um I’m about to be a crotchety Auntie like at 30 I’m not trying why are these our big days like why are they what like prefacing these like what about um my first PhD my third husband you again like with that like that
Verbiage that we like to use like diversity like what does diversity even mean when you’re not willing to change the core tenets of your organization because like let’s talk like let’s talk about how like a significant portion of women will never have the opportunity to do what I did because a sorority is
Eight thousand dollars a year in like the mid-range not even the high range like you don’t like you exclude such a large per like you know demographic of women just do to the inaccessibility of the organization and that’s the point is they are supposed to be Elusive and like
Aspired to and like you’re supposed to like have like the coolest Sisterhood activities and like your bid day is supposed to be the biggest and flashiest because it’s something to be aspired to you don’t care about diversity you want different colors so you can show them on
Your Instagram you don’t care yes yes did you ever feel like your image on like your sororities Instagram was just used well I mean like obviously because like why not but like like why not use that beautiful face but you know like I like to think because
It’s because I have like beautiful skin and a big butt but like I know that’s not the case um I so I used to live with rvpco who’s like our like the head of PR so like we have a PR chair and then vpcl like oversees her
Um and I remember like she was explicitly told by someone I I feel like it was still when we had Nationals around if I’m remembering correctly but she was explicitly told like hey like you need to ask Brian to like be in a photo shoot because we don’t have like
We haven’t posted like anyone diverse recently and you can go back on the sigma copper Instagram and you can scroll back to that picture of me on my my computer on my laptop and they posted that because we hadn’t had someone of color post recently and
You know what else I’m bad about is because I had did you watch new girl oh yeah of course so you know Jess says pink uh pink wine makes me yes I had a sticker like that on my computer and they made me take that off to take the photo
I think I like I just talk mess on the internet when I open up my Tick Tock app like incoherent just say anything disease is like my my brand and um there so if you remember uh Alpha fee like Alpha Phi just be doing things like do you remember Haley
Barber I can say because I’m from New Jersey do you not remember that no but I do remember a chapter of a fee near my school getting in trouble because they had a black woman in their chapter and they gave her like a very racist superlative and I remember that being
Like all over the Internet and everyone talking about it that’s not subtle like let’s be clear like what happened there was like not subtle um but I wish that it was like not as egregious as it was of Alabama so you know Haley Barber like that happened the
Year before I came but then my senior year um I don’t think I have the picture anymore but essentially the exact group chat of a fee at that time were talking about I I don’t remember if it was like a member or like what the situation was but they were talking about this
Black girl and they were like it smells like weed and like like edge control in here like how these white girls knew about edge control frankly I have to give them props I have to I know where it came from I ca I can tell you where it came from it came from
Their fetishization of the black fraternities because that was definitely a thing it’s a circle back to like the Instagram because like Instagrams are so visible and so curated and so important to you the sorority when Alpha fee went viral for post that that group chat at the time our PR girl who immediately
Unfollowed me upon me graduating good for you girl um um she liked uh Alpha fees Notes app apology from the sigma Kappa Instagram and for reference the only two panhellenic sororities that liked it were us and 80 Kai which is like the the nationally Christian generally uh right-leaning sorority like that is such
A statement and she did that like of her own volition like by accident I lost my mind I Taylor and you know what you pick your battles and I and that was the the Battle of what I was picking that day and I lost myself my
Mind in the sigma Kappa DM being like hi I don’t know who runs this but keep your own political opinions off the main page no one else liked this do you understand the commentary that you’re making and like God forbid like I posted a dumb video of me in my letters having a
Breakdown on the internet that like got taken to like the national level but Sigma Kappa at Alabama one of the most like visible notorious chapters of Sigma Kappa publicly likes a Notes app apology about an overtly racist situation that happened from a notoriously racist sorority on Alabama’s campus crickets
But like thank God they intervened when I posted my Tick Tock right right and I and I think that like that is again it goes back to like this double standard as it goes back to the homogeneous that we’ve been talking about this entire time because again like we can we could
Literally like close our eyes and just like pick something and it’s always gonna go back to the homogeneity of Greek life not to necessarily take away from like people who join Greek life and they don’t experience that but I do I don’t hope you don’t I hope you don’t either I
Like I talked about my experiences and then like black girls on the internet are like well I was loved by my sorority and like I feel like they expect me to be like okay well then you didn’t really like do it like girl I’m so you did it I’m so glad you didn’t
Experience it’s that trauma I am so glad I don’t want you to I’m sorry that you did I don’t want you to right and I think that like if any like honestly I hope that the biggest takeaway from just you coming on here and also just us
Talking is that like we want to share our experiences and we want to share a truth but that does not have to be everyone’s truth and like that’s okay and if anything that’s great I I would love if like down the line if I decide to have kids you know if the planet
Doesn’t combust that if my child was like I want to go Greek and I want to go into the sorority that you went into I’m not gonna tell them no I’m not gonna be like don’t do it because my experience was horrible but I also don’t want to
Lie to them either you know I don’t want to be like this is all going to be like a fairy tale because I think even with white girls who go into these sororities they do have this idea of like it being a fairy tale and something that I really
Wish the documentary had gotten into was kind of how like rape culture ends up being yeah unfortunately a really big part of life you might like do you is that like a topic that you would feel comfortable like discussing because I remember was it holiday yeah three times
Yes being roofied three times and I I have friends who had that problem I don’t know if this goes back to that ranking thing but like what was that like at Alabama because it is a big school and it is a big football school so there is like that partying aspect
Whereas like I was at a moist campus a moist campus and we’re in a dry campus we were a moist campus okay so first of all federal prison federal prison no chance of parole actually the prison system is like regulated slavery like I’m not dealing with that directly like that’s like
Another like that’s not for today it’s a whole other video games these parties and I remember the first time that I went to a pike party which nationally Pike has a reputation and I was like alluding to is like whenever like even my friend that went to U Delaware pike
Pike spikes that’s like that is the the thing or SAE is sexual assault expected that’s like what like there are like Jingles or like you know Deke oh my God it’s so terrible Deke at Alabama every year um schedules a swap with like who they deem to be like the bottom sorority so
Like they get excited to like have a swap with Deke which is like an old row fraternity and then they cancel it like the day of or like the week up just like to have like a little silly haha like just horrendous like things like that
And like you know I thank God like hand to God thank God I don’t have the sexual assault stories that a lot of women do from college I do you know have an understanding of like the performative sets that happens in college because like you know you you want like the Frat Bros
To like talk good about you and like have good things to say about you or like invite you and your friends to their parties and like just the performative sexuality that exists there because it is like it’s such a small community like it’s egregious how many people know each
Other because I think the Greek population is only like 13 of the school like it’s a surprisingly small amount of people as it compares to the entire college but it is such a small close-knit community that like if you say no or you don’t do what they’re
Asking for or you’re prudish or any of those things like that isn’t that doesn’t just stay between the two of you and that quite frankly then goes back to your house as far as like just what the documentary became do you feel like at the end of the day it was a
Misrepresentation of really what it was trying to get at or do you feel like it did what it came to do even though there might have been some paperwork some red tape that might have like really hindered what it could have gotten into because that rape culture thing was just
So quickly so fast so fast and I really wish they had stayed in those areas so did you feel like they were just some spots that just might have been kind of taken away just because of I don’t know Greek life or just how like Alabama
Wanted to be perceived on you know in the documentary I feel like it was a representation and I think that it was again that’s why I like kind of divided it like the perception into different kind of camps because like I feel like it was underwhelming to
People that have been in Greek life in some capacity but especially to people that went to Alabama because all the processing that people were experiencing watching the documentary like people that were in Greek life that’s like what we did freshman year first semester so when you watched that back it was like
All right like been there done that this is nothing new this is nothing interesting but the people that weren’t in Greek life or didn’t go to Alabama or like maybe like were in another country where this just isn’t something that happens I’m sure it was really interesting and like crazy I remember my
Friend sitting on the couch being like are you okay like are you okay and the answer was like I don’t know and you know so I think that it was a representation I think it touched on aspects of the sorority experience I don’t think that it went as deep as
People wanted and I don’t think it went as d deep as you know like it could have as far but I mean like everything has a Time cap everything has like you know a maximum duration of like interest you know like people don’t want to sit around for a five hour video
Um I’m sure it could have been a multi-part series because they want you to grow and they want you to evolve and they want you to Blossom but it’s like you’re blossoming within like this really tight little cube of like femininity like proper all of these like additional constraints that they give
You and and you you want to get bigger or you want to you know be different shapes but you are you’re growing within a cube and if you break that Cube that’s your fault but then you look back at them and you say well you wanted me to
Grow you wanted me to evolve you wanted me to question things but you know what I was only supposed to grow in question within those constraints right yeah or after this documentary like a lot of people that were being interviewed were obviously amazing but I think absolutely
Like really drawn to you was the fact that I felt like you were coming into Greek life with a lot of the same like background that I had and like just perspectives that I had and I felt like that wasn’t something that was highlighted enough for me like I think
That if I were to talk to other black girls now I would have a really more comprehensive way of talking to them about Greek life and you did it and you did it on camera and you did it for HBO and I just HBO we’re HBO and I just I I
Want you to know that like wherever you are in your life and wherever you are in your journey I hope that you realize that you really did touch a bunch of us and like I’m not even a pnm and I would really moved by just like your authenticity and like
Your willingness to just put yourself out there and so I just wanna I just I thank you so much and I hope that like we can always continue oh my God like stories and even outside of Greek life like just continue this relationship because you are such a unique and
One-of-a-kind person and I’m just so I’m just so grateful that you came on my channel because and I want to like thank you as well that like you know I like look at you and you know like to be 23 and talking to a woman that’s like in a
Different part of her life but had such a similar experience to mine different but similar and to hear that I wasn’t alone because I I did feel alone for a lot of my sorority experience because there were other black girls but you know they had different experiences and
I think that we forget sometimes that like the black experience isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience and it’s like it honestly has been so healing to hear that we had similar experiences and like to hear that you made it out on the other side too and that like there is a
Place of healing at some point and to know that like and like we were talking before like God doesn’t put you in hard things just to put you in hard things you know like there is a point of growth and a point where you turn back and you look and
You’re like holy crap like that hurts so bad but I am so proud of who I am now before I let you go um are there any like projects or anything that you’re working on is there a place where people who might be like interested in just seeing what you’re
Doing yeah follow you you can follow my Tick Tock at your own risk I think it’s bubble gum1577 which was my screen name in elementary school I love that and then on Instagram I’m at r-i-a-n Ryan Press um but also like I I fundamentally think that people should not have podcasts but
I would have I would start a podcast with you like I think of all the people I would be involved but like men no I think that like we should stop selling microphones to them like I think that time Society has passed but the problem with you no I would listen
We might have to talk about that because I hear what the people say yeah let’s see what they say um yeah because this is like if you have not seen Bama Rush don’t watch it because like at your own right at your own risk yes there are
Some narrative issues I know that that’s the biggest controversy of this movie is the narrative but like I I think at the end of the day like watch it for the women and the people that put themselves out there and were allowing themselves to be this vulnerable and I think that’s
What I loved about yours the most was you just were not afraid to be vulnerable so no thank you so much um I’ll definitely make sure to plug all your stuff down in in the thing but please if you have seen Bama Rush what did you like about it what you didn’t
Like about it if you don’t like it it’s so nice yeah be nice in the comments like at the end of the day I know that like like we talked a lot of trash but like this is still supposed to be a safe space I want people to be very
Respectful we will not tolerate any type of like hateful commentaries but because this is critical commentary not hateful commentary but um if you also want to follow me on Twitter and Instagram it is at critical com with two M’s TV and again thank you Ryan for coming on to the channel and
For talking to me about Bama Rush
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