I want to thank you for checking out another podcast of we ain’t scared talk where we in scared my name is a1 and first and foremost let me say again happy Black History Month I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am Black History Month is an opportunity
For everybody not just black people to reflect on all the positive contributions that black Americans have made to America and all of the obstacles hurdles and things we’ve had to overcome just to live a reasonable facsimile of the American dream most of you know black Americans since 1619 have been
Fighting in this country against racism hate oppression and we still have made away and I often think how much further along and how much more successful we could be without the systemic racism and oppression that is constantly fighting against our forward progress so just keep fighting keep pushing forward and
Know that you are valuable your black life matters regardless as to what this country says or and or what it does and we still need reparations ok last June there is a historic Capitol Hill I guess you call it presentation statements that were made by black celebrities and professionals and academia
Academics and we were basically making a case for reparations which we still have not received the US government owes black Americans or American descendants of slaves 17 trillion dollars 17 trillion dollars and we don’t want to hear anything about it would bankrupt the country that ain’t
The point the point is you owe it it’s a debt you need to pay it alright now let me get into some notes here and that is one let me say thank you for everybody that supports this podcast if you haven’t subscribed please do subscribe if you’ve listened to at least two or
Three of these podcasts and that means you are supporter and hit that like button or that subscribe button I appreciate it let’s see your ears are so important to me and let us see what else what else though the mugs yes I can never forget about these we ain’t scared talk mugs
They are black they are strong and they can handle anything hot that you pour in it and as I always say your IQ is going to go up dramatically and significantly because you had it you don’t believe it test it out let me know alright so let’s let’s go ahead and jump
Into today’s topic now there are a lot of notes here and I’m not gonna rush through it I’m gonna take my time because this particular topic there are a lot of black professionals in America and around the world but we’re talking about America that have participated that our members that are associated
With Greek life black fraternities and sororities so let me just tell you the topic and then I’ll try to re align this whole thing so the topic is why do black fraternities represent Greek letters why do black fraternities represent Greek letters alright so and this is not me attacking black fraternities and
Sororities so me just stop that train before it leaves the station we have to get to a point especially in black culture where we peel back some of the layers even though we fell in love with it we’re enamored with it and we’ve made it a significant
Part of our social life our professional life doesn’t mean that it’s something that we should continue to do just because we’ve always done it sometimes we have to force ourselves to look at things from a realistic factual standpoint not saying that everybody’s gonna like it but if we only talked
About things that people liked we probably wouldn’t push ourselves outside of our comfort zones and the whole point of this podcast being for black men by a black man is that black men are stepping up standing out and saying how we really feel regardless as to what people think
All right so let me give you some backstory on this particular podcast and I want to say probably August of 2019 there was a clothing company that had Greek symbols on their pants and black enterprise had a cover where they it stated Phi Beta Sigma fraternity Inc demanded that this clothing company
Remove these Greek letters from their pants they felt it was disrespectful now Phi Beta Sigma is a historically african-american fraternity it’s a professional organization or fraternity it was founded at Howard University in DC Washington DC on January 9 1914 by three young african-american male students with nine other howard students
As charter members now let me also qualify by saying I’m not going to be able to cover every paw civil component layer perspective on this this is just to start the conversation you’re gonna have your own thoughts and opinions and that’s fine but when I’m gonna attempt to do is to
Position the start of these black fraternities and position it next to the white Genesis or starting point and try to figure out how these two merged alright so I appreciate your patience and let me just take a quick look here alright so let’s go ahead and we will
Start here as I said earlier it’s your life and you can do with it whatever you want if you want to pledge every fraternity or sorority on the planet that is your prerogative my position is just again to understand what it means and how we got here in the first place
Alright now that that’s done we’re gonna go back in time and then we’re going to come forward in time we’re gonna start in ancient Egypt Kemet the now valley oh let’s say about five thousand years ago now I always like to quote my sources and yes there are again more than this
Particular source and you know that I’m going to quote but this specific source does a really good job of covering most of the information that I will be sharing as some of you know if you follow me on social media there’s a book it’s called the stolen legacy the
Egyptian origins of Western philosophy written by George GM James now this book is extremely in-depth and I encourage you to buy it it’s on Amazon so you can verify you can read it for yourself and you can draw your own conclusions but it does a really good job of connecting the dots
And now number one this is a direct quote from the book okay after nearly 5,000 years of prohibition against Greeks they were permitted to enter Egypt for the purpose of their education so mind you 5,000 years the Greeks were not permitted to enter into Egypt but they let him in for educational purposes
Now first there was a Persian invasion and then the second invasion by Alexander the Great was in 332 BC now the egyptian mystery system is what they were trying to protect from outside invaders and the egyptian mystery system encompassed all of the knowledge the language the arts the sciences that
Existed and that were mastered and explored by these black Egyptians all right number two Greeks were for simplicity for the purposes of this podcast they were white men and those white men that were allowed to enter the country of Egypt took advantage of the Egyptian kindness and invaded and looted
The Library of Alexandria where thousands of years of intellectual property were stored and as I alluded to mathematics the Pythagorean theorem for geometry that was not an original Greek discovery that was Egyptian philosophy science humanities liberal arts it was all Egyptian the theft this is number three the theft and/or looting of the
Royal Library of Alexandria by Alexander the Great again a Greek they stole numerous books on thousands of subjects and then gave the credit to Plato Socrates and Aristotle so let me oversimplify where we are so far black people or Egyptians for thousands of years prohibited white men from entering their
City and all was well and after five to six thousand years black people allowed white men to enter the city to be educated and those white men took advantage of the access to rob steal and loot the same information that black men were using to teach the uneducated white
Men and the white men claimed it as their own and gave credit for the authorship to other white men or Greeks like Plato Socrates and Aristotle this is not to be minimized here black men trusted white men and that is what led to the downfall and the looting and and
Let me just put a little thumbtack here this in America has always been a war or a battle between black men and white men always number four Greeks like most civilizations of that time were violent and had a thirst for conquest while the Egyptians were primarily focused on
Education and knowledge like people were not interested in warfare that’s not in our nature remember that okay here’s number five it can’t be stressed enough that Egypt was the center of the body of ancient wisdom where there was knowledge religious philosophical and scientific information and an immense amount of study and cataloguing
That took place number six one other note before we move forward the schools of philosophy child e’en chal da in Chavan child e’en Greek and Persian they were part of the ancient mystery system of Egypt number seven here is a final thought before we move forward on the history before we deal
Our dig into the next layer the Egyptian theory of salvation became the purpose of Greek philosophy which was then passed forward to the Western world and others and thus the birth of Christianity that so many black folks still follow today now I will say stolen because based on the information that
Exists the origin the virgin birth that was all stolen from Egypt and then bastardized into the various religions that exist in the world today but keep in mind again it was rooted in Egyptian philosophy that had nothing to do with what you see today with the various religions including Christianity so
Again the Greeks white men invade steal for from their black educators and and steal that knowledge and keep it for themselves and then they proclaim to the world that they originated the thoughts when in fact it’s a lie so as I logically think this through the next
Thought is how did we make this leap from Greek white men to black men fraternities self identifying with the enemy that invaded and destroyed our legacy in history that’s a very important question how do we make that leap all right here we go so I know that may be a
Lot to absorb but let’s continue down the rabbit hole the next few questions are number one how many black fraternities are there number two what was the first black fraternity number three why was the Greek adopted as the black fraternity identity when obviously the Greeks were not black number four
What college or university has the most black Greeks and number five why do HBCUs or historically black college and universities have Greek fraternities on their campus if they know the history of Greeks these are very important questions so let’s start with number one and all this you can
Google its online okay so now we’re going to fast forward to the history of the black Greeks there are nine historically black Greek letter organizations or B Glos that make up the National pan-hellenic Council now collectively these organizations are referred to as the divine nine now each of these fraternities and sororities is
Rich in history they have ties to one or more of these organizations and as we all know they are found in many college-educated black families in the United States so we’re gonna break it down Alpha Phi Alpha founded in 1906 at Cornell University Alpha Kappa Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority founded 1908 at
Howard Kappa Alpha Tsai found in 1911 at Indiana University Omega sci-fi founded in 1911 at Howard Delta Sigma Theta Sorority founded 19:13 at Howard Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity found it 1914 at Howard Zeta Phi Beta Sorority found in 1920 at Howard Sigma Gamma Rho sorority found it
1922 at Butler and iota Phi Theta fraternity founded in 1963 at Morgan State University now the Kappas are part of the divine nine or the National pan-hellenic Council and again these are historically black fraternities and sororities as we move through the discussion but first let me define the National pan-hellenic
Council the National pan-hellenic Council is a collaborative organization of nine historically African American International Greek lettered fraternities and sororities so that’s what the Panhellenic terminology means it all goes back to the divine nine okay so of continued definition relating to all Greece or all the Greeks again this
Is white or relating to the Greek letter sororities or fraternities in American colleges and universities or to an associate Association representing them all right I know it’s a lot but just stay with me now Sigma Phi R excuse me Sigma Pi Phi is the first successful and oldest african-american Greek lettered
Organization Sigma Pi five was founded in Philadelphia Pennsylvania on May 15 1904 okay now we’re going to continue to be honest I’ve never been a fan of black fraternities or so Rory’s based on the fact that they appear to just be a secret society like Masons that serve their own purposes and
Don’t really care about black people that aren’t a member of their club I say that’s a problem I’m for all black people getting ahead not just the ones that get hazed or verbally abused as they’re crossing the burning sands the abuse factor in that has never been I’ve
Never been a fan of it you know I’m sure a lot of people feel like hey I I earned it I crossed over yeah my personal feeling is black people have suffered enough humiliation they’ve suffered enough abuse they’ve suffered enough from the hands of non black people so
Why are black people doing it to black people something to think about and number three why was the Greek adopted as the black fraternity identity when obviously the Greeks were not black let’s deal with that so there were seven of them okay some were members of the
Prince Hall Mason’s and this is where the leap starts to take place in a secret society and others were the sons of members it was a cold and stormy night on December 4th 1906 when they gathered in upstate New York these black Cornell University students decided to create an organization that
Had no precedent this is the origin story and they did so with opposition from their white counterparts on campus and in the community or and in the community now they also had opposition from their own said one of the founders Nathaniel Murray who shared some of their comments in an essay written by
Andre Mackenzie about the organization’s beginning you will be the laughingstock of the town Mary recalled them saying you cannot hope to do what white folks do you will lose your job as waiters if you try to imitate your employer still they were determined meaning these black people they started the first continuous
African American intercollegiate fraternity in the nation Alpha Phi Alpha so again we’re connecting the dots freemasons which had its origins in the egyptian mystery system this is a fact black people was brought to the u.s. and black people attending colleges and universities adopted an elitist social club mentality to create an academic
Infrastructure that was supposed to give their black members certain professional and societal advantages by being a member of these organizations but with all this alleged education what i still wonder as i said earlier how come these black minds didn’t connect the dots that it was the greeks that destroyed and
Plundered their black egyptian ancestors so here’s more about the history and the origin of Greek fraternities and sororities the formation of Greek letter organizations in the United States is most often traced back to the creation of Phi Beta Kappa in 1776 at the College of William and Mary
Well this organization was literally was literary in nature it had many of the characteristics we see in present-day fraternities and sororities for example the use of Greek letters model rituals and officers during the 19th century Greek letters social organizations which were organized and separated by normative notions of the gender binary began to
Emerge and expand on college campuses membership in these organizations reflected the broader collegiate student population of the time regulated by both formal and informal racist practices and policies that allowed for broader access to higher education for white students okay now these college-going practices resulted in the creation and expansion
Of organizations referred to in the chapter this chapter as historically white fraternities and sororities and it’s important to note that white students during this time period were defined not only as racially white but also as anglo-saxon in ethnicity and Protestant in religion now while historically white fraternities and sororities were growing and expanding
The participation of students of color in higher education continued to be regulated by racist laws that excluded them from attending college or segregated them into specific colleges and universities now some black students had found educational homes at private historically black colleges and universities and the more recently
Created public HBCUs often refer to as the 1890 schools now additionally some students of color black it says Latin ex Native American Asian although small a number or attending historically white institutions now for those students access did not translate to full opportunities to participate in university life at all rather access was
Often intertwined with exclusion for students of color so on the one hand I understand ok black people excluded black people felt left out we want to create our own I get that but by the turn of the 20th century this exclusion had manifested into specific ways on college campuses including denial of
Residential housing use of recreational spaces and at institutions where Greek letter organizations were present there are other exclusions as well now these restrictive policies created conditions in which students of color were socially homeless invisible to the my to the majority with no virtual or physical dwelling racist policies such
As these took a toll on students of color and providing an impulse or an impetus for creating new social organizations specifically for students of color I don’t have a problem with that in terms of you you you felt disenfranchised you wanted to be included I get it again now historically
African Americans which we use interchangeably with blacks the aspirations to find activities in higher education to empower uplift and support them while receiving an education motivated them to create these organizations is these divine nine organizations this is obvious in the start the rise and longevity of the historically black Greek letter
Organizations okay this was in response to reconstruction and during the time of Jim Crow now as noted African Americans were not welcomed to join any of the historically white fraternities and sororities and many university administrators would not allow african-americans to form their own organizations African Americans were concerned not only about being socially
Accepted but about fellowship for the sake of protection and promotion of ideals in spite of white supremacy in order to uplift black Americans now the first two black Greek letter organizations founded in 1906 and 1908 were partly mirrored to the white fraternities and sororities however unlike the socially focused historically white fraternities and
Sororities the mission of the BG ellos included a principle of service to the community again sounds good what college or university has the most black Greeks and does this create an identity crisis among black Greeks because it sounds like an oxymoron kind of like CatDog black Greek I’m a black Greek hmm
Doesn’t really make a lot of sense black fraternities and sororities are on virtually every major college or university campus in the US and abroad number five why do HBCUs have Greek fraternities on their campus if they know the history of the Greeks this is so compelling to me it’s important I
Think I may have answered the why based on the disenfranchisement not wanting to feel left out so I guess the next question is how come they haven’t been removed and I know there’s going to a lot of people like what do you mean removed I say this based on historical
Facts that we’ve just covered Greeks plundered and looted the most sacred of royal libraries in Egypt and proclaimed the knowledge as their own and in my opinion to represent anything Greek is fostering and reinforcing the hate that destroyed our legacy as black people yes I know
We love the dances we love the steps shows the colorful clothes and pomp and circumstance but if you hypothetically found out that an organization was in existence that was profiting off the death of your family and getting people to join under the auspices of giving back to the community
How would you feel would you encourage people to join or would you fight this organization to redeem your family legacy I think it would be the latter I hope it would be a ladder now I realize black Greek letter organizations are deeply and steeply entrenched in the black college experience but just like
The black church just because that’s what has always been done does not mean it’s the way it should continue I hear people tell me all the time a one just because somebody does hateful things to you does not mean you should do hateful things back but the irony in
My opinion that’s exactly what black people are doing when they join a Greek fraternity and sorority they’re returning hate for hate you’re putting your black history in an inferior position while uplifting the white society here in America black people don’t need Greek letters to identify with there are plenty of Egyptian
Hieroglyphs and symbols that black people can use to identify our intellect and education if we decide to do the research and embrace it and that’s the key why don’t we embrace it it’s not like libraries aren’t on every campus the internet will tell you everything how
Come we won’t do it that’s all I’m saying hey look if you’re in a fraternity a black fraternity or sorority you love the community you love the the the the fact that there’s family I get that but I’m always gonna go back to the beginning you have a conversation
With me I’m gonna go back to the beginning and again that’s Egypt that’s Kim it that’s now Valley that’s black now I’m certain you have your own thoughts and I you know on this topic and I’m not saying oh my god you know black grieves is terrible as you did but
I will say this what are you perpetuating like really what are you perpetuating and I’m sure a lot of these young kids haven’t even thought about it because I just like the idea of wearing a letter you know like a Letterman’s jacket but we do have to start thinking about it
So yeah now I’m sure you have your own thought on this again let’s keep the conversation going you know it’s important and I want to thank you for checking out another podcast of we ain’t scared talk my name is a1 and you got some good food for thought
Listen again tell a friend we ain’t scared [Applause]
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