A sorority, Alpha Phi, at the University of Alabama has recently uploaded recruitment video that has been described as ‘racist,’ ‘pathetic,’ and ‘sexual.’ Alpha Phi’s recruitment video was viewed 500,000 times before it was taken down from YouTube and Alpha Phi’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Many people are disgusted with the video because all the women in the sorority are white, tall, and mainly blonde. The video didn’t show any of Alpha Phi’s core values or philanthropy. It portrayed the women in the sorority as obsessed with their looks and having a thin body type.
When I watched the video, I honestly did not see anything wrong with it. I don’t think society should blame the sisters of Alpha Phi for not being diverse and all looking the same. A sorority does not get to decide who wants to pledge or not. Yes, they do decide who they want to become one of their sisters, but maybe not many people who have different backgrounds or a different culture at the University of Alabama want to be in a sorority. Being in a sorority is not for everyone. I don’t attend college at the University of Alabama and I am not a sister of Alpha Phi which means obviously I do not know if what I think is true or not; I could be completely wrong, but like I said its my opinion and what I think about the whole situation.
The Associate Vice President at the university has stated, “This video is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens. It is important for student organizations to remember that what is posted on social media makes a difference, today and tomorrow, on how they are viewed and perceived.” Although I do agree that everyone is responsible for what they post online and that once something is posted it stays there forever no matter what, I am surprised that the Associate Vice President did not defend the women of the sorority. At least one faculty member at that college should have stepped up and defended these women. These women are most likely in their twenties which means they just wanted to be creative and they wanted to look like their having fun. Every sorority has a certain grade point average they need to maintain, philanthropy, and core values that they try to embrace every day. Just because this sorority did not show it in their recruitment video does not mean they don’t have them and it doesn’t mean that they don’t care about them either. There is only so much that every sorority can put into their recruitment video and most sororities do decide to show how much fun they have with one another and how happy they are to be sisters. I am sure Alpha Phi is not the first sorority to make a recruitment video like the one they did.
Society needs to stop putting people down just because they are in a sorority. Alpha Phi did nothing wrong. They are just a group of women who were trying to attract other women to join their sorority. Everyone who is talking bad about them does not even know them. These could be sweet, smart, nice, women who are very involved with the charity they work with for their sororities philanthropy, but most people wouldn’t know that because they don’t know these girls personally. We need to stop making these women feel worse than they probably already do.
