I went to a school with a demographic that didn’t fit mine. I didn’t believe HBCUs were for me. As a first generation college student, I had no concept of the Greek system. After meeting some older guys that went to my high school at the end of first semester, I began to contemplate rushing. Second semester rush came and I did it. I barely told anyone. I filled out the paperwork last minute, last day I could. Urban black, rushing a predominantly white fraternity, and though I pondered it a great deal, no way could I expect what happened next.
The friends I made at the beginning of school, a group of small town white Oklahoma girls, and mostly black football players and their associates viewed my decision differently. The guys who graduated from my high school before me loved the idea and acted as mentors. The Okie girls loved it, one of them went Greek. But the football players couldn’t understand it at all.
A flurry of insults came at me that were meant to attack my blackness and supposed lack thereof. Questions were flying in full force: “Why would I do this to myself? What was I trying to prove? What dream had they sold me?” None of that hit home as the one that made me question my whole thought process and sent me into a rage. “Sellout.” Someone I thought was a well-meaning guy, called me a sellout. He noticed that I hadn’t been around the usual group lately because of fraternity stuff. He shouted it down the hall as I walked in the dorm in typical business casual opposed to my basketball shorts and T-shirt.
I called up the guy that rushed me, one of the guys from my high school. He reassured me. He told to do what I felt, consult my parents, talk to other brothers, but do whatever I needed to do, to be certain. I soul searched and told myself real friends wouldn’t neglect me because I decided to surround myself with members of a white fraternity. Real friends wouldn’t think me adding a dynamic to my college experience was a reason to question my blackness.
Why not be a Kappa (ΚΑΨ) [once on campus but no longer] why not be Q (ΩΨΦ) [not on our campus at all, why not be a Sigma (ΦΒΣ) [a group small in numbers at the time and would soon graduate.] That’s why. I had always been a part of top organizations, the fraternity I rushed was that. Plain and simple.
Much to my surprise, when I called back home to my parents they were okay with it. I thought they’d be against it. I thought they’d have a similar response to my D2 football player friends. But they didn’t, they said do what makes you happy and we trust you to make good decisions. So that was it, right? I had all I needed to pledge, in my current situation. A clear conscience, the support from my parents, and a bid from the fraternity I wanted to join. As I suspected, I was the only full black member of the spring pledge class. One of my eight pledge brothers was mixed, a very fair skinned mixed guy, so me being dark complicated, I stood out.
I stood out in my pledge class picture, in which we all wore letters first the first time. I stood out when the curious and anxious sorority girls asked who the new pledges were. At the bid day party, I was the sorest thumb of all. I asked myself was this what I truly wanted. Did I make a mistake? And it wasn’t that I simply stood out, I truly felt that I didn’t belong with this group of people. The brothers I met loved me, and our pledge class knew we were in this together but everyone else in and around Greek life on campus, didn’t embrace me as I’d hoped. That bothered me a great deal.
Fast forward past the insane weekend that followed, to my first real day as a pledge, I panicked. I panicked big time. I woke up that Monday and ironed my slacks and oxford for our business casual and contemplated what I got myself into. I made my way to my 8 A.M. biology lecture in what was of course rain (which amplified my already gloomy mood). All lecture I over thought my decision to go Greek. I texted our chapter president (the chapter was small enough for that kind of thing to be ok, and he actually knew my name.) I told him about how I thought I had made a mistake and that I was considering pulling out of pledgeship. I scared myself THAT much before 9 A.M. For the remainder of that day I was a pledge, I met with the guys I felt it appropriate to meet with. I had completely changed my mind. I no longer wanted to be Greek, more distinctly, the Black Greek in a White Fraternity. I turned in my stuff and they welcomed me to rush again when I felt was ready.
Hearing about my former pledge brothers being initiated I was filled with neglect. I was proud of those guys but the timed seemed to fly by and I said to myself “I could’ve made it through that, but I quit.” I quit before I even gave myself a chance. As one would guess, I rushed again, but it was not an easy course into the brotherhood. It would be until fall of 2014 before gaining membership as a brother in my fraternity. Incidents that would individually require lengthy novellas themselves, made my journey into Greek life possibly one of the longest ever. But I did it, I became the Black Greek in White Frat.
It came with criticism, it came with ridicule and jokes, I became THAT guy. Him, AGAIN. But I didn’t care. I was met with funny looks from those that disapproved of me even being in the area of their Greek function. Through it all, my brothers loved me. That initial group of pledge brothers, now light years ahead of me in the fraternity, always encouraged me. Brothers believed that I could do well in the chapter and continually gave me words of advice. And once I was in I did well. Me being black and most of my brothers being white bothered me less and less as I matured. Those friends who were headed by guy who called me a “Sellout”, got over it. I reconciled those relationships. I explained things, they asked questions and I answered. I overcame the fear they helped create in me.
My journey was long, difficult (self-inflicted sometimes), but worth it. I love my fraternity, they always accepted me for who I was. It taught me so much about life in not only its founding and principles, but from the lives and relationships I built with my brothers. After no lack of effort, I did it. Sure it wasn’t the conventional route into Greek life and my label in it, is joked about and misunderstood, but I own it. I’m a Black Greek in a White Frat, and I cherish every ounce of that.
