I’ve heard it all. “Wow you must have done something pretty bad.” “What exactly did you even do?" “You’re a danger to the brotherhood.” “You deserved it.” “Are you all that surprised it happened?”
I remember I was at a party this past year in the spring with some friends and a girl came up to me and said “Hey, you're Katy, right? Well I heard you are blacklisted from [insert frat here] but if you are here then I’m sure it’s OK I'm here because I am blacklisted, too.” Now it seems like a pretty innocent thing and shouldn’t have bothered me too much, but it really hit home. I was unaware I was even “banned” from this particular frat, nor did I even know the girl. The hardest part was, that I actually was banned from a different frat at the school, and it confirmed my thoughts that I am a social outcast and that people don’t like me.
That was the only thing I felt when I thought about how I was banned from a frat. Friends made jokes and tried to tell me that it’s so cool that these guys cared about me so much. And I would say, “Wow, you are so right!” and laugh about it. But when I thought back to the night I was officially “blacklisted,” I thought none of those things. I thought about how I felt there was something incredibly wrong with me, since what fraternity doesn’t want girls at a party? I went back to my room and cried and cried and cried the night they kicked me out and said I wasn’t welcome back. I felt I wasn’t pretty enough, fun enough, cool enough. I made excuses for all of them since I thought most of them were my friends, yet they just let this happen. I convinced myself that it really was all my fault, I deserved it all.
Did it make my name more known at the school? Maybe. Was it good attention in any respect? Most definitely not. There is no glory in being banned. It tore at me and crushed the little strength in myself I had left.
I think about it differently now. I don’t blame myself anymore. I don’t let guilt eat at me, either. As horrible as those boys made me feel, I am stronger now than I have ever been. I don’t look back at that night in November when they embarrassed me at their party and think, “How could people do something like that?” I don’t look back at the time one of the boys yelled at my face and said I was a “psychotic bi***” while others let it happen and think, “How could someone say that?” Because it happened. Analyzing it doesn’t change anything. I forgive those guys, but it doesn’t mean their actions were okay. And blacklisting is not okay. Before you humiliate someone and think this is “bettering the brotherhood”, remember that you will be hurting someone, despite how good they hide it. This article may not hit home with anyone, and that’s fine, but I hope this gives people on both sides of the story perspective on what it means to be “blacklisted.”
