A couple of my fraternity brothers walked into the dining room, wearing strikingly similar outfits. This kind of thing tends to happen in fraternities.
As much as we like to insist on our individualism, we do wear weirdly similar clothing on a day to day basis. And despite being dressed identically, these two men couldn't be less similar to one another. One had been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, a child of relative privilege, and he dressed like it. The other one came from almost nothing, a child from an impoverished country, and I've always thought he dressed well despite not having much money. My friend from a foreign land entered the dining room, took a sandwich from the buffet line, grabbed some water, and walked out, and my friend from one of the nicest high schools in Kansas sat down to eat his lunch.
"I just think it's so cute how you two decided to match today; did you document it on Insta while you drank your Starbucks?" I said with a wry little smile.
"Yeah, but mine aren't knockoffs. Mine are name brand," he responded to my jest with a laugh.
I just looked away and started a new conversation with another brother sitting next to me.
That moment, which happened over a year ago in the dining hall of my fraternity, has haunted me in a way that's difficult to put into words. Sure, my friend at the table said something that wasn't necessarily untrue: he was wearing a sweater worth a hundred bucks and shoes worth twice that. But it was the way that he said it that really bothers me and makes me wish I had said something about it when I didn't. It seemed like he felt a sense of superiority because of the price tag on his clothes, which would have been indistinguishable from our friend's clothing without the tiny whales and horses, but maybe he didn't mean anything by it. I honestly don't think that he's the kind of guy who would say such a thing and mean it. I hope he's not that kind of guy, and I wish that I had been the kind of guy to say something in that moment.
Surely, there are a lot of things to make fun of one's fraternity brothers for and joke about, but the price tag on one another's clothing seems like something that ought to be off limits. Certainly, fraternity men are known for being upper-middle class, preppy, white, and conservative, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for someone who is something else. As somebody raised by a single mother who taught high school (and worked two other jobs on the side) for a living, it's hard for me to feel comfortable when jokes about money are made. What he said may have been a joke, but on some level, he was making fun of the best our friend has. The statement exuded an arrogance that's hard for me to abide by. It was ugly, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.
The clothes don't make the man. What you wear doesn't determine who you are or what you're capable of, and it's laughable to even imply otherwise. Clothes can be a status symbol, but so many of us young people are being disingenuous if we really think that our clothes really reflect our status in life. For example, I work in a bar and go to school. I don't make a million dollars a year, though I'd like to and certainly hope to do that someday. I'm lucky to have a family that can afford nice things for me and to occasionally find a good deal on a cool shirt at Marshalls or an outlet mall. I'm really fortunate for that and many other things. If a status is something that you earn through honest, hard work, then I honestly haven't earned many of the luxuries in my life. The clothes I wear simply don't reflect my station in life, and they have no bearing on who I am or what I'm capable of. The same is true of my friend from a privileged background.
Clothes can be used to make a statement, be it professional, personal, or artistic. It's completely possible to make a beautiful, stylish outfit off of the discount rack. The man who shops at JC Penney's is not less than or inferior to the man who shops at Macy's, and only a fool would think that his clothes are going to make a difference when it comes time to meet our maker. Because no matter how rich or poor you are, our graves will all be the same when it's our time to go.
