Sunday, August 23, 2015

That sorority video

So, a video made by a U of Alabama sorority has been criticized - and I guess, taken down - because it is "too white, too blonde, and the women are dressed to alike" as some commentator said.

Uh. That describes 85% of the sororities in the nation, so I would say the video is actually an accurate depiction of life.

I saw some of the video. It's not offensive. It's pretty young girls having fun, or at least pretending to have fun, in "wholesome" college-kid ways.

I was never part of a sorority - I was too poor, not pretty enough, didn't care enough about clothes, and not into the party scene. And the whole idea of living in a house with 20 other girls and claiming to "love" them all "so much" - which is what I heard from the girls in sororities - well, I was skeptical about that. There are very few women I would say I loved like they were my sister, and certainly not 20 of them at one time. I would have been uncomfortable with the forced togetherness and forced affection that sororities seemed to push.

 But if a young woman wants to join one, I have no problems with that. As long as she does her research and is sure of what she's getting into. Yes, I do think frats and sororities probably promote drinking more alcohol, and drinking in ways that are not beneficial for a person's health, but that's slowly being addressed. And some frats had very bad reputations for how the women who went to their parties were treated (but trust me: word gets around and I remember most of my friends in college choosing to avoid some frat parties based on the reputation). And again, that's slowly being addressed.

But to condemn these girls for being what most sororities ARE seems kind of silly. Yes, there are a lot of pretty, blonde, similar-looking women at Southern colleges, just like there are at any college around the nation.

Yes, there are historically Black sororities and maybe one of them needs to make a competing video. I bet it would be almost identical to the U of Alabama video except the young women in it would be Black instead of white.

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