Last week, as a guest on Celeste Headlee's radio show, "On Second Thought," knowing my complicated relationship with "Gone with the Wind," she asked me if people should still watch the 75-year-old classic.
I told Celeste that as a journalist and consumer of culture, it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that any form of art should be banned or that anybody should be discouraged from consuming anything.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now stand before you as a hypocrite.
To anyone within reach of my words: Do not watch VH1’s “Sorority Sisters.”
I have no real problem with reality shows. I remember when “The Real World,” was real and I have attempted on at least one occasion to get on “The Amazing Race.” (Can’t swim).
I watch the “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” mostly because it is filmed in Atlanta and I like to see the sites. I watched “Hollywood Divas” because…well, I honestly have no reason for watching that.
I was curious about “Sorority Sisters” because it was filmed in Atlanta and I am also a member of a black Greek organization, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. But I hadn’t planned on making an investment in it. Especially in light of all of the controversy that the show stirred even before it aired, most significantly, a petition that was circulating to keep it off television.
I got interested in the show after reading Rodney's blog post about Monday's premiere, particularly this passage, "I will readily admit I know very little about African-American sororities so I cannot say upfront how realistic this show is."
I can tell you Rodney, I know a little about these organizations and nothing about this show or the depictions of sorority women are realistic.
But even more disturbing is that this show is doing everything in its power to destroy the legacies that these sororities have been building for more than 100 years. And it offends me.
In 1908, a group of young women at Howard University created the black sorority system by starting Alpha Kappa Alpha as a means of empowering college educated women, while improving the black community’s social and economic conditions through community service programs.
In 1913, less than two months after they were founded, the women of Delta Sigma Theta marched under their banner in the historic Women’s Suffrage March down Pennsylvania Avenue - the only black women's organization to do so.
And since their founding in 1920 and 1922, respectively, members of Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho have been at the forefront of the civil rights movement and have developed programs addressing education, poverty and health, for the benefit of African-Americans, in the names of their sororities.
Today, more than 700,000 college-educated black women hold memberships in these four organizations.
I have seen some critics of the critics of this show argue that how can African Americans be so appalled by this show, and say little about “RHOA” or “Love & Hip-Hop.”
Yes, ALL of them are making black women look bad.
But here is the difference as I see it. On those other shows, those women are embarrassing themselves, representing themselves.
The “Sorority Sisters” are embarrassing themselves in the name of AKA, Delta, Zeta and Sigma Gamma Rho.
The show set Black Twitter ablaze and at least seven advertisers, including the makers of the upcoming “Selma,” have pulled their ads from the show.
Members of those esteemed organizations balked at the ruling because they saw the fight against police brutality as the civil rights moment of our time.
If anything, the attempted dress code enforcement merely strengthened the resolve of protesters in those organizations who are now coming out in droves – letters blazing – to marches.
What the leaders of these sororities were trying to do – as misguided as it was - was protect the shield or the letters that women like Coretta Scott King (AKA); Dorothy Irene Height (Delta); Zora Neale Hurston (Zeta); and Lee Chamberlin (Sigma Gamma Rho) fought so hard to earn.
And although the sisters on “Sorority Sisters” don’t wear their letters on air, they still destroy the brand with their manufactured bickering, fabricated conflicts and out-of-place sorority calls.
How many grown women are actually walking around the city randomly doing their call? Just for the heck of it?
I have at least four fraternity brothers in Atlanta that I went to college with. We get together pretty much every weekend, usually to watch football. And while the fraternity is one of our common bonds, it is something we rarely talk about, unless we are lying about how many girls we got in college.
We talk about the game, work, kids, travel, and our health. You know, adult stuff. When we meet someone from another fraternity the worst thing we will say is, “Oh, you made a mistake dude.”
The dude will shake his head, call us arrogant Alphas, laugh and shake our hands. Done. It’s over. Move on. No drama.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
I pledged Alpha in the spring of 1989 at N.C. Central University and this year we celebrated our 25th anniversary. Spring '89 would be the last time that most colleges allowed pledges to walk line, a time-honored tradition that had now run its course after a string of high-profile hazing incidents.
Aside from the Alphas, the Deltas, AKAs and Omegas also had their final lines that semester, before a so-called “intake” process started nationwide.
For our anniversary, all four groups decided to celebrate Homecoming together. I even put together a documentary about our experiences 25 years ago.
My brothers essentially spent the whole weekend chilling with the Deltas and AKAs.
They were all still fine as they were when they were 19 and 20 trying to make line, but now they were also doctors, scientists and nurses.
Lawyers, bankers and accountants.
Actresses, authors and painters.
College deans and professors.
Preachers, business owners and politicians.
High school principals and elementary school teachers.
Mothers and grandmothers.
Wives and friends.
There was hardly a hint of drama the whole week (although a few Deltas brought up the results of a step show they felt the AKAs stole from them).
As I watched “Sorority Sisters” I understood that these are not the women I grew up with.
I learned what an AKA was supposed to represent by watching the Alpha Chi chapter in school.
The Alpha Lambda chapter taught me what a Delta was supposed to be.
Use the Deltas, AKA, Zetas and Rhos that you know personally and admire and use them as examples of what sorority sisters are supposed to be like. If you don’t know any, or are interested in joining, find some. Find some real ones.
You won’t find them Monday nights on VH1.
Ernie's GWTW story: http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/this-atlanta-writer-is-done-with-the-wind/ngnNf/#98fca502.257087.735584
His sorority letters story: http://www.myajc.com/news/news/dont-display-our-greek-letters-at-protests-black-s/njQKy/
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