BUCKING THE SYSTEM: SOME TRADITIONS BEST LEFT UNPRACTICED

Part of the African-American heritage is embedded in Greek-letter organizations. We have a number of service-oriented fraternities and sororities who work nationally and internationally to improve the lives of as many people as possible. They also provide a good support system for students before, during and after college.

Unfortunately, many individual members of these organizations have forgotten what their initial purpose is and they have tainted their organizations' images in the process. The same has happened in predominantly-white fraternities and sororities, but for some reason we don't hear about it as often.

I've wanted to join a sorority since I was a senior in high school. That was when I started visiting college campuses and members of various organizations told me how dedicated they were to service. I'd usually visit on the weekend, and that's when I saw how active these organizations were socially, also.

That was for me. I had to go Greek.

Well, I was accepted to the University of Missouri at Columbia, and I watched all of the Greeks on campus. I decided very quickly that I wanted to belong to one of the historically black Greek-letter organizations because I liked the cultural and historic elements. I became friends with members of all of the fraternities and sororities and chose the sorority I thought best suited me.

Then I witnessed "pledging" in action. I had several good friends in one fraternity who let me watch a "session" with pledges.

I went home and cried afterwards.

Six years later, I still haven't joined a sorority. Even so, I do support their organizations and the principles they were built on.

I just want the abuse to stop.

Making people debase themselves and inflicting physical injury in the name of "brotherhood," "sisterhood" or "tradition" makes absolutely no sense. It was tradition to whip and lynch blacks who were slaves because they wanted freedom. It was tradition to use fire hoses and billy clubs on peaceful protesters during the '50s and '60s because they wanted equal rights for all people. Black on black crime seems to be our latest tradition.

Tradition doesn't make any of these things right.

Tradition for these groups should mean furthering the goals of your founders. The concept behind brotherhood and sisterhood is elevation of all, not elevation of some. A few false tradition-espousing members shouldn't be allowed to taint a history of service.

We've just passed the third anniversary of the death of Michael Davis, a Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity pledge who died as a result of hazing. Michael was a soft-spoken sweetheart who was accidentally killed in the name of brotherhood and tradition.

His death hit this community hard, but, it seems, not hard enough. Even though the Kappas were banned from the university because of Michael's death, we lost another historically black sorority at Southeast just two years later when Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority was banned for hazing. No one died in this situation, but that doesn't really matter.

The good thing about traditions is they can be updated, changed and even discarded. Nationally, Greek-letter organizations are letting members know they have no tolerance for the tradition of hazing. Locally, the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is one of several organizations that has dedicated itself to the new membership-intake tradition and often contributes to the Michael A. Davis Memorial Scholarship at Southeast Missouri State University.

The fraternity is sponsoring a gospel program tonight at the university and alumni from around the state will be participating to help collect donations for the scholarship.

That's brotherhood. If it continues, then maybe it will become a tradition.

~Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.