Black Greek-letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun

19 “ ’Cuz I’m Young and I’m Black and My Hat’s Real Low?”

385 19 “’Cuz I’m young and I’m black and my hat’s real low?” a Critique of black Greeks as “educated Gangs” Matthew W. Hughey On a spring day in 2006, I was walking across the campus of the University of Virginia on my way to a regular meeting with a friend of mine, a young African American professor. Our weekly conversations generally ran the gamut from critical theory to the iconography of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, from Africana philosophy to campus racism, from our take on the local political economy to the culture of black Greek life. The last was a personal topic, because he is an Alpha and I am a Sigma. We took a seat on a bench outside the campus library and began our ruminations. After a few minutes, a couple of my fraternity brothers walked by, and I rose to greet them. They immediately informed me that they had been involved in an altercation with a few Alphas the previous evening. “A fight? . . . you mean you got in an argument?” I asked. “No bruh, a real fight,” they said. After they recounted the ins and outs of what had happened , I offered to introduce them to my friend. “He’s a professor here, . . . and also an Alpha,” I mentioned. “I don’t even want to talk to an Alpha,” one of my fraternity brothers stated abruptly. With disgust, I retorted, “you’ve got to be joking. Perhaps you should respect him as a professor rather than see him only as an Alpha.” “Sorry,” they both replied in unison, “but I just can’t do it.” Highly embarrassed by this divide-and-conquer, Greek-induced myopia, I gave them the fraternal handshake and ended our conversation. I rejoined my friend on the bench and apologized for my fraternity brothers’ behavior. He suddenly interrupted: “Don’t even worry about it. . . .” Then his voice trailed off. With his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him, he took a deep breath and said, “It’s just that sometimes we act like educated gangs.” Theissue of black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) as “educated gangs” is a controversial one, to say the least. On the one hand, many believe that BGLOs are funnel organizations for the inculcation of the new black elite. On the other 386 Matthew W. Hughey hand, some see BGLOs as paradigmatic reflections of the decline of Western civilization and morality. There are many arguments on both sides of whether BGLOs are gangs, and it is necessary to define each entity independently.1 black Greek-letter organizations BGLOs are predominantly college-based social service organizations with a combination of foci: the development of African American identity, community uplift, brother- or sisterhood, and social justice. BGLOs’ genesis stretches back to Freemasonry (especially Prince Hall); Phi Beta Kappa, the first Greek-letter organization;variousAfricantraditions;andthenatureofcollegiatedemographics and racist beliefs and attitudes at the turn of the twentieth century.2 BGLOs generally consist of the nine members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), the umbrella organization for historically black, international Greekletter fraternities and sororities.3 Both individually and collectively, BGLOs sponsor programs on the national and local levels. There are many differences between BGLOs and gangs. Sociologist Talcott Parsons defines an organization as a social system that focuses on the contributions toward, and the attainment of, specific goals within the scope of the larger social system.4 Max Weber writes that “an organization is a system of continuous purposeful activity of a specified kind.”5 Peter Blau and W. richard Scott argue that the organization is a social unit “established for the explicit purpose of achieving certain goals.”6 Organizational forms, such as BGLOs, are intentional and purposeful, and they are in some state of continuity. Furthermore, there is a collective orientation toward the active realization of goals that is absent or much less developed in gangs. Gangs Gangs are groups of individuals who share a common identity and, in common parlance, engage in illegal activities. Some anthropologists believe that the gang structureisoneofthemostancientformsofhumanorganizations.Thewordgang is generally pejorative. The origin of the word is unknown, and the term lacks a clear definition even in the law. “There is no consensus across the large number of gang-involved cities on types of gangs . . . [and] efforts to establish a uniform definition of a gang suffer from a major dilemma—lack of consensus.”7 “’Cuz I’m Young and I...