Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities

Conclusion: Sorority Sisters

CONCLUSION Sorority Sisters Author Tajuana “TJ” Butler is a fiction writer, poet, and activist and leads seminars on sisterhood and the cultivation of Black women’s self-esteem. She is also a member of the AKA sorority and has written several fiction books on the social lives of Black women, including Sorority Sisters, Just My Luck, The Night before Thirty, Hand Me Down a Heartache, and a collection of poetry, Desires of a Woman. Butler’s 1999 novel Sorority Sisters, which is not autobiographical but seems loosely based on the AKA sorority, centers on how Black sorority membership affects the everyday lives of five different Black American women.1 This novel was the forerunner of what is now a burgeoning genre of fiction that uses Black sororities and Black college life as its central focus.2 Butler’s sorority women embody and fall between a diverse set of characteristics in Sorority Sisters: they are mentors and proto-feminists; sexually naïve and sexually confident; hedonistic materialists and former welfare recipients; women whose lives revolve around their boyfriends, and women who do not define themselves through men; women who are legacies, and women who are the first in the family to attend college and pledge a sorority. I conclude with a brief exploration of Sorority Sisters and my interview with Butler because the novel and our discussion address similar arguments put forth in each chapter in this book.3 143 One of the strengths of Butler’s Sorority Sisters is its ability to present characters from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Socioeconomic standing is a point of contention between several of the women who pledge in the book, particularly Tiara, who is from a modest class background, and Stephanie, who is more affluent. For Tiara, class often appears as a point of personal revelation, and for Stephanie, class reflects the desire for social transformation. According to the narrative in Butler’s novel, class exists as a determinant in life chances, which some of the women are either unconscious of if they hold material wealth, or seek to overcome if they do not have monetary advantages. In regard to the necessity of economic diversity in the modern-day Black sorority and how class position shapes the sorority experience for Black sorority members, Butler told me that after attending AKA’s national conference (The Boulé) in 2000, she met so many young ladies who wanted to help others with upward mobility. I think that is the good thing about a sorority. You meet people different from you that you might not ordinarily be friends with. Through the sorority the women can have an active hand in helping others in the community. Because you have so many people from different backgrounds, you begin to see the world through different eyes, either firsthand or secondhand, you learn from those disadvantaged in your sorority what that feels like, which helps you help others outside of the sorority. Different class backgrounds bring diversity to the group; it continues to make our purpose broader. In addition to class, Butler writes about the politics of sexuality for young Black women in Sorority Sisters. She provides several examples of coming into sexual adulthood, as seen with the character Cajen, who contracts herpes from her partner Jason; the character Sidney, who becomes pregnant after being date raped by Scott; and Stephanie, who rethinks her need to find confidence through her sexual relationships with men. Popular fiction in this case breaks through the boundaries of self-representation and respectable images. When asked why she felt it 144 DISCIPLINING WOMEN was important to discuss sexuality and sexual themes in Sorority Sisters, Butler said this: It was very important to talk about sexuality. In Sidney’s case, it shows the fine line between date rape and consent. She was intoxicated, and had she not been, the situation would have turned out differently. Her situation can be seen as an educational device. I know parents who are giving my book to their children for this reason, kids who are in high school. Sexuality is not addressed enough. Many young women are sheltered before they enter college . There is so much freedom on a college campus. Young men and women are testing their boundaries. Then they are opened up to sexual situations and faced to make decisions, and they’re not prepared to make them. I wanted to show what happens when people do not think...