COLUMN: "Membership Has Its Privileges"

From Bill Madison's "Crackers In My Soup," Spring '92.From Bill Madison's "Crackers In My Soup," Spring '92.· "Well, basically, the klan is a social organization. Something like a fraternity." Black Sects and Cults, University of Pennsylvania, 1992 · I'm tired of the whole debate revolving around the issues of fraternities, sororities, Locust Walk and who has a right to be there. It's a dead issue because the University can't provide competent leadership to implement policy into action. Apathy from the University is typical of the Penn community as a whole, so that the issue of 1991 becomes the big joke of 1992. My four years here have witnessed no significant effort by Penn to create the so-called diversified community that they sell to high school seniors year after year. So, what is the real issue? One thing that you learn in four years at Penn is the ability to discern truth from lies. Hopefully. This whole debate has witnessed great amounts of mud slinging, without people taking the time to check whom they were slinging at. So now is the time for some truth. Having lived the fraternity experience in an all-male boarding school in Virginia, I feel qualified to judge those who would hold themselves beyond critique. First, one should understand what a fraternity is and what function it serves in a community such as Penn. Fraternities, above all the rhetoric and the propaganda, are social organizations. Their reputations are created and destroyed on this single principle. Members are chosen primarily for their ability to contribute to this overall scheme, because a fraternity without social standing is nothing more than a house filled with insecure boys. For many people, fraternities offer an identity in a community that often appears vast and intimidating, producing instant "friends" for its members and endless opportunities to meet compliant women who desire to be with them. Fraternities ideally enrich one's college experience by attempting to balance academic and social pursuits. But the real problem is not the benefits fraternities provide for their members, but the way in which this environment is fostered. Homogeneity is the major prerequisite for anyone who wants to become part of a fraternity. Sororities also follow the same pattern. This sheep mentality, which implies that one must appear a certain way to be part of the group, produces much of the bias some students harbor toward Greeks. Other students stereotype Greeks because many fraternity and sorority members become stereotypical once they become part of their particular organization. No matter how many of you believe that your dress is a statement of your personal tastes and is not dictated by your house, you all still look like puppies from the same litter. Yet, dress is not the key issue here. Nor is who you socialize with or which organizations you're affiliated with. The problem is that in an attempt to create a community of oneness, you naturally have people who fall outside this construct. Believing that joining an organization bestows upon you characteristics -- intelligence, popularity, desirability, etc. -- that would not have existed if you weren't a member, assumes that to be like me, you must become me. The Greek system, merely from an analysis of its basic premise, represents intolerance. It functions as an example of exclusion and elitism. Individuals are forced to assimilate within this entity or forever exist outside of it. Many sorority sisters appear dim-witted and shallow because they often choose to act that way. Fraternity members who appear as beer-guzzling, misogynistic, throbbing phalluses suffer this insult because they act according to other people's expectations rather than their own. I've seen girls I knew freshman year and who are now Greek play dumb to pick up guys. I've seen guys I knew before they became Greek now view women as receptacles of satisfaction. But what people do on their own time is of no concern to me. It is likely that fraternities will continue to exist on the Walk and most of us will depart before we see the BSL, CASA, CSA, ACELA or LGBA occupy a residence there. Tolerance of the behavior of groups that are in direct opposition to what the University represents will always stigmatize Penn as the little Ivy that couldn't. So, how can the system be changed? When a house is infested with termites, and its chance of being salvaged is minimal, it is sometimes better to tear it down and start all over again. · Bill Madison is a senior International Relations major from Alexandria, Virginia. Crackers in My Soup appears alternate Tuesdays.

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