I have been thinking a lot lately about how power asserts and re-asserts itself, in politics, alumni groups, religion, fraternalism, families, etc.
[Read more…] about PowerFraternalism
How to Perp: Ten Steps to Living Your Best Lie
Me and a close friend always joke about her ability to attract perps. A perp is a man or woman who is actively pretending to be an initiate of a fraternity or sorority (or any membership organization). Perp is short for “perpetrating a fraud.” She and I both have interacted with perps on message boards, social media, and online dating apps. We laugh at the absurdity. Neither of us can understand why someone would be so desperate to be seen as one of us that they would actually lie to belong.
[Read more…] about How to Perp: Ten Steps to Living Your Best LieGiving
Friday, November 30, 2018
I am looking out of the window at three o’clock in the afternoon after five straight days of teaching. It’s been a long week–not exceptionally taxing, but long nonetheless. My door is propped open, to air out the faint, but constantly lingering aroma of marijuana, now trapped in my student’s coats in the cold weather. There is no cloak room in my class, nor is there one on the corners and in the alleys where they smoke, so the stale stench follows them like a stray cat.
I hear my colleague say from the hallway, in her thick Cuban accent that reminds me of Pedro Zamora, “No, don’t thank me. Mr. Darden facilitated this.”
[Read more…] about GivingDPE: It’s time for a spin-off
I have been following with great interest, and ultimately great sadness, the recent developments of Delta Phi Epsilon Professional Foreign Service Fraternity that have made it to the media.
According to articles published in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Hoya [9/7; 8/29], DPE, the nation’s first and apparently only professional fraternity for students interested in foreign service, is plagued with stagnant, problematic leadership and dissatisfied members. Its general secretary has been accused of sexism and xenophobia, and members from various chapters have essentially held recruitment boycotts.
I am not a member of DPE. I remember well the pledge pins of the young men who each semester would make their commitment to the organization. My own Alpha Phi Omega members used to hear rumors that DPE pledges would get “bonus points” for stealing one of our pledge books. I even had a little brother in APO who dropped from our process and joined DPE the following year. And every year, I looked forward to seeing the “staircase photo” of the new members of DPE in their tuxedos and sashes.
Butterflies
Last year, Keegan-Michael Key was interviewed in Playboy by Eric Spitznagel. (I am just now getting to the article–my stack of magazines I need to catch up on is nuts.) Check out this passage:
You've said that you and [Jordan] Peele "fell in comedy love." How is that different from actual love? Key: It's not different at all. I get the same butterflies in my stomach. I saw him the other day...and I was like, wow, he's amazing.
Wow.
That’s how I feel like a good number of people in my life, from the indomitable civil rights expert Jordyne Blaise to my brilliant cover designer Neil Wade to one of my favorite fraternity brothers Jonathan White.
It’s how I feel about my Coolidge friends and my Georgetown friends and my close coworkers and my good neighbors.
I’m really lucky to know who I know, and I am thankful for them.
Protect Our Boys
This week, Matt Sledge reported in the New Orleans Advocate that former police officer and Phi Beta Sigma member Marcellus White has been charged with five counts of sexual battery on a victim under age 13. Two civil lawsuits also claim that White used his role as a karate instructor and mentor through his fraternity to have access to his alleged victims. [Read more…] about Protect Our Boys