So I'm not giving any kind of background or any really historical information, just Angela's experience, just to start a conversation. So my first year of college, I attended an HBCU, which is an historically black college and university. And I didn't know much about sororities and fraternities until I got to college campus. I'm first generation college. So it wasn't like my parents went to college or my parents were legacy in a sorority or fraternity, or my aunts and uncles
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 4:54
She used to be very holy, ghost filled, saved all the things, and then she backslid and turned from the faith. But she would always tell me, Tanya, you don't want to be a part of anything like that. But she would never tell me why. She would never tell me why, because we had a good friend and classmate who was a delta and an eastern star
And that's what they say they realized that they did within their sororities, fraternities and Freemasons is to make a vow to an oath to an entity other than the most high God. Like I said, I don't really have anything to say on it other than I never felt a need to do that. I never went to an HBCU, though I'm college educated, I know some people right now are doing know on the graduate level
Robert Jenkins
@Guruball1 · 4:31
You can say to yourself, hey, listen, here's my email. Here's my resume. If your family's company is looking for someone, let me know. I will be willing to relocate. Whatever. We could do this without there being a title over it. My brother and I always said we was down with me, fi. Me. Us. We're down with us. We don't need anyone else to lead us on the show. Us
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:08
Even to be a part of an HBCU, if we're talking about the early 19 hundreds, they had basically the paper bag test to even be admitted into these colleges. And so from there, they were picking. So you had to be the best, if you will, to even be in college. And then they were picking the best of the best to be part of their organization. So there's always been classism, eliticism, clickish. It's always been associated with these things
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:27
But like you said, I know people of the faith who, like you said, pastor, who very strong Christians who are part of these organizations who don't see a problem with it. So I just wonder, are people, I don't know, I guess I wonder if they're more caught up in what the benefits are and they justify it or if they really are like, no, we are a christian organization. So I don't know
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:00
And I'm sure it gets worse. Honestly, I'm sure there's things that. Yeah, it gets worse. And so I agree that a lot of the things that we do is to separate. And I'm going to be real with you. Even as a Christian, I was listening to someone. They're talking about the church
Evelyn Phipps
@LadyFi · 2:28
And I felt like if I get into this group, I'm going to have to behave a certain way, be a certain way, wear clothes a certain way, go to parties, go to this, go to that. So I never did that. And I'm extremely proud of that. I'm extremely proud that I stood on my own accomplishments, my own rights, my own wrongs. Now, I know you guys said that they have a lot of influence, and truly they do
Natasha Nurse
@DressingRoom8 · 3:31
I always thought the idea of having some type of sisterhood where you could rely upon these women within authority to kind of be there and to support you and to make sure that you went out into your career and that, yeah, you had kind of that upper hand and that if you were interviewing that potentially that could help. Obviously, no guarantees
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:58
Hey, I, similar to you, attended a historical black college. And my parents did not attend college. So the understanding of the divine nine sororities, fraternities, and things of that nature was foreign to me. I do recall moments when there were a couple of deltas I had come across. That told me to remember the sorority when I was in school. And one mentioned it before I went to school. When I say school, college
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:50
Now back to the subject matter, which is I don't see the need for grab chapter because at this point it's a life transferable skill to learn how to be mindfully aware, situationally aware, to develop connections with people and decide, based on your vetting of that person, what category you will place them in, whether it's associate, acquaintance, or okay, this person's on track to where I can call him or her a true friend, or whether it's an intimate partner relationship and what that looks like
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:26
I believe that was the controversy. Well, child, they had a whole fit because how dare you wear those colors. And even if you're acting now, I guess I can see that kind of because everybody kind of knows how they are. You can easily make up a fake sorority like they did a different world in the Cosby show. Just make up a fake sorority and have that person be that. But she should have known
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 2:23
I was listening to a reply from JL, and she talked about a brother who was out of work for a long time. Although he's very active in his fraternity. It's not a guarantee that you're always going to have money coming in and you're always going to have connections. These people are not God. So nobody's all powerful. Sometimes it's just the way it's going to roll for a minute, the economy or what have you
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:20
And of course, our own sororities and fraternities were also formed out of the need because black people were not accepted into the greek letter organizations that weren't founded by us. So it makes sense that we started something of our own. So I always wonder for people that went to predominantly white institutions of higher learning, how was that? And if they had chapters on each campus for each of the divine nine, or if one was able to pass through whatever. So interesting take on that
Evelyn Phipps
@LadyFi · 1:09
And though, even though my family was energetic and open about pledging, it just wasn't for me. It really wasn't. And I'm grateful because I never felt the need to fit in. Know, I've always stood out on my own good graces and abilities, and I think I get that from my dad because that's what he told us to do. So, anyway, we were ourselves, and I see the benefits of them, but I also see the down part of it
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:01
The big brothers, or whatever they refer to them as, go to their house, like 02:00 a.m. 03:00 a.m. In the morning to wash their cars or make their kids lunch boxes
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 0:43
You don't have any other responsibilities. Okay, fine. But once we start becoming adults and you still want me to do things like that, and you might be talking to me any old kind of way, no, definitely not worth it
Natasha Nurse
@DressingRoom8 · 1:12
I think the Disney Channel kind of horror stories of what happened to Amanda Byne and all these other kind of celebrities that we know that have since come out and shared that their time as a child actor with either certain networks or certain production houses or whatnot, have been, I guess, hell on earth. It begs the question if there's an opportunity here, even within the sorority conversation and fraternity conversation, like the real story, right? Like it actually, I wonder
