Last week more than 200 students gathered at The Rock to celebrate and support the new line of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. In attendance were Daily editors, Associated Student Government presidential hopefuls, musicians, engineers and so on. It was quite the sampling of the Northwestern community — except, of course, for white people. This is just one of many events the black Greek community makes little effort to extend to others, and one the larger community makes little effort to involve itself in.
This recent probate show was a celebration of minority Greek life. The black, Latino and, to a lesser extent, the Asian community all shared laughter, song and pride in their communities. If Kappa Kappa Gamma were to hold a similar event, everyone remotely related to the Greek experience would know about it. So why is it that none of the 30 random students I asked had any idea what the probate was?
NU’s Greek community is a microcosm of campus at large. One need only walk through Norris University Center to realize segregation exists. But the Greek community can influence greater trends. If both ends of the Greek spectrum interacted more, the walls that divide our campus would begin to crumble.
Apathy is one of the many reasons these walls have formed.
“There wasn’t a lot of time to prepare” for the probate, commented Aliya Faust of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She went on to say that it was due to hectic scheduling that the rest of the Greek community was not notified of the event.
Andrew Bentley, a Medill junior, has been doing extensive research on Greek segregation. Former Delta Upsilon president Chris Nakutis told him: “We want to do things with black sororities and fraternities. If someone came to us, we’d to it. We’re just so lazy.”
Some say that segregation in the Greek system and beyond is just part of college life. But we must wonder what kind of effect it takes on our psyche. NU’s Summer Aacademic Workshop, a program aimed to help incoming students improve writing skills, was recently expanded beyond black and Latino students. Candice Davenport, a half-Asian Weinberg sophomore in the program, experienced segregation’s consequences firsthand. “There were two luncheons, one for black kids and one for Latinos. I went to the black one with my friends. During lunch some girl was like ‘what’s she think she’s doing here?'”
NU is a preparation for the next steps of our lives. We are about to enter multicultural workforces, graduate schools and neighborhoods. Exclusionary behavior is not helping any of us in the long run and apathy only extends the problem. There have been many attempts to bridge the gaps, but we still have far to go. We should all make the extra effort to leave our comfort zones — only then can we feel like a single, united campus.
Rina Martin is a Communication sophomore. She can be reached at
