No, actually. “Frater” is Latin for “brother,” and Total Frat Move is garbage, and I really feel like y’all can do better for yourselves than continue to retweet them onto my timeline.
As Ole Miss students with Twitter accounts (sidenote: if you don’t have a Twitter because you operate solely on Facebook, please join the rest of us in the realm of relevancy), you’ve probably seen this trash on your timeline, too.
I’ll be reading some news, clocking some shade — then all of a sudden a blue avatar flags a tweet for an article that’s about as sexist or grossly socially unaware as the politicians they champion via that website on their tacky T-shirts.
You should never for a second get to thinking that the author of this article finds any value in Mitt Romney’s political existence, Ronald Reagan’s economic policies or Ronald Reagan’s ghost — but surprise, sis! I’m Greek, too. And I refuse to let Total Frat Move or its Srat branch presume that they can define collegiate Greek culture as classist, misogynist, homophobic or even largely Republican.
There is a linguistic tendency to not refer to my incorporated sisterhood of scholarship, love and pink and green as a sorority, despite the fact that it has existed and flourished all over the world for the last 105 years. When people speak of sororities on campus, they aren’t referring to Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta or Sigma Gamma Rho Sororities Incorporated. When people speak of something being “frat” — whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean — the image of the men of Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, or Iota Phi Theta Fraternities Incorporated doesn’t immediately come to mind, either.
Because despite the numbers of black students who may choose IFC or Panhellenic fraternities or sororities to happily rush and join, or despite the fact that non-people of color may choose to attempt to pledge Black Greek Letter Organizations, the Divine Nine is still viewed under the lens of this exotic “otherness” like we’re so damn different from everyone else that we can’t be discussed with the same vocabulary or level of relevance — and trust me, we are.
So all of that being said, boys and girls, it is beyond prudent and past time to realize with your real eyes that regardless of your race, political views or Greek affiliation, Total Frat Move and Total Srat Move are a threat to Greeks across the board.
If you’ve never actually visited the Total Frat Move or Total Srat Move websites, consider before you look into the abyss that you did not come to college to actually feel like you’re becoming a dumber person (remember that the abyss looks back, y’all). And these sites are clever when they reel you in; what they do is draw you in with a chuckle here or a nod of agreement there with some commentary on things totally normal to the experience of any student at a public university, Greek or non-Greek — like, who doesn’t hate cargo shorts? Then they’ll show you some really cute photos of girls on the beach throwing what they know, and sometimes they’ll namedrop your school — then bam, you’ve stepped into the Junior National Asshole Convention, except with Chubbies instead of dad jeans but probably the same eighth-grade reading level of sociopolitical awareness.
Then you laugh and laugh at the irony of a young person unsubtly referring to President Obama as a communist when the person in question might live in a Greek house where his pooled dues go toward making it easier for a community to decide rules for feeding and punishing its members.
Listen … let me set out this truth tea:
We don’t need this from you, TFM and TSM. I’m not entirely sure who cosigns for you, but no one on the planet asked you to create this grimy cesspool of a lifestyle that you have tagged as Greek “culture” and assume all Greeks abide by these shady standards.
NPHC Greeks are members of legitimate Greek-letter organizations — and we are awesome, and we go hard.
Women in sororities are not sorostitutes.
Not all members of fraternities spend their time riding their white male privilege through the ghost of Ronald Reagan’s presidency past.
Being a Republican does not mean you have to be an uncouth, racist, sexist, homophobic bastard.
And finally, being an uncouth, racist, sexist, homophobic bastard doesn’t make you frat. It makes you a jerk in a fraternity.
Sierra Mannie is a junior classics major from Ridgeland.
