Time Machine: Looking at Black UT Pt. 3 (Fall 2005)

To all of my new readers... thank you for allowing me to entertain/irritate/educate/provoke you... that is my pleasure... the real purpose of this blog, no matter what the topic, is to get people to discuss. Now... with that said, the details that will come out on this blog are not "FACTS ACCORDING TO TONY" unless of course it's about me specifically.... these are actually what we would deem "Social Facts"... meaning it is the collective perception of the isolated society, in this case UT at whatever time period we're discussing. Furthermore... if you dont know me by now... I am a firm believe in the socratic model of discussion... start from the fact that you know nothing and build from there...

If there is a statement you would like me to clear up, would like to discuss, or would like me to revise (pending you remind me that I'm wrong... cuz I can be... this was years ago), then please leave a comment or email me at AnthonyD.Williams@Gmail.com. I will reply via the blog and keep your name anonymous.
-----------------------------------
Where I left off, we were discussing the emergences of facebook, the decline of organizational involvement, the increase of Greek control over the community, and the need to question everybody's intent.

As the summer rolled around I was working at Express... (all of this section can be found here, in the 2005 archives). Wasn't making much money but I was involved in orgs at UT, so I made weekly trips to Austin for the Welcome Program and Lock-In meetings. The challenges that lie ahead were right in front of our face... and I'm not talking about our progress... I'm talking about our discord.

The Pres of BSA was also the Chair of the Lock-In (there was another chair, but she didn't really do much work to be honest). The xanga beef I talked about before translated to not only the BSA Exec but also to the Lock-In exec... we couldn't get through a meeting without being reminded about how much some of the people disliked each other... and as much as I harp on Greeks.... this had nothing to do with Greek Life... Sometimes people just don't like each other.

Greek life did have its influences though... IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, I will admit that the strong 2 chapters on the yard in Fall 2005 were the Deltas and the Kappas... the Alphas had just come back, and were still trying to gain support. This had to have been a challenge regardless... the Sp. 05 lines of the previous 2 organizations seemed to have it together... and they included very down to earth people that anybody could enjoy getting to know. I really thought Greek Life had been revived. But then I realized what year it was... ***

Before I go too deep into the detail: Tony's Assumption Theory

People assume things about people from the moment they meet them. The only way this assumption is broken is if it is disproven... as a result, a secondary/tertiery/etc. assumption is put in place in order to provide comfort for the observer. This cycle happens until an assumption fits, or no assumption can fit at which point, more exploration must be done to ascertain the truth.

In relationships, some women might ASSUME all men are dogs, until otherwise proven... once that is broken... it could be any number of things... such as he's gay, he's only friend material, he's a dog in training... etc. Point is, people believe what they want to believe until somebody let's them know how wrong they are.

At UT... in my first years, there was a community assumption cycle that went as follows:
1) Everybody wants to be Greek
2) If you dont want to be, it's because you can't be... (why not... any reason... pick one).
3) If that's not the case, you must've been rejected or you dropped...
4) If that's not the case.... blah, blah... you get the point.

After that... it gets muddy, but I vividly remember convos within every circle of friends that I had in which women and men discussed how much they wanted to be a XYZ or a GHJ... It was commonplace back in the day.... I dont see this being the same thing now.

To be honest, I dont know where people got "ignorant" of the "social facts". Whereas, if you wanted to join a Greek organization as an undergrad, WE KNEW we were gonna be "busy"... today, not so much. People have to be asked, told, and reminded that... I wonder where it was that people stopped just knowing... or maybe the "social fact" changed without us older folks knowing...
----------------------------------
This year was fun tho... the Lock-In was cool... from the first moment I met this freshmen class I realized that they were unique. What was so unique about them was their ability to communicate and get along as a group... there were some follies, but there was alot of postive to be said as well. Most of what I remember are my words of advice to the young women:

"Don't get slutted out..."

At the Lock-In however, the MIC (who threw the program) made the rules clear that NO ORGANIZATION (lettered or not) was to wear, adorn, or present anything that promoted their organization to the freshmen... this wasn't a publicity trip. At any rate... it was funny to watch Greeks (including Alphas) try to bend/break the rules... tsk tsk tsk. I was kinda happy I wasn't involved yet just simply because I thought the rules made sense and shouldn't have been violated.

Back on campus, things were a bit different now. The X-Lounge now housed lockers to store organizations' tabling materials (these were previously held in the Center for African and African American Studies-CAAAS upstairs in Jester). Furthermore, a new Wendy's had been built smack dab in the middle of America's largest dorms... and it stayed open until 4 AM. Truthfully it was sad to watch how quickly the Freshman 15 developed on some of these young women... dah well... I wouldn't get a chance to holler at them in the Spring anyway...

Other traditions went off as normal... Icebreaker was at a different venue, up north. The Alphas were trying to make their comeback official... they competed in the show but ended up getting second to the UH-Sigmas if I remember correctly. Details get a bit muddier from here on out because I started becoming an avid drinker.... alot of us do eventually at UT.

There were no summer lines, so there was no early probate... and for some reason Greek 101 (which had been during the first couple weeks of school in 04) had been pushed back... This didn't affect me at all, however I've always thought it was a BAD thing to let freshmen interact in our community without giving them the proper "warnings" about how to approach people.

But the Freshman Action Team of BSA were some workers... they threw a talent show, that has since been annualized into a major event for them. They were also concurrently involved in all of the other organzations I mentioned before. This would prove to be a BIG DEAL, when the Alphas announced the return of their annual Non-Greek Stepshow.

In the mean time you saw cliques start to form out of the freshmen class... usually everybody could hang out together regardless of their clique, and we usually stayed up til about 4 am (when Wendy's closed) in the Jester West Lounge. The funniest remnant of this semester was the formation and the separation of the "J West Clique"... these 4-5 mofos named their gang after their dorm, made a hand/gang sign (lol) and used to walk around looking like wack ass Kanye wannabes (this is Late Registration timeframe). They got clowned consistently...

I also had to relinquish my crown as Mr. DST... there was a conflict here that I will take 30% blame for... now that I'm on the other side I understand, but still. I was supposed to do a program for the scholarship I received (the saddest thing is that with any pageant, these programs are RARELY actually executed). By the time I asked for a date to throw it, all that the Deltas had left was their co-sponsored week with the Kappas, it pretty much meant I wasn't gonna have a program. I probably should've came to them about it earlier (which would make it 50% my fault), but now that i know the Fall Greek Calendar is settled in May, they could've let me know the dates in advance as well. This conflict isn't the important issue... it was the fact that when we met to discuss when i would throw my program, I saw a copy of an NPHC calendar for the first time... EVERY DATE HAD A GREEK NAME ON IT... as if they had to do something everyday... it just bothered me because...

Meanwhile on the other side of UT Life, Weeks are running RAMPANT. Oversheduling and program overlaps continued to plague the community calendar to the point that there was a clear dichotomy of where peoples' support was going to go. It got to the point that organizations where negotiating meeting/program times with other orgs or being forced into cosponsorships in order to avoid schedul conflict.

Sadly and interesting enough, there was one person who everybody WANTED to blame... NO IT WAS NOT ALL HIS FAULT... but damn... they sure did hate him at times. I'm sure, knowing him, he wouldn't mind me using his name... and I won't trash it either... it's very important that everybody realize the kind of power that people in this community can hold if they actually cared enough to obtain/use it....

Randall was the Kappa's Polemarch. This dude was smarter than the average bear (currently at Harvard Law) and pretty witty when it came to defending any position he decided to take. He had a very strategic plan to make the Kappa calendar year a consistent and standard operation... he was very effective at setting this up. So effective that (randomly) other Greeks would just be talking about it... I never understood why people didn't mind talking around me, but they didnt... Randall had so many pending beatdowns/jumpings/hullings... whatever you wanna call them... but nobody was ever going to do anything. He was the visible scapegoat for what everybody thought was wrong with Greek life... but at the same point, he was the figurehead of the organization that all of the socialites associated themselves with because of their set of programming and the party schedule.... That's just being real... now to go on to the social fact portion.

People could blame the Greeks, namely the Kappas, all they wanted... at the end of the day, most of the orgs weren't fulfilling their deal. SAAB had a good leader as President, he was always looking for input and interaction from the membership. We weren't as productive as we were under the President before, but it was all good. Umoja was doing well, but since the Spring of 05, had gained 3 top exec members who were AKAs. BSA had 2 Deltas on the exec board... But it still didn't matter. Greekdom affected the orgs simply because members looked at the execs as their ticket and joined the orgs simply to impress them; this was nothing new.

It was an expected part of a leardership life cycle.... Freshmen come in and join orgs, make a name, and build a GPA. They run for a position, come back as sophomores do a good job, kiss some ass, become greek... and probably run for president/another position. As juniors, "leaders" are expected to use their positions/statuses to bring the campus together. From the info above we would be lead to believe this was happening... but the truth was the trend was diminishing. There was no male greek leadership present in any of the more popular black orgs... I speculate that they were waiting on their next intake classes to do that for them.

Orgs need a male presence so it didn't seem like Umoja was throwing every program (nothing but women). Because of their presence, it seemed if you want to be successful on the campus you had to go through the Kappas. they seemed to occupy every weekend with something... back to school party, the next week party, the Icebreaker was last week party, the foam party, the you aint studying no way party, and of course the end of the year party (jokes, but for real... they had like 5 parties that semester). It also helped that a graduated Kappa started throwing Football Game Afterparties in the fall. Sometimes the Kappas would co-sponsor, but because of the visibility, it looked like they were always controlling the night life. Almost every organization (minus the other male greeks and SAAB) had a cosponsorship with them at some point that school year.***

Randall controlled the semester, it was impossible to not see this dude around... besides, his chapter was/is notorious for courting young women immediately when the school year starts... not tryna hate, they just always had a jump on the social scene. And if you watched carefully, you could always tell who was interested by seeing who walked up to the table to say hello. Normally people would walk by and wave or give a head nod... some folks were obvious.

Meanwhile, the Alphas were attempting to make a jump back but they kept cancelling their programs... pub would go up, but it would come back down. They had great relationships with the people that they knew, so they had all the support the needed, but they weren't packing out spots like the Kappas were yet. This was evidenced by the Non-Greek Stepshows afterparty... it was in a small(er) venue, and was packed... but not as packed as the Football Afterparty that evening. Kappas have duely earned their title as the party boys.
------------------------------
Non-Greek was huge, I'll get to it in a second... First I wanna talk about these FB Afterparties... Now this is where Athletes become part of the discussion. Some friends of mine, who I know to be peaceful (chuckle... but for real), were always getting into fights at these events. When I asked them why, they said its because the FB players their were always talking big or acting like they ran everything... my people never started the fights, but they dont take kindly to disrespect either, so I'm sure they never backed down/walked away. Competing egos...

I would look into it further, but I saw the same thing happen my freshman year (one FB v. student fight almost erupted in the middle of the Kappa probate). Around campus it started becoming an issue that the news we would hear about our athletes had nothing to do with the games they were playing... Vince Young also helped give them the big head by single handedly making us an undefeated team (coming up huge in games against OSU, OU, and eventually USC for the National Title). . . This actually would end up changing the party scene later on, because groups of people started boycotting the Afterparties after this year.

Another major event from the Fall of 05 was the crossing of 2 Zetas. Some others might remember some awkwardly entertaining/messy comments during the probate ( "dirty rats")... but it's always important when new Greeks are presented. It's significance can't be measured, but it always matters to somebody, especially if you are Greek.

Non-Greek Stepshow.... was fun. It was cool to see students come together to compete in a show... it was cool to see the creativity and to see how many people could participate in one event... it was also cool to see a newly shaved Tony walking on stage and taking the trophy with "Shonuff". This event helped resolidify the Alphas tradtional foundations on campus. It also included an emcee that said some inappropriate things to a few people... some of those people(DSDivas) were called out via "Assumption Theory"... by the time his comments were done, most of those young females chances at Greek Life was gone... even if they claimed to not want it anyway. This show was important to me, cuz it showed how painfully obvious it was that even at a "NON-GREEK" event, Greekdom mattered... it was cool that, cuz it got me on the map... and in the next semester things would change even more.

Next time... Spring 2006 and the amazing weight loss plan.