...and this is only in the high school Kappa League...
What the fuck are we doing? I know a lot of people may get mad at this post, and for different reasons. To that I say, yes! Become enraged, outraged, fucking grossed out (I almost threw up myself). After that I ask you to ask yourself; what would you sacrifice to be accepted? Amongst your peers? By your parents? By your children? Spouse or significant other? How low into the depths of humanity would you stoop?
I will never look at a Black Greek with the same eyes. Even the term 'Black Greek' is problematic to me. Greece? Really? I mean... This is not our tradition. Look at this shit, that's some European ass shit if I've ever seen it, like a fair skinned Jesus. Give me a fucking break.
Does it solidify one's manhood to let another man shove a red and white striped cane up his rectum while he masturbates, or allow another man to ejaculate on his face? Does it make you my brother to allow you to rape me with a stick? Does the fact the two women are forced to perform cunnilingus on one another make them sisters? Can this really be rationalized? Fuck hazing, this is more significant than hazing. This is self degredation at its finest. We don't know our language, so we use theirs. We dont know our traditions, so we adapt theirs. We dont know our 'God,' so we worship theirs.
Conformity at its scariest.
As a former Woman of Spelman, I am no stranger to strange initiation tactics. Being awakened (along with the rest of the freshman class) from a deep slumber in the dead of night to walk in circles for hours singing the school's hymn (which was written in the 1930's from a very Christian perspective), I rubbed the girlhood from my eyes and awoke to a reality: people give a shit about fitting in... a lot. People will die for that shit... Needless to say, I didn't last very long at Spelman. I just couldnt understand why I had to do certain things to be a part of this group. I was already paying $27,000 a year to do that.
How do I look at these reflections of myself without a frown. All proud and skee-weeing and whatnot. I understand that people need something to be a part of, but that shit, that Greek shit, just feels void of light at the root. I mean... Ancient Greece was a demoralized mockery of Ancient Afrikan traditions and empires (if you ask me). So what the fuck sense does it make for Afrikans to be on some Greek shit? Use your own fucking history and traditions to unify. Learn the Kemetic alphabet. Who is Maat? Where do your people come from? ...Not Texas or Alabama, but before that? My people come from Haiti and West Africa; what the fuck business do I have being involved in some self-degrading Greek shit? Your ancestors frown.
What cloaks it in darkness is the secrecy. When something refuses to be illuminated, I always question its motive. Secrets are a necessary part of human existence (and created only to be exposed), however secrecy and percieved power in it breeds all kinds of darkness that remains untapped in the light.
Let's use 'This Thing of Ours' as a prime example. '2TO' was a secret society (akin to the great Skull and Bones) that thrived and fell at Morehouse College during my tenure at Spelman. There were allegations of plans to defraud a charity organization, rigged campus elections and pagents, hazing, and things of the like. People don't form secret societies to spread light and love unnamed, they form them to do dirt in darkness. Interstingly, the 'Black Skull and Bones' held no real power in the city, state, or nation, as their muse organization did/does. They were inflitrated, disbanded, and humiliated; for all things done in darkness will be illuminated. (How do you think I got this picture?)
One final point in my rant, or call it a call for truth and honor: people, Black people, what the fuck are you doing? Learn your history and traditions so that you won't lose yourselves in the warped traditions of other peoples. (What is Christmas really about?) Become self-aware, not self-degrading. What did you have to do for those letters, and what do they really mean? Look to the Motherland for guidance, not fucking Greece.
That is all.
E.
Morocco for some time now, so we spoke over the internet phone system called Skype, which was delightful because I got to look at her while we spoke. Stellar. It was so enriching to speak with her, to feel full, post conversation, to speak to someone who is much more interested in giving energy to me, giving me a space to release and share and be filled. She is my cup. The sun shines again.
