Rod and Karen discussed Mary J Blige, the AKA’s, cooking therapy, torture report, Amazon searches their workers, UK porn bans certain sex acts, Apple lawsuit, Pluto is a planet, secure your phones, Trey Radell, furry convention, Adam Sandler movies, Thanksgiving fat shaming, Thanksgiving guest prank, Kirk Cameron, Halle Berry, Rose McGowen on gays, John Smid, caps make cops make rape jokes, The Cosby Show, KKK cop kid, white artist silent on black issues, no pants gril and Facebook rapist. Then spreecast tanked!
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As a member of a historically Black sorority, I was pretty outraged when I first heard about Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (and later, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority) advising their members not to wear letters while participating in the demonstrations that are going on around the country. After all, one of the goals of AKA is strengthening the Black family. However, after reading up about this issue, I realized that because of their non-profit status, many organizations cannot express any political leanings. Back in 2008, I received an email from my sorority asking members to refrain from wearing letters while campaigning and requested that vendors not include the org’s letters on any material with any candidates’ names (for example, AKAs for Obama, etc.). Displaying any political bias can cause orgs to lose their non-profit status. Letters like the one you read on the show are totally normal; I imagine that it’s only being found about by non-members now because of social media.
Black Greek orgs have been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights for decades and the #BlackLivesMatter issue is no different. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson were Greek. But I think in today’s litigious and vigilante society, they are really following standard operating procedures. While I agree that everything about my org and others isn’t perfect, I understand why this letter went out. I know what it looks like from the outside, but I don’t think shame or trying to shut members up was the goal here. After all, the letter does that members can wear their colors and when was the last time you saw a non- Greek man wearing gold boots, camouflage pants, a dog collar, and a purple shirt (or no shirt)? Orgs know that their (mostly good) reputations precede them and are just looking for ways to self-preserve. Those in the know will suspect that a woman at a die-in decked out in crimson and cream is a member of DST but in case an auditor finds the pic somewhere, the org can fall back on the fact that it can’t can’t be proven 100%. So, TL;DR: this is standard procedure.
I know this is long but I hope it wasn’t too rambl-y. Great show, as always!