A message from Ted Cruz territory …
UA Statement about Alpha Phi, Beta Mu Chapter
“This video is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens. It is important for student organizations to remember what is posted on social media makes a difference, today and tomorrow, on how they are viewed and perceived.” – Deborah M. Lane, Associate Vice President for University Relations – UA in the news.
YouTube or Mobile version … recruitment up 13% 😉 Oops, follow the link: the number of
African American students who received bids increased by 19 percent, to 25 [2014 – 21 bids].○ University of Alabama Alpha Phi Bid Day 2014
○ University of Alabama orders sororities to end race discrimination | The Guardian – 2013 |
○ Crimson White – UA Demographics
○ University of Alabama police under investigation after reports of bullying, racism surface
Wow! An apology …
An apology to the women of University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi [2516 comments]
Sisters of University of Alabama Chapter of Alpha Phi,
Let me say right off the bat I’m not here to preach to you or tell you why I cringed when I watched the recruitment video that has now made its way around the world. I’m not here to question the glitter-blowing, piggy back-riding or skimpy bikini-wearing thought process that went into a recruitment piece for your sorority.
There’s already been a lot said about all those things and I’ll be the first to admit we’ve all made choices in our youth that we later regret.
…
What I am here to do is tell you I’m sorry. You’re owed that apology from the women in my generation, most of us who are old enough that you could be our daughters.We’re the generation that grew up in the 1970s and ’80s. We were after the main days of the women’s liberation movement when women all around the country were uniting to elevate their positions. Most of us were too young to really understand the Equal Rights Amendment or why some thought Constitutional protection for women was so important.
…
We sent the message of freedom but not personal responsibility. We told you you could do anything, even if that resulted in you choosing to do nothing. Your body, your choice – and if you want to show your body off in a marketing video aimed at other women, so be it. If most of you don’t have a clue who Sandra Day O’Connor or Sally Ride are, at least we made sure we dressed you in Ugg boots and short shorts and let you watch Kim Kardashian when you were 13.…
It seems somewhere, in the rush to empower young women, we didn’t direct you at all about what your true potential is or, in the case of the UA sorority, the meaning of sisterhood in the larger sense. We didn’t make clear that sisterhood involves women of all ages and we’re worth more than just a video that lands us on a sports chat site with comments such as “I’ll take that one”.It seems in many cases, we didn’t pass along the message of your worth and value and we allowed you to sell yourself short.
And for that, I am sorry. Please know you are worth so much more.
It’s an ugly, bad world out there …be unprepared.
Article on the same website – Do colleges coddle students too much? National opinion roundup.
From the same author Leada Gore
Stop blaming the Confederate flag
And now we have Charleston. Except in this case, even though the issues of treatment for mental illness and access to guns still exist, we have a new scapegoat: a flag. It’s a convenient target, of course, and it’s much easier to take a stand to remove something so easily despised as it is to try and address the larger, tougher issues related to violence and racial divide we have in our country.
It’s easier for the politicians and the pundits and the public to rail against a flag. But it doesn’t move us one step closer to preventing a shooting like Charleston from happening again.
We’re told in Scripture (which, interestingly enough, far pre-dates the Confederate flag but we seem much less willing to fight for its place at any government property [pdf]) that out of bad comes the good.