“There will never be a ni**** SAE. You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me.”
If you thought that this was a chant used in the racist South before the civil rights era, you would be mistaken.
Members of the University of Oklahoma’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) chapter sang the song this past Saturday on a bus to a Founder’s Day celebration.
The video documenting the atrocity was sent anonymously to the UO school newspaper, The Oklahoma Daily, in an email the next day with the intention of exposing this unashamed bigotry in one of Oklahoma’s (and the country’s) oldest fraternities.
SAE boasts of its mission to “promote the highest standards of friendship, scholarship and service.” This mission is in the group’s creed, known as “The True Gentleman,” which every new member has to learn by heart.
Ironically, considering the current situation SAE finds itself in at Oklahoma, the creed firmly states that, “The True Gentleman is the man … who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own.” Yeah, right.
What a horrible representation of a group that has such a long-standing tradition in this country, being over 150 years old. How self-important can these boys — because they are clearly not real men — be to think no one was going to find out about them not only having, but using, this extremely offensive chant?
Defending being a part of Greek Life is hard enough with the complaints of superficiality, exclusivity, elitism and every other reason you probably hear your favorite anti-Greek Life friend spew whenever the subject is brought up. And when you have frat bros behaving this way, it honestly makes it difficult to disagree with these complaints.
Obviously not every chapter of SAE (or any other Greek organization for that matter) has these kinds of backward traditions. However, when news of them surfaces, they should be met with serious consequences to eradicate any and all trace of that specific organization’s prejudices.
That is just what UO did. And it acted fast.
Later on in the same day in which the video was sent, UO President David Boren made a public statement severing all campus affiliation with the organization, in addition to making sure the fraternity’s members had vacated their house by the following Tuesday, closing it off completely.
On top of all this, Boren issued a public statement affirming his shame for these young men’s actions. He vehemently reprimanded them for having such a blatant disregard for their fellow humans, stating that they are “disgraceful” and have “violated every principle that [their] university stands for.”
I think such a strong and sure reaction is more astounding than the fact that this kind of blatant racism still exists in 2015 — as sad as that is. The University of Oklahoma has set an impressive standard for colleges across the country to follow when faced with these kinds of scandals.
I am so happy we live in an age where these types of acts are not tolerated or covered up, but met head-on by the officials of such a well-known, large and influential school.
It is also comforting to see that SAE’s wealthy and powerful alumni did not get a chance to cover up the actions of the young men left to carry on the name of their organization. No money or public relations spin can top such direct actions against the self-entitled idiots that sang this song.
These malicious, corrupt and inherently racist kinds of actions should be met with these zero-tolerance policies. I am proud to have real men, like the president of UO, stand up for what is right when the “gentlemen” of our generation cannot.