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Overcoming
stereotypes
The
first step to overcoming is understanding. Sitting down
and discussing differences can achieve this.
Both
sides entered the room. They both grabbed some pizza
and some pop. They both took their sits in the ring
of chairs in the middle of the room. And with out being
told, they both segregated themselves from the other
side; Greeks on one side of the circle and Independents
on the other.
Enter tension.
The
tension came from not knowing whether this was going
to be a informative discussion or a heated debate. No
one really knew what was going to be discussed. No one
knew how it was going to be brought out.
The
moderator starts. He reads off a list of words that
the Independents had come up with to classify Greeks.
“Preppy,
annoying, buying ones friends, loud, fake.”
Tension
mounts.
Looks
of disgust appear on the Greeks’ faces. They are
not pleased. The moderator finishes the list.
Silence.
Dana
Orlando breaks it, immediately defending the Greek system.
The others chime in. Florinda Hernandez talks about
the sisterhood of Sigma Lamda Gamma. Jon Moore compares
his Greek experience to a fish bowl.
“It’s
is like a giant fishbowl,” Moore said. “When
you’re on the outside, you are looking in saying
‘Why are you in there?’ When you’re on
the inside, you’re looking out saying ‘Why
aren’t you in here?’”
For
the next half hour, the Greeks talk and the independents
listen.
The
tension is slowly disappearing.
The
group decides the split circle is a bad idea and everyone
gets up and moves to intergrate the group. Independents
start asking questions. What everyone thought was going
to be a heated debate turns into intelligent conversation
between eight students, instead of four Greeks and four
Independents.
By
the end, the Greeks are satisfied and the Independents
walk away feeling they learned something.
“I
didn’t know much about Greeks before today,”
Aubrey Dunn said. “But I feel liked I learned a
lot about Greeks after the meeting.”
That
was the general feeling among the Independents. Although
some still had doubts, they were more toward individuals
than the Greek system as a whole.
The general feeling of the Greeks was satisfaction,
but a need to do more.
“I
feel like we accomplished something,” said Mark
Verkhlin “It’s great that we influenced these
four people but it would be so much better if we could
get bigger roundtables together to explain this to a
bigger group.”
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