Why can't we be friends

Everyone who has known me for more than five minutes will undoubtedly identify at least one fact about me: I’m from California. Not only am I from California, but I’m from San Diego, and I’ll have you know that it has been scientifically proven to be the best place on Earth. My love affair with the state is a big joke with my friends. Regardless of the topic of conversation, I always have to give my take on how we do it in California. This weekend, I learned how we do greek life in California.

One of my best friends from high school goes to Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles, and I decided to surprise her with a visit over Fall break. As chance would have it, Saturday marked the culmination of their “Greek Week.” Notice that I said week, not weekend, implying that there is enough enthusiasm to merit an entire seven days worth of well-attended events. The final event of Greek Week at LMU is known as “Lip Synch,” which quite frankly sounded kind of boring. I didn’t feel like paying $15 to watch a bunch of sorority girls badly lip-synch to Britney Spears. But, not wanting to rain on everyone’s parade, I decided to suck it up. When we got there, I was completely floored.

I quickly learned that Lip Synch is one of the school’s biggest events of the year, similar in magnitude to Countdown to Craziness. It takes place in the school’s basketball stadium, the only venue big enough to house visiting alumni and parents as well as a majority of the student population. We arrived an hour early and the line was already out the door. Far from my initial perception, Lip Synch turned out to be a three-hour long phenomenon featuring six-minute-long dance routines from each of the fraternities and sororities and strolls from many of the school’s cultural greek organizations. Now, when I say “dance routines,” I don’t mean a couple of fraternity brothers go out and Dougie for awhile. I am talking about a fully-choreographed and themed routine featuring every member of the organization and multiple costume changes. On average, the fraternities practice for three hours a day, five days a week for six weeks leading up to Lip Synch. Sororities practice even longer. I don’t particularly enjoy dance shows like “America’s Best Dance Crew,” but Lip Synch was amazing.

The event also made me a bit jealous. It was strange to see fraternities emphatically cheering on other fraternities. It was even more unusual to watch independent students pay cold hard cash to cheer on greeks. The level of unity and spirit among students at LMU, regardless of greek affiliation, is noticeably lacking at Duke.

I’ve experienced this divide firsthand. Through joining a fraternity, I’ve built a lot of friendships, but I’ve seen how fraternities can destroy friendships as well. Although the bonds between members of one greek organization are usually strong, these affiliations can sometimes be discordant as they relate to interactions between organizations. Furthermore, the social scene at Duke reeks of an “us versus them” mentality between greek students and independents. To put it in terms of “-ive” words, It would be much more constructive if the social atmosphere at Duke was more cohesive and less divisive.

The first step of solving an issue is finding the root of the problem. As someone who thinks he always has the right answer, it pains me to say that I don’t have a definitive solution, because the problem is a complicated one. Maybe it is just a geographic, California-Carolina difference, but I think there is more to it than that. The administration at Duke perpetuates a perception of greek students as being “the enemy.” They insist on pointing out the differences between affiliated and unaffiliated students, and they love to scapegoat fraternities in particular. Perhaps fraternities act in ways that deserve vilification, but I couldn’t tell you whether that is a cause or a result of the administration’s actions. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more that the administration alienates the greek community, the more the greek community will rebel.

For example, it’s no secret that the administration is trying to change the social atmosphere at Duke. Fraternities and sororities control the social scene, if for no other reason than because they have the means by which to do so. The administration thinks the easiest way to alter the social atmosphere is to bully the greek organizations. They may have more luck, however, if they try working with greeks instead of working against them. Putting real effort into events like LMU’s Lip Synch, which promotes camaraderie among greeks and positive interaction with unaffiliated students, would be a step in the right direction.

Here’s how I see it: it’s easier to solve problems when everyone is on board.