Alpha Sigma Phi Colony Fuels Outrage Machine With Photo Of Oklahoma Member In White Ritual Robe

Dan Regester9 years ago

Ritual. Why we still waste away a perfectly good Sunday night in a candle lit room with a bunch of sweaty dudes, dressed like Klan members, and reciting the outdated words our fraternity’s founding fathers wrote a hundred years ago, I’ll never understand. I get that may be an unpopular opinion among all of you that get a raging hard on from the “tradition matters” and “it’s what unifies us with other chapters” bullshit we tend to sell, but I have some quality primetime television programming to attend to — especially during the spring semester. Why can’t it ever be on a Tuesday night? That way I’m not missing the power hour and a half of Thrones into Silicon Valley or the progressive downfall into insanity of Rick in The Walking Dead in favor of the newly elected fraternity president stumbling over words like Floyd Mayweather trying to read Shakespeare. Most brothers don’t take it seriously to begin with, and to the outside world, the general appearance of what’s happening is far from an ideal look. Mainly the hoods. Scratch that. It’s entirely the hoods.

That’s exactly what stirred up controversy at the University of Oklahoma where an Alpha Sigma Phi colony brother (so not even a real member yet) snapchatted a dope ass photo in his white robe.

Obviously, there’s nothing really wrong with this photo — other than the fact that ritual is the fraternity’s “most important” secret and he clearly has less respect for it than I do — but you just know this will be seen by the wrong person completely out of context. Take into account this is the same school fresh off the SAE bus chant, too.

From KOCO:

The picture was shared via Snapchat and also sent to an African-American student organization, which quickly began tweeting it and demanding answers from university leaders.

Fraternity President and Chief Executive Officer Gordy Heminger said this is a teachable moment for all involved.

“It was a student not thinking through how something would be perceived, especially with no context,” Heminger said.

He explained the chapter conducted an initiation ceremony over the weekend and part of it included robes of different colors used.

Heminger said moving forward, the group will not be using that robe for any public or private ceremonies.

First rule of ritual is that you do not talk about ritual. Second rule of ritual is that you do not talk about ritual. The third rule of ritual is that if someone yells “Stop!” or goes limp or taps out, ritual is over. Oh, and no phones. Ever. We can never seem to get that one down. Put the fucking cellular devices away, guys..

[via KOCO]