New Evidence Suggests The SAE Racist Chant Is Not Just An OU Thing, Other Chapters Called Into Question
This onion is starting to stink to high heaven. With each new detail of the SAE racist chant story that is revealed, the more damning it looks for SAE — and now it appears it’s not just the SAE chapter at the University of Oklahoma that is guilty of chanting a similar song.
A thread was started on reddit 29 days ago that brought an alleged list of FIJI pledge rules into question. This list, while pretty damning in its own right, is irrelevant to the current situation with SAE, and not just because it’s 10 years old and has zero foundation or reason to buy its authenticity. Soon after the post hit reddit, someone posted a very interesting comment that was later mysteriously deleted. The cached version of that page, where the comment is still visible, can be found here.
The comment is below. Again, this comment was posted weeks before the OU SAE bus video surfaced.
It would appear the chant is practiced by multiple SAE chapters, albeit with different versions. Although it is not stated, the context of this comment suggests that the SAE chapter the commenter was referencing is the one at the University of Texas. The alleged FIJI pledge rule list was connected to the UT chapter in the initial post, and the commenter didn’t state a different university.
Also, there’s this:
#UT President Bill Powers says school 'looking into' reports that SAE chapter there has chant similar to #OU. More on @NBCDFW at 10.
— Brian Curtis (@BrianCurtisNBC5) March 11, 2015
Also occurring in the wake of this mess, someone came forward to reveal that he heard the same chant by members of the Louisiana Tech SAE chapter back in 2010. He told his story to BuzzFeed News.
“It was the summer of 2010. I was at a rush party at the SAE at LA. Tech house along with all the other freshman who had been invited,” Dylan Merriman wrote in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “I cant remember exactly what he [an SAE active at the party] chanted/drunkenly said but it was similar to the video that has been on social media.”
Three SAE chapters from three different states have been connected to this chant. How far does it reach? How cultural is this problem? And what is SAE going to do to fix this mess?.
[via reddit, BuzzFeed News]
You know what sad that major media is ignoring. White fraternities are open to everybody, like go toward black fraternities and you have to be darker then a brown paper bag to join. Im just saying SAE did fuck up but they aren’t as racist as black fraternities generally are.
11 years ago at 2:16 pmThe “paper bag test” black fraternities supposedly use actually goes the other way: you have to be lighter than a paper bag.
11 years ago at 3:00 pmIf this keeps up people are going to start asking questions they really don’t want to know the answer to. This is not to be taken as an excuse for the behavior of the OU ΣΑΕs. Those who have no clue about what happens within fraternities have remained in the dark for a reason.
11 years ago at 2:38 pmDoesn’t every fraternity have chants that are racist in one way or another from back in the day?? Not that they should still be used but it’s almost a bit of fraternity history
11 years ago at 2:54 pmCan we shut down reddit already? Those fedora-wearing goobers are a legitimate threat to polite society.
11 years ago at 2:58 pmWhile Sig ep gets a hot rush vid, sigma chi gets a raging party vid, we get taken down in a witch hunt spanning multiple articles with no ending or resolution.
For what its worth i was a die hard and i never heard these chants before….we had multiple people of color in my fraternity. Fuck it guess we just have to weather the storm. Didn’t think it would get worse after the alcohol deaths and end of pledging, it did.
11 years ago at 3:04 pmI hate how media is acting like this is indicative of SAE culture. This mainly reflects on the culture present in the Deep South. I’m not saying all southerners are racist. I am saying racism is more prevalent in the South in comparison to other parts of the U.S. I’m a black SAE and I’ve met many Southern brothers at leadership school and they all seem fine and I have never had a race related problem with any of them. Some people are just unfortunately raised with bigoted values by their families and unfortunately those values carry on into adulthood. A large group of misguided individuals were concentrated in one chapter and that chapter was rightfully closed. Nationals made the right call and there is no reason to keep harping on this
11 years ago at 3:04 pmSAE this week, KA or Sigma Nu the next week. It’s an unfortunate event, don’t get me wrong. But, we as fraternity men need to back each other up a little bit. Outside of our frat bubble, the rest of the world is talking about how terrible social fraternities are in general, they don’t give a shit which one it is. With such a huge number of organizations and media outlets determined to disband greek life all together, we shouldn’t rejoice in one of the countries oldest and largest fraternities being scruitinized on such a national level. It’s a bigger issue – They’re coming for all of us. I find it especially disturbing that the TFM staff is contributing to the negative publicity, leave it alone.
11 years ago at 3:08 pmCan’t wait to see tomorrow’s article “why being white is NF”
11 years ago at 3:10 pmSo, what you’re saying here Dorno is that all those SAE’s jumping on the anti-racism bandwagon on that other post were completely full of shit. Huh, what do you know?
11 years ago at 3:24 pmLet’s be real; there’s a chant like that in every chapter lol. “What happens in the basement stays in the basement!”
11 years ago at 3:28 pm