OU Hosting Exclusive Workshops For Greek Students To “Unlearn” Racism

Intern Craig8 years ago

I was scrolling through Twitter last night and came across possibly the stupidest tweet I’ve ever seen:

When I say this is the most stupid tweet I’ve ever seen, consider the following: I’ve had a Twitter for 5 years, so I’ve seen a lot of tweets. I go to a liberal arts school, so I had to deal with my fellow students’ mourning and rage-tweeting following Trump’s rise to power. Finally, most of the people I graduated high school with are now students at Texas A&M, and you don’t know stupid until you meet an Aggie. But this tweet from OU Daily takes the cake. Let’s break this thing down.

To start, the “Unlearning” Workshop is at 9 a.m. on Masters Friday, and if the administration really believes that fraternity members are going to skip skipping class while watching sport’s greatest sporting event, then they are as dumb as their workshop. Second, how the hell do you “unlearn” something? What is the goal here? I guess OU thinks that the three fraternity members that actually go to this thing are going to have an epiphany and see the error of their ways — since all fraternity members are sexist, racist, classist, and ableist — and instantly repress every memory they have of anything remotely related to the topics of discussion like they just got hit with that Men In Black light flasher thing. I don’t know who decided that “unlearning” was the phrasing that they wanted to go with, but I assume it was someone who only has a cursory knowledge of how the human brain works.

Finally, this entire workshop’s discriminatory targeting of Greek students is the second instance in the last few weeks of Oklahoma failing to support its Greek system. Last month, a man armed with a gun drove his car through the OU FIJI house’s fence and fired at members before fleeing the scene and turning the gun on himself. The University of Oklahoma considered this an “off-campus” event, and left the fraternity to deal with the aftermath. When a fraternity at Oklahoma is checked and found guilty of possessing alcohol, however, they are considered “on-campus,” and are disciplined accordingly. The only reason I’m even bothering to write this article right now (the Masters is on literally every screen in the office, so I’d rather be watching that) is that I’m sick of fraternities constantly being portrayed only in a bad light.

Look, I know all about the SAE incident at OU a few years ago, and in no way am I advocating racism, sexism, classism, or ableism (by the way, ableism is discrimination against people with disabilities. My brothers and I spend our free time throwing eggs and shooting silly string at people in wheelchairs, so you actually got me there). However, I do believe that fraternities who are much, much less in the wrong than OU SAE face more scrutiny than they deserve. I’m sure someone out there with blue hair and a Bernie 2016 bumper sticker is going to let me have it for even trying to discuss an issue that I “know nothing about,” and hey, if that helps you sleep at night, more power to you. But until you join a fraternity (or sorority) and experience philanthropy, brotherhood, and growth into a contributing member of society, you don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Honestly though, it’s hard to concentrate at all about any issues right now because Dustin Johnson’s dumb ass fell down the stairs, and unless he nuts up and plays, me and everyone else’s Masters pick is gone. With my second favorite player, Andrew “Beef” Johnston, not in the field, things aren’t looking good for your boy. Looks like another long weekend at Chili’s is in my future..

Image via OU.edu