After watching the TED Talk in class, my eyes were opened to the whole idea of a single story, which I had never heard before. I knew people made bold assumptions and made choices based on irrational preconceived notions. I had just never thought of how dangerous it can be to not take the time and look at more than one angle or aspect of someones life or experience. I see this idea of "The Danger of a Single Story" play out in my life all the time. Being a member of a fraternity, this hits really close to home with me. They say any press is good press, but that's not the case for fraternity men in the United States. It seems like every other day, you hear about a fraternity bing put in the spotlight for something, and most of the time it is negative. You never hear about a fraternity participating in community service or hosting a great philanthropy event. Its always "fraternity X got caught hazing" and "fraternity Y got caught with drugs and alcohol". There's a lot more to fraternity men than American society has allowed and it's unfortunate that we take the heat thanks to the poor decisions of very few. More specially on campus at Ohio State, hazing has been a huge issue lately and I only hope that changes are made for the better of our entire community.
One example of this idea of a single story being put into action in my life actually happened last year at Ohio State. I was out on an average weekend and met another member of the greek community at Ohio State who told me he was in a specific fraternity. Based on what I knew about this particular organizations, I swiftly made a generalization about this individual before I had even learned anything about him. It turns out that he was not only the nicest person i'd ever met in this organization, but he was one of the nicest people I had met ever. I felt terrible for having made such bold assumptions about him and I vowed to never do that again. Still today, he is one of my best friends at Ohio State and I'm just glad I gave him a chance based on how rude and judgmental I originally was. I've definitely gotten better about not making assumptions and I only hope to continue to improve in the future.
I agree with the perception people have of those in greek life that you mentioned in your post. Do you think maybe if there was more of an effort (unified or individual) from greek organizations to highlight things such as, community service, there would be a change of perception?
ReplyDeleteI too have seen negative perceptions of greek life like this come into play. And unfortunately, as I experienced certain stereotypes being applied to me simply because I am in a sorority, I have caught myself in some situations leaving out the fact that I am in a sorority because I wanted to be taken seriously. This is not how it should be though, because in reality I am very proud of my sorority and greek life as whole because were involved, we work hard, and we have accomplished a lot!
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