I have a real comfort with being myself that often borders on arrogance but it really isn't. Its just that I don't feel the need to go fitting in or submitting to norms. The real culprits behind that confidence is the men of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity inc.
My first day at the University of Kansas, one of the Sigmas helped me move in to the dorms. It only took him about 5 minutes of his time but it was one of those little moments that changed the direction of my life. I was all prepared to get myself indoctrinated by campus (read white) life. All I wanted was to graduate and become a nice, mild mannered middle class nigga. I'm from the hood and there's no bigger dream for an 18 year old nerd hitting campus for the first time.
He told me about the Kappa party that night and the Sigma party that weekend. I didn't know anybody accept the few black people that I met during orientation so I was down for some mingling. The thing I noticed most about the Kappa Party, women loved them. It was the first time that I had been surrounded by grown ass black women in sexy clothing. Needless to say, my mind was effectively blown.
Later that week I hit up the Sigma party. I had seen a few of the brothers on campus but never the brother that helped me move in. I also saw members of Zeta Phi Beta on campus. One such young lady I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I had a crazy crush until I found out that her ass was EVIL. (She's ultra cool now.)
Anyway, when I paid my 10 bucks to get into the party, one of the frat brothers (from out of town) gave me one of the most ghetto recruitment speaches you will ever hear:
"You like getting down with these girls?"
"Yeah"
"You like drank?"
"Yeah" (I was lying. I wouldn't have a drink for 2 years)
"Then you need to get down with us"
It was hood but I'm from KCK, I'm fluent in hood language. Don't let the blogging fool you.
The party was off the chain. It wasn't as social as the Kappa party though. The Kappa party was outside, this party was basically in a basement of one of the campus unions (Burge parties are legendary). The floor was actually slick with sweat. It was Jamaican dance hall hot. What made it work was it wasn't at all fake. Its hard to put on airs when its 100 degrees, we're in a basement and Juvenile's back that ass up is on and people are actually dancing to it. Ahh the memories.
That year, two guys that went to my high school got into the fraternity. These two weren't exactly my role models but they were from my hood. If they could get accepted, then so could I. I actually didn't think that one of them liked me at all. I played basketball with them pretty often and dude was always on my case. Turns out he was cool with me, he's just a jerk of a team mate.
Fast forward. A year later I was getting recruited big time by another fraternity. I went to a couple of their informational meetings just to see what they were about. The thing that turned me off about them was they all seemed so set on fitting the mold of their fraternity. They were the picture of the future black middle class. They got girls, where well respected and were very studious. There was no way I was going to fit in without completely overhauling my personality. Plus, I had been on campus just long enough to know that I HATE bourgie middle class niggas. Apparently, they saw the potential in me and I really appreciate that buuuut, I didn't feel like putting on my upstanding negro face just so I could be seen as one of them. Shit just wasn't going to work.
There where no Omegas on campus but I was too little to be trying to be a "Q - dawg" and the Kappas where too busy trying to fuck all of my ex girlfriends to recruit me so ummm fuck em. It also didn't help my reputation with the "pretty boys" that I would go to class looking grimy. I would wear my brother's old army jacket and 5 year old wu-wear jeans on campus and be comfortable as all hell. I'm sure they were as baffled to see me with girls around me as I was to see them surrounded with women. Like I said, I'm from the hood. We didn't have too many light skinned dudes out there trying to be pretty. The shit was kind of foreign to me. Everybody was all over light skinned girls back then so I kinda associated light skin with softness. I was far from hardcore but if somebody wanted to take it there, I had little problem coming along. That is probably what made me acceptable to the sigmas.
I didn't have a single class with any of them but I would see them at the gym and show up to all their informational meetings so they knew I was interested. There was a 2.5 GPA cut off and I had like a 2.45. I straight sent an e-mail to the area director. In effect it was a lot of begging and they actually let me join the "intake".
I won't talk about the intake process, lets just say I got to know these niggas pretty well. I also began to hate them too. It was 9 of them and the thing that I loved the most about them is that they were all so different. While the other fraternities stuck to stereotypes, there where no 2 of these cats alike. There was even an Asian dude, Kenny. Kenny was cool as hell. He had mad tattoos, talked like a black guy and was a real laid back dude when he wasn't being a dick to the initiates. I remember when he made me talk in a robot voice for like a week. I was not pleased. Anyway there was the guy that helped move me in, he lived in Manhattan at the time so he only saw us a few times during intake. We wouldn't get to know each other until we both hit grad school at the same time.. I did get to know the rest of them however, especially after intake ended.
We had athlete's, nerds, dudes that only messed with white girls, niggas that were borderline sexual deviants. Middle class cats, sophisticados, pot smokers, drunks, I mean we had the whole spectrum. My partner in crime was Costa Rican and akward, my other homie was a G from KCK but when the whole crew decided to roll together it was all love. The thing that made rolling with the Sigmas so great is that whatever your social dysfunction was, they just thought it made you unique.
I am forever indebted to my man ET (I try not to use names on my blog). This dude loved hip-hop as a culture. The first step show we entered (and won) was down in K-State and the guest performer was Carl Thomas (Wish I never met her). The dude could sing but he really only had one hit. By the time it was time to close the show, the crowd was pretty bored. That hit came on and ET was bouncing off the walls. He was jumping and screaming and elbowing folks. The thing was, everybody else was still standing around. This fool was acting like he was part of the show. He caught me looking at him crazy and said "What nigga? I love this shit!" It made me think, why should he be afraid to enjoy himself? Somehow, I felt stupid for not partying too. So fuck it, i started rocking too.
That was how ET lived his life. When we were rolling around campus and he heard a song that he liked on the radio he would be bouncing around the car spitting all the lyrics. I envied the way that he wasn't afraid to be the only person having fun. Okay, that got him into a little trouble when it came to women. If a girl threw some ass at ET he was gonna catch it. His girlfriend was sexy as hell and smart to boot but ET wasn't the settling down type, hell none of us were, but enjoying himself made him mess up something pretty good. I guess I learned from his mistakes on that one.
I learned the outs of women juggling from the frat. Nobody told me to be against it but every semester I watched one of them arguing with some girl. I certainly didn't want that to be me so in essence they taught me to be a loyal lover even when i definitely had my opportunities to do otherwise.
Most importantly, I learned that there are different ways to be a black man. When all of my friends were back home learning to look tough, I was learning that I only needed to look tough when it was tough times. Yeah, we got into a few...situations with other fraternities. I won't say that I never threw a punch but I will say that I never threw one unnecessarily. I was just regular old Russell, and the guys loved me. With love like that, why should I be anything else? I think that was the message some of the other black organizations missed. The Sigmas wanted to know how I could help them as me, so I just stayed myself.
I'm not arrogant but I love being me. I have people around me that love me for being me and if that rubs some people the wrong way, don't blame me, blame the men of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity inc. Zeta Omicron chapter, University of Kansas.
My first day at the University of Kansas, one of the Sigmas helped me move in to the dorms. It only took him about 5 minutes of his time but it was one of those little moments that changed the direction of my life. I was all prepared to get myself indoctrinated by campus (read white) life. All I wanted was to graduate and become a nice, mild mannered middle class nigga. I'm from the hood and there's no bigger dream for an 18 year old nerd hitting campus for the first time.
He told me about the Kappa party that night and the Sigma party that weekend. I didn't know anybody accept the few black people that I met during orientation so I was down for some mingling. The thing I noticed most about the Kappa Party, women loved them. It was the first time that I had been surrounded by grown ass black women in sexy clothing. Needless to say, my mind was effectively blown.
Later that week I hit up the Sigma party. I had seen a few of the brothers on campus but never the brother that helped me move in. I also saw members of Zeta Phi Beta on campus. One such young lady I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I had a crazy crush until I found out that her ass was EVIL. (She's ultra cool now.)
Anyway, when I paid my 10 bucks to get into the party, one of the frat brothers (from out of town) gave me one of the most ghetto recruitment speaches you will ever hear:
"You like getting down with these girls?"
"Yeah"
"You like drank?"
"Yeah" (I was lying. I wouldn't have a drink for 2 years)
"Then you need to get down with us"
It was hood but I'm from KCK, I'm fluent in hood language. Don't let the blogging fool you.
The party was off the chain. It wasn't as social as the Kappa party though. The Kappa party was outside, this party was basically in a basement of one of the campus unions (Burge parties are legendary). The floor was actually slick with sweat. It was Jamaican dance hall hot. What made it work was it wasn't at all fake. Its hard to put on airs when its 100 degrees, we're in a basement and Juvenile's back that ass up is on and people are actually dancing to it. Ahh the memories.
That year, two guys that went to my high school got into the fraternity. These two weren't exactly my role models but they were from my hood. If they could get accepted, then so could I. I actually didn't think that one of them liked me at all. I played basketball with them pretty often and dude was always on my case. Turns out he was cool with me, he's just a jerk of a team mate.
Fast forward. A year later I was getting recruited big time by another fraternity. I went to a couple of their informational meetings just to see what they were about. The thing that turned me off about them was they all seemed so set on fitting the mold of their fraternity. They were the picture of the future black middle class. They got girls, where well respected and were very studious. There was no way I was going to fit in without completely overhauling my personality. Plus, I had been on campus just long enough to know that I HATE bourgie middle class niggas. Apparently, they saw the potential in me and I really appreciate that buuuut, I didn't feel like putting on my upstanding negro face just so I could be seen as one of them. Shit just wasn't going to work.
There where no Omegas on campus but I was too little to be trying to be a "Q - dawg" and the Kappas where too busy trying to fuck all of my ex girlfriends to recruit me so ummm fuck em. It also didn't help my reputation with the "pretty boys" that I would go to class looking grimy. I would wear my brother's old army jacket and 5 year old wu-wear jeans on campus and be comfortable as all hell. I'm sure they were as baffled to see me with girls around me as I was to see them surrounded with women. Like I said, I'm from the hood. We didn't have too many light skinned dudes out there trying to be pretty. The shit was kind of foreign to me. Everybody was all over light skinned girls back then so I kinda associated light skin with softness. I was far from hardcore but if somebody wanted to take it there, I had little problem coming along. That is probably what made me acceptable to the sigmas.
I didn't have a single class with any of them but I would see them at the gym and show up to all their informational meetings so they knew I was interested. There was a 2.5 GPA cut off and I had like a 2.45. I straight sent an e-mail to the area director. In effect it was a lot of begging and they actually let me join the "intake".
I won't talk about the intake process, lets just say I got to know these niggas pretty well. I also began to hate them too. It was 9 of them and the thing that I loved the most about them is that they were all so different. While the other fraternities stuck to stereotypes, there where no 2 of these cats alike. There was even an Asian dude, Kenny. Kenny was cool as hell. He had mad tattoos, talked like a black guy and was a real laid back dude when he wasn't being a dick to the initiates. I remember when he made me talk in a robot voice for like a week. I was not pleased. Anyway there was the guy that helped move me in, he lived in Manhattan at the time so he only saw us a few times during intake. We wouldn't get to know each other until we both hit grad school at the same time.. I did get to know the rest of them however, especially after intake ended.
We had athlete's, nerds, dudes that only messed with white girls, niggas that were borderline sexual deviants. Middle class cats, sophisticados, pot smokers, drunks, I mean we had the whole spectrum. My partner in crime was Costa Rican and akward, my other homie was a G from KCK but when the whole crew decided to roll together it was all love. The thing that made rolling with the Sigmas so great is that whatever your social dysfunction was, they just thought it made you unique.
I am forever indebted to my man ET (I try not to use names on my blog). This dude loved hip-hop as a culture. The first step show we entered (and won) was down in K-State and the guest performer was Carl Thomas (Wish I never met her). The dude could sing but he really only had one hit. By the time it was time to close the show, the crowd was pretty bored. That hit came on and ET was bouncing off the walls. He was jumping and screaming and elbowing folks. The thing was, everybody else was still standing around. This fool was acting like he was part of the show. He caught me looking at him crazy and said "What nigga? I love this shit!" It made me think, why should he be afraid to enjoy himself? Somehow, I felt stupid for not partying too. So fuck it, i started rocking too.
That was how ET lived his life. When we were rolling around campus and he heard a song that he liked on the radio he would be bouncing around the car spitting all the lyrics. I envied the way that he wasn't afraid to be the only person having fun. Okay, that got him into a little trouble when it came to women. If a girl threw some ass at ET he was gonna catch it. His girlfriend was sexy as hell and smart to boot but ET wasn't the settling down type, hell none of us were, but enjoying himself made him mess up something pretty good. I guess I learned from his mistakes on that one.
I learned the outs of women juggling from the frat. Nobody told me to be against it but every semester I watched one of them arguing with some girl. I certainly didn't want that to be me so in essence they taught me to be a loyal lover even when i definitely had my opportunities to do otherwise.
Most importantly, I learned that there are different ways to be a black man. When all of my friends were back home learning to look tough, I was learning that I only needed to look tough when it was tough times. Yeah, we got into a few...situations with other fraternities. I won't say that I never threw a punch but I will say that I never threw one unnecessarily. I was just regular old Russell, and the guys loved me. With love like that, why should I be anything else? I think that was the message some of the other black organizations missed. The Sigmas wanted to know how I could help them as me, so I just stayed myself.
I'm not arrogant but I love being me. I have people around me that love me for being me and if that rubs some people the wrong way, don't blame me, blame the men of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity inc. Zeta Omicron chapter, University of Kansas.
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