A public service announcment on our alledged secrets being passed around the net..........

By now, most of the free world has seen a letter being circulated around the internet claiming to have secrets of 7 of the 9 NPHC organizations (originally, it was a post on Shoutout Central by an alledged Marqueta Johnson of Delta Sigma Theta in Hartford,Ct on 6/27/97 around Eastern Time). A few quick comments to everyone, no matter what your organization:

1. Several people have been stating "send this to everyone you know"- WHY? What use does it do except give more publicity to the person doing it and put everyone's business (alledgely) on the internet (even if you delete the Sigma and Zeta parts like one person did)?

2. No one knows whether the information posted in the mail was legit or not until people like those forwarding it around or posting on SOC or other places to complain about it, VERIFY it. Case in point- a certain graduate member of a certain organization was busy passing copies of it around at a recent conference-----the only thing this person accomplished by doing so is to disrespect her own organization and to disrespect other organizations---coincidentally, this person posts on this site's discussion board on the regular and is the first one to talk about respecting the organization.....but I won't go there.

3. So you alledgedly know someone else's secrets- AND? Assuming that everything in the letter is correct, what good does it do you to continue to pass it around? What good is it to you? For real, without the historic meaning and having the organization in your heart, knowing the secrets of another organization really has no true meaning to you. There's more to being in a greek letter organization than having secrets, stepping and wearing three greek letters across your chest (like the three cheezy independent organizations that just sprung up on our campus.....). And if you're already in a greek letter organization-----what's the purpose of knowing what other's secrets are? Mind you, it's interesting to know what A Phi A or Nupe COULD MEAN, but really.....what difference does it make? Would you like to walk up to a NUPE or Que and give him a challenge? I'm sure since you're NOT a member of his organization, you wouldn't be recieved in the best of company.

4. (added 4/29/00 since folks haven't learned yet) - If this were done in PERSON and not over the INTERNET, AND if the stuff the person told you (as a greek) was TRUE, how would you react? The usual reaction is to neither confirm nor deny (most of the time people have the wrong info anyway)- so why should it be any different on the net? You draw attention to it all by continuously forwarding it and calling attention to it. I fussed at a couple of sorors for sending it around because when I looked back through the millions and millions of forwards, a LOT of the people on that list were NOT Blue and White (I saw AKAs and Deltas and a Kappa or two in some of the forwards).

As one brother eloquently pointed out, anything in print is eventually 'leaked' to the public because someone somewhere is careless or hasn't been taught how to protect 'secrets'. Now even in 'corrupted' form (with stuff being wrong and all), some info is a little too close to the truth to let float around.

Bottom line- stop sending the damn e-mail around.