emory is not in the south

not long ago, atilla, obi-wan, j-watt and i hit up a co-worker's party. she's a lot younger than all of us (just graduated from uga) and was having all of her sorority sisters (and their corresponding fraternity dudes) over for what was essentially a mixer. since this was my scene in college (along with j-watt and obi-wan), we figured it would be fun. i think atilla might have been in it for the scenery.

anyway, so we're hanging with sixty 23-year olds fresh from athens. there's moving on from college and there's moving on. they are the latter. and they dress EXACTY alike. the dudes have floppy hair, pink or yellow polo shirts with collars flipped up and tucked into their shorts (which reach only mid-thigh), braided belts, and absolutely, in no way, do they own socks. i don't mean like a few of them are wearing this uniform. all of them. these good old boys are both amusing and kind of pathetic.

while these dudes look like they just rolled out of bed, their chicks (who fawn over them) are dressed to the nines. heels, black skirts, pearls, done-up hair. similarly, they have their own uniform. housewives in training.

somewhere in this picture are some deeply embedded attitudes towards gender roles.

this is a backyard keg party, by the way.

having a had few (read: a bunch of) beers in me, i sauntered over to the lovely host and commented on the "uniform."

"it's a frat guy thing."
i'm a frat guy. i didn't wear it.
"well, it's a southern frat guy thing."
i went to college in the south.
"no you didn't. uga is in the south. emory is made up of people from ny and california who live in atlanta."

so there's the distinction. made matter-of-factly and pretty true, in my experience.

interestingly, in this cnn article two prototypical southern frat guys are suing 20th century fox over the appearance in borat's movie (which i saw on sunday). they rant extensively about how they don't respect women, how minorities have all the power, and how life would be better with slavery.

slavery?

yes, they were drunk. yes, they may have even been duped about what they were filming. but they knew they were being filmed. the mel gibson-i-was-drunk-i'm-not-an-anti-semite and kramer-i-don't-really-think-should-string-up-black-people-i-was-just-mad argument holds little water. you don't say that shit unless somewhere inside you have thought those things.

it pisses me off to no end when people (mostly white folks, but a surprising number of my fellow minorities) say we should "get past" race and that "racism is over, if minorities would just accept personal responsibility" and "move on."

i submit these two morons from the movie as exhibit A.

i wonder how many other of their clones at the party would agree with them, deep down inside.