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Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

The Asian Greek life community’s role in rape 
culture and misogyny

CW: Sexual assault, rape, emo-
tional manipulation.
**
Over the past few weeks, stories 
of sexual assault, manipulation and 
rape have surged my Instagram 
homepage. In this second wave of 
the #MeToo movement, much of 
what has been circulating around 
is coming from my Asian-Ameri-
can community. This time, it feels 
more surreal as I hear from victims 
and perpetrators with whom I am 
acquainted. Both groups consist 
of people who have walked down 
the same hallways I walked, been 
to the same events and fraternity 
parties my friends have been to and 
currently live in the same neigh-
borhood my friends and I live in. 
The prevalence and proximity of 
these stories are frightening, and 
it’s concerning to think about the 
many more left untold. 
These 
survivors 
have 
held 
months or years of emotional bag-
gage and are using this movement 
as an opportunity to release their 
built-up torment. However, in an 
attempt to speak up against their 
perpetrators and empower others 
who may have gone through a simi-
lar experience, some victims are 
met with backlash and criticism. 
Linh Mai, University of North 
Carolina at Charlotte student and 

JENNY CHONG
MiC Staff Writer

Read more at michigandaily.com

Stop saying the G word

Read more at michigandaily.com

 Design by Hibah Chughtai

You slip on your coin skirt, 
your vibrant colored scarf and 
you declare yourself a “gypsy” for 
Halloweekend. Your most grave 
concern is what color lipstick will 
best suit your costume. You take no 
second thought about the struggle 
for liberation, the painful hate 
crimes and systemic oppression 
of the “gypsy” you are dressed as 
endures. 
The idea of a “gypsy,” which 
you believe to be an exotic Hal-
loween costume, is rather a racial 
slur assigned to the Roma people 
(Romanis) intended to subside 
their value and isolate them in 
society. Romanis are a group of 
people originally from the Pun-
jab region of northern India. They 

SHAY SZABO
MiC Staff Writer

are known as travelers because of 
their historic migration through 
the Middle East — some through 
northern Africa — into Europe; 
they are now the largest minority 
group in Europe. However, even 
with 12 million Romanis residing 
in the European Union and 1 mil-
lion in the United States, there is no 
political power or representation 
for their ethnic group in govern-
ment.
For centuries, Roma people have 
been victims of chattel slavery in 
Eastern Europe which only ended 
in 1860. Today, the Romani are still 
victims of institutionalized racism; 
they are not provided adequate 
healthcare, lack sufficient access to 
education and have segregated liv-
ing conditions. At least 90 percent 
of the Roma people live below the 
poverty line in Europe. Even the 

 Design by Hibah Chughtai

Alpha Kappa Delta Phi Sorority sis-
ter, recently shared a post on social 
media (which has since been taken 
down) of her alleged experience of 
having consensual sex with a fra-
ternity brother and later discover-
ing she was involuntarily filmed 
doing so by her ex-boyfriend, a 
UNCC Pi Alpha Pi Fraternity 
brother. This brother allegedly sent 
this video to a Snapchat group chat 
consisting of his pledge brothers 
and slut-shamed her for “hitting 
up all his pbros on the East Coast,” 
which Mai denied. This post has 
been taken down but a screenshot 
of it is below. After sharing her 
story on Instagram, members of 
the Pi Alpha Phi Fraternity across 
several universities on the East 
Coast began to condemn her in a 
Facebook Messenger group chat 
–– a chat that @ktlyndng posted 
screenshots of. Many commented 
on her appearance, calling her 
“ugly” and “fat,” and implied she 
and other victims are only speaking 
out now for attention. One member 
even said he had already seen about 
15 posts about rape and joked that 
he should make one about “how 
[he] was raped by bros.” 
As a result of these messages sur-
facing on social media, Pi Alpha Phi 
National Fraternity addressed the 
situation along with its other sex-
ual misconduct, assault and exploi-
tation allegations through a public 
statement. According to the state-

ment, all fraternity activities across 
all chapters were indefinitely sus-
pended as of July 4. They hired a 
law firm to investigate the allega-
tions of sexual misconduct and 
asked for an independent investi-
gator to investigate the institution 
and third party firm to review the 
organization. The National Board 
of Directors also asserted to hold 
their brothers accountable and to 
rebuild the foundational culture of 
their fraternity in the meantime. 
However, many commenters on 
the Instagram post expressed out-
rage at their response and are skep-
tical of the fraternity’s plans to rid 
their organization of rape culture 
and misogyny. They criticize the 
board’s decision to reach out to law 
enforcement, as many women do 
not report sexual violence for fear 
of reprisal, or the belief the police 
will not help or that further harm 
might be brought to them. Com-
menters are also doubtful of how 
rebuilding the fraternity would 
lead to change as “fraternity cul-
ture was founded on misogynis-
tic principles” and “enable toxic 
masculinity,” @kathytrinh com-
mented. Some are demanding 
more actions to be taken, such as 
de-lettering the members in the 
aforementioned group chat and 
even disbanding the entire frater-
nity. The fraternity has not further 
responded since the statement. 
Pi Alpha Phi is only one of the 

many organizations in the Asian 
Greek life community with sexual 
assault and misconduct allega-
tions. Its sister sorority, Alpha 
Kappa Delta Phi, has also allegedly 
enabled rape and sexual assault. 
University of Buffalo student, Ami, 
recounts the night her friend and 
at-the-time fraternity pledge — 
under the pseudonym, Z — alleged-
ly raped her in an instagram post. 
Ami allegedly told their friend, 
and at-the time a aKDPhi pledge, 
what Z had done to her. Even so, 
their friend kept her ties to him for 
Greek life connections and put Ami 
in more situations which allowed 
Z to continue sexually violating 
and traumatizing her. Ami claims 
the sisters of aKDPhi have used 
her story to take action against the 
brothers of Z’s fraternity but are 

not seeking repercussions for their 
friend’s involvement. 
The chapter has responded with 
a public statement to show their 
support with survivors and con-
demn acts of sexual assault. Ami 
feels the chapter is hypocritical as 
she reached out to them for help a 
while back and was told the situa-
tion was a personal matter, yet the 
sisters were quick to post an apol-
ogy three days after Ami publicly 
shared her story. 
So far, 37 chapters across eight 
Asian-interest fraternities alleg-
edly have at least one sexual assault 
allegation made against at least one 
of their brothers — including Uni-
versity of Michigan’s chapter of 
Lambda Phi Epsilon. 

Roma individuals who found suc-
cess in their communities are reluc-
tant to claim their identity, affected 
by society-imposed shame. 
As sinister as this systemic dis-
crimination is, some European 
officials do not bother to hide the 
cruelty directed towards the Roma 

people. In 2013, Hungarian politi-
cal figure Zsolt Bayer claimed: “A 
significant part of the Roma are 
unfit for coexistence. They are 
not fit to live among people. These 
Roma are animals, and they behave 
like animals.” This perpetuates a 
social stigma and normalizes the 

abuse for the Roma community. 
Hence, it does not come as a sur-
prise to hear governments have 
coerced sterilization upon the 
Roma women with intersectional 
intentions: racism and eugenics.

