'The anger lives in my body still, as I wonder why the administration doesn’t do anything about the Machine and its questionable practices, and why 'fixing' a systemic issue fell into the hands of an unqualified, depressed 20 year old,' Katie Plott writes.
The noise surrounding the University of Alabama’s Greek system is overwhelming. It’s as though all the popular lunch tables in cafeterias across America assembled for a convention. If the Greek population at UA were a city, it would be bigger than Orange Beach, one of the state’s beloved beach towns. Recruitment starts before Fall classes do, so by the time you show up for your first lecture, you already have five friends to sit with.
What might have been ominous to outsiders just felt like a tradition to me. I learned how to ride a bike on campus, and my marketing professor was my pastor at church. While everyone else was learning UA’s secrets, I was the one explaining them. I had explained the Machine, an institution I knew as early as middle school, to so many people that I had begun to sound like a 1950s car salesman.
Near the end of my term, an ex-Machine member proposed a resolution encouraging the Greek system to diversify its membership after sororities were forced to integrate in 2013. A resolution is the political equivalent of a tweet, so this seemed like an easy vote to anyone unfamiliar with UA politics. For the Machine, it was a “f— you” in Times New Roman font from a former member, and that was the only fuel we needed. We killed the measure, 27-5.
That night, I spoke on the phone with my sorority’s national representative, who had placed us on probation, to figure out a game plan. She ended the call by saying, with utter sincereness, “You really need to fix the racism problem.” As if racism were a leak in the faucet, and not a generational, systemic ticking time bomb. But I said “Yes, ma’am, of course,” and got to work.
I was mad at myself for how long it had taken me to get here, and even more mad that my revelation wasn’t clicking with other people.
The further I got from Alabama, the quieter everything became. Behind me stood the regret of my own actions—from benefitting from a system that favored racism and toxicity, to voting against a resolution out of malice instead of values, to not questioning the whiteness of Greek life before it became national news. In front of me wasn’t much better—the anger and disappointment that comes from realizing your time is up and it’s too late to change your answer.
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