To the Editors:
As a woman highly involved with the recent "Beta Poem" issue, I would like to comment on the course of events of the last couple of days. Yes, I have read the poem and attended the "discussion" with the brothers of Beta, and have since continued to discuss the issue and feel that my opinions are far more educated than those of many other recent responders.
I would like to point out an extremely important point: despite the accusations of us involved women backing down due to intimidation factors and weakness, we agreed that the best way to deal with the information we accidentally got a hold of would be to somehow move concentration away from THE POEM and toward THE ISSUE. Our discussion with Beta provided a basis for this goal.We intended to raise campus awareness of the issue by using the incident as an example of racism and sexism in the Greek system. This problem extends much farther than the walls of Beta. By publishing the poem and making a huge deal of this isolated example, others could simply use the excuse, "We don't do THAT! The poem is awful. We must be OK." This is an incorrect response to THE ISSUE -- which recent publicity has succeeded in moving concentration away from. Condemning and alienating Beta as "guilty" as opposed to finding ways to address the common problem in the entire Greek system will move us further and further away from turning this into an opportunity for improvement and change. If we women are protecting anything by trying to move focus away from THE POEM, it is simply this opportunity.
