U. of Alabama sorority criticized for 'racially-homogeneous' recruitment video
In their ‘Alabama Alpha Phi 2015’ recruitment video — a video traditionally used to highlight the positive aspects of a Greek organization and recruit new members — the mostly-white members of the group appeared bikini-clad and dancing.
According to the reactions of viewers, the group apparently failed highlight anything other than their looks.
In an Alabama.com op-ed on, writer A.L. Bailey had a lot to say about the video:
Remember all those bikini-clad, sashaying, glitter-blowing, and spontaneous piggyback-riding days of college? Me either. But according to a new video, it’s a whirlwind of glitter and girl-on-girl piggyback rides at the University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi house.
No, it’s not a slick Playboy Playmate or Girls Gone Wild video. It’s a sorority recruiting tool gaining on 500,000 views in its first week on YouTube. It’s a parade of white girls and blonde hair dye, coordinated clothing, bikinis and daisy dukes, glitter and kisses, bouncing bodies, euphoric hand-holding and hugging, gratuitous booty shots, and matching aviator sunglasses. It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so … unempowering.
Bailey continues, relating the video to recent statements made by Donald Trump during and since the Aug. 6 Republican debate:
To the incoming PNMs, this video has a clear sales pitch: beauty, sexuality, and a specific look above all. They’re selling themselves on looks alone, as a commodity. Sadly, commodities don’t tend to command much respect.
So who is buying what they’re selling?
Men, from Donald Trump on down to fraternity pledges, are buying it over and over again with devastating results.
Although the video has since been removed from YouTube.
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