For example, going to visit a relative in a different part of the country. If you went to play basketball with your cousin’s friends, before anything else you asked… do you go straight up or take it back? Where are the out of bounds lines? Alternate possession or “you make it you keep i”? You learned the rules of another man’s court, and you honored them. Now everyone wants to bring their rules with them, and impose them on everyone else. Growing up in an era of solidarity and civility in my youth, it’s painful to see now.

I just deleted a long paragraph describing why Brotherhood is not dead. As I was writing, I realized that what I was saying was my desire… not my belief. But I will speak to my hope. I loved the million man march, but it proved something to me. We don’t need more Black leaders… we need less. We need strong men moving downward, not upward. We need those who can move millions, moving a few dozen young people over a decade and a half of their lives… ages 8-23. Brotherhood is learned through experience… and that experience comes best through adult guidance. If we made it a goal to infiltrate the youth rather than the corporations for one generation, brotherhood, civility, codes, and honor can make a comeback. As long as people who remember what it is are still around, Black Brotherhood isn’t dead yet. Life support? Definitely! But not dead.

Continued study and research of Black Wall Street (its rise and demise) coupled with The Kamitic Book of Enlightenment THE BOOK OF COMING FORTH BY DAY (Egyptian Book of The Dead) will give us a fighting chance to maintain an understanding of unity in our community.

Tom Joyner – Omega. Tavis Smiley – Kappa. Cornel West – Alpha. Al Sharpton – Sigma.

The Black Greek Letter Organizations are enduring their own problems having nothing to do with the diminishing camaraderie amongst Black men. Hazing and lawsuits have put all of them in peril.

In addition, with the declining numbers of Black men going to college overall and the war against Affirmative Action in admissions, there are simply fewer people available to sustain the organizations on an undergraduate level.

There is still a “need” for them, it is more a question of whether the organizations are fulfilling that need or evolving more into high society social clubs instead of serious community service.

Universities are proof positive of the effect of integration on these organizations, as the numbers are in decline nationally.

In short, yes there is still a need for them, provided they are still about the business of doing what they were meant to do. But America is a very different place in 2011 than 100 years ago when most of them were formed.

And this is coming from an Omega.