DCentric

NYCArthur

Sex and The City 2

All morning long, my Twitter feed has contained references to the fact that Mayoral candidate Vince Gray liked the HBO show “Sex and The City” so much, he slipped out of work to watch the movie alone, at Gallery Place. I find this admission quirky and endearing, but my larger reaction is, “So what if he did?” Putting aside the “sneaking out of work” bit, what’s so wrong with seeing a film, alone? Even if it is that film? Everyone learned about this trip to the movies via an article by Tim Craig, at The Washington Post: “Friendships that last have molded Vincent Gray’s life“.

In that piece, Gray had this to say about SATC:

“I like the relationships between the ladies,” Gray said. “I really enjoy the friendships that they enjoy between each other. . . . The symbolism for me is their ability to support one another.”

Perhaps I am biased, because even my socially-conservative, Christian, Asian Mother cites the power of Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda’s friendship as the exact reason for her own appreciation of the racy series, but I don’t think this sentiment is worth of derision, at all. Frankly, if we’re going to ignore substance and focus on fluff, I found a different part of the article far more interesting– when Gray was a Junior at GWU, he decided to become one of the first African Americans to rush a fraternity:

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon didn’t allow him to come into the house, and no one spoke to him at the Tau Kappa Epsilon house, Gray recalled recently. The brothers at Sigma Nu politely told Gray “no Negroes,” and then one of them tried to pick a fight with him.

But when Gray, then a junior, showed up at Tau Epsilon Phi, a predominately Jewish fraternity, he was greeted by Bruce C. Bereano, who immediately liked Gray and helped convince the other brothers that despite the national fraternity’s ban on blacks and Asians they should admit him.

Choosing to rush as a Junior is uncommon, rushing a mostly Jewish-house as an African-American student in 1963? Even rarer, I believe.

Mayor Adrian Fenty was also in a fraternity; he rushed the historically African-American house Kappa Alpha Psi while a law student at Howard. No word on whether he’s a fan of the series or the two movies it inspired, but I’m sure if such information is disclosed, I’ll see a tweet about it.