I have been on the dean’s list several times and was one of those nerds in high school who tried to take as many Advanced Placement courses as possible (I am pursuing a career in “nerd-dom” as a member of James Madison College). I enjoy writing so much that I have more blogs than Angelina Jolie has children. I play and watch sports, and I think hockey is extremely underappreciated. I listen to all kinds of music, from Pink Floyd to A Tribe Called Quest, Lil Wayne to Dispatch.

Maybe you like me by now. Maybe you think I’m an OK guy.

Oh, but I forgot one thing — I’m in a fraternity.

When I opened Friday’s edition of The State News (2/6), I was displeased to see the opinion section cartoon about “frat boys.” Maybe not exactly displeased. I was more disappointed. You know, in the way your parents say they’re “not mad, just disappointed.”

The thing that is most disheartening is the cartoon was drawn by Ian Brown, the State News cartoonist and a fellow MSU student. Maybe he doesn’t know I’m in a fraternity. I keep up to date with politics, can articulate myself and write decently enough, so maybe I don’t fit that stereotypical fraternity mold. Maybe people expect fraternity boys and sorority girls to walk around campus with beer helmets flowing.

There is a stereotype for every group of people in our society. But the only one few people try to refute is that of the greek system. So let me be the first to say that the label the greek community has been branded with is wrong. Rarely do the people who expound this image of the greek community take the time to get to know its members.

The stereotypes displayed in the cartoon — a man wearing a backward hat at the end of a beer pong table saying “Bro bro bro frat bro frat dudes tool bro bro” — are simply ridiculous.

I would hope this is not how people view the greek community at MSU or anywhere else. I’m sure there are a couple people who fit Brown’s caricature — and I’m sure they exist outside of the greek system, too — but he is focusing on the minority. Someone who knows many people in the greek community wouldn’t have drawn that cartoon because they would know the stereotypes aren’t true.

The greek community must be doing something to perpetuate this negative image, although I have yet to discover it.

The greek community has brains, even if people won’t admit it. In the spring 2008 semester, sororities and fraternities in the Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council had a 3.13 grade-point average. The average GPA for all MSU undergraduates was 3.05.

Not only do fraternities offer their homes to strangers for a place to socialize every weekend, the greek community also has made MSU and East Lansing a better place. This is a community that has raised the most money out of any college in the nation for the American Cancer Society, with $96,471.87 raised as of Tuesday — and that is the MSU greek community alone, with 10 days left to donate. This is a greek community that hosts the Special Olympics every spring. This is a greek community that sponsors Safe Halloween on M.A.C. Avenue so local children have a fun and safe place to trick-or-treat. Degrade these activities all you want, but it’s more than most people have done to improve the East Lansing and MSU community.

There will always be stereotypes to break for the greek community, the black community, the Jewish community and others — whenever there is a specific group of people, a stereotype follows.

But for whatever reason, people take stereotypes about the greek community as truths. I once wore my letters at work only to have a co-worker say, “You’re in a fraternity?”

Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Not really, actually. Just stop believing the stereotypes.

Zack Colman is the State News opinion writer. Reach him at colmanz1@msu.edu.