Red, Blue…Too Many Colors! Incoming Freshman Doesn’t Know Whether to Throw Up Crip or Blood

August 27th, 2022. NSO. Me and the loose collection of gentlemen I found in a Quad lounge enter Commons for the first time. The food smells delicious. We feel a profound thankfulness for the privilege of dining here for the next nine months. Taking our seats, we discuss our ratio for the evening. Is it better to go to a party with thirteen guys and zero girls or thirteen guys and one girl? At least you can pass off the first option as a guys’ night, right? The second is just an admission of complete and utter failure.

But our deliberations are quickly interrupted by a problem. A BIG problem. Right before my very eyes, a man approaches the drink station wearing a blue t-shirt. BLUE. Does this guy really think that he can come Cripping around in here and three taps from my brass knuckles to his dome? But before I take action, I need to confirm that my suspicions are correct. I throw up Blood, desperately praying that he will just do the right thing and throw it back. He does not. Sigh. Looks like another motherfucker is about to get gangbanged (violently, not sexually).

Once me and the fellas finish up with the opposition, some bystanders are a bit upset. Why did I just curbstomp a man on the edge of the fruit station? I kindly explain that this man was a Crip, and our school is clearly a Blood institution, as signified by our red colors. Committing this despicable act of violence was the only way to demonstrate my #QuakerPride. No, they tell me. Our colors are red AND blue. Oopsy doopsies. 

Why do I tell you this tragic story? It is because I was yet another victim of a vicious Penn admissions cycle, a cycle which makes it brutally unclear which set incoming freshmen should rep. These freshmen just come to their Quaker Day, see a mirage of colors, grab the first bandana they see, and get straight to the felonies. There is no way for them to tell which color is their found-family and which color deserves to be thrown off the Ben Franklin Bridge!

Now, as the Class of 2027 prepares to face the same difficulties of their predecessors, I give them one piece of advice. Don’t worry about who is a Crip and who is a Blood. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The best thing to do is just gangbang (violently, not sexually) everything that moves until you figure it out.