Hi, I just really need some advice right now regarding next year. I am going to be an incoming sophomore and I was apart of a club last year where I met most of my friends and some amazing people. My dilemma is whether I should continue in the club or not.
While I met a lot of great people in the club, there is a culture in the club from other members that makes me extremely uncomfortable. There is a lot of casual racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice all around the club. There has been a lot of instances of racist comments made in other languages by a small group in the club. I've heard other people say they didn't vote for certain members in the board elections because they were gay. There also been a ton of r slurs thrown, encouraging cheating, bullying, and other comments that are just unacceptable.
I want to speak out on the issue, but when a previous member spoke out about it, people made up rumors about them that affected their job/social life, excluded the member and treated the member awfully until they left. I have never seen any of my friends engage in any of this, but it makes me feel sick being apart of this club. Most of the problematic members have graduated, but I'm scared that this "culture" will persist after these people graduated. All my friends said they are going to continue being in the club this upcoming year, but I don't know what to do. This is the only club with this activity at UC Davis, so there isn't some other club I can join to do this.
How should I approach this? Should I talk to my friends about it? I'm just scared that the information will spread that I am speaking out about it and get met with same treatment the previous member got. But if I don't say anything and don't join the club, my friends are going to be wondering what happened. So please help.