TheAtlantic | Black fraternities and sororities don’t share the same peripheral
issues. A miniscule number own or even rent chapter houses due to very
small numbers. The same is true with alcohol. Studies indicate less
alcohol usage for example by Black college students, not so much because
of less interest, but less disposable income to provide large
quantities to guests at an event.
But there are different symptoms that indicate the same dark power or
force exists in black groups, one that also creates tragic problems. It
invades undergraduates who have been members of a group for a year or
two, and miraculously overnight are the authorities on their group and
how one should become a member. Their national leaders, scholars,
lawyers, and experts, all who say don’t haze, have no credibility with
these young geniuses.
And so they employ an “old school” approach to hazing, and I mean
old, as in 1800s when all college students had few resources, so the
upperclassmen physically punished freshmen during that first year. In
2014 alone, black fraternity members were arrested
at the University of Central Arkansas for paddling and being pelted
with raw eggs. Six members of another black fraternity (my fraternity)
were arrested for paddling that sent one student to the hospital for a
month. And at the University of Georgia, 11 black fraternity members were arrested after allegedly lining up potential new members along a wall and striking them.
They all must know hazing is illegal. They must know it is against
their respective fraternity and campus policies. They must know that if
caught there could be harsh sanctions, including legal ones. And year
after year, they beat people.
Hazing is the dark side of the force, if you will. For social
fraternities, it’s Count Dooku, using Jedi mind tricks to have pledges
drink themselves to death. For black groups, it’s Darth Maul, a brawler
physically punishing pledges.
Undergraduates all start off with these noble intentions in their
groups, but they become exposed to the dark side. For black groups, if I
continue the analogy, they are impacted by Darth Sidious—men and women
actively convincing new members that hazing is the only way. They are an
insidious group, operating inconspicuously on campuses but causing
great harm.
I call these people extended adolescents. They are recent grads (or
just no longer enrolled), who are employed, underemployed, or
unemployed. Their most significant accomplishment is often fraternity or
sorority membership, so they are on campus often- at events, in chapter
meetings, or just hanging out. So their “wisdom” is valued more than
the legitimate authorities within the national fraternity, or campus
administrators.
This group embodies the dark side of black fraternities.
