I’ve had the opportunity to read the frat-trashing story and I disagree completely. The problem is that you hear all these stories about only the negative things that happen at a small proportion of existing fraternities. It makes me angry.
You hear about irresponsible and harmful hazing rituals yet many former and current pledges will tell you that even though the hazing was tough, they appreciated the close relationships that they formed because of it. They say that they wouldn’t have bonded as well as they did had they not gone through these tough rituals together. Some say it’s like in the military. But I bet you none of them like to hear of hazing that gets out of hand.
You hear about parties where booze and drugs are everywhere but you show me a dorm of first years where you won’t find a bunch of drunk kids ‘bumping around to bad music’ whose goal is to get wasted. C’mon. These issues are not unique to frats. It’s not the frats that are at fault -- it’s the guys who act like idiots and do dumb, irresponsible and inconsiderate things. Those guys are always going to be around regardless of whether frats exist or not. Hazing, drugs and alcohol abuse exist in sports teams, in clubs, and in many organizations. So hey, why don’t we ban them all? And we’ll get rid of dorms too while we are at it.
Frats can do many good things. They collect money for charities. They organize various community service projects. They provide leadership experiences; look up all the great leaders who were members of frats during their college days.
Frats provide a unique experience for young women and men seeking fellowship and support. They provide a family away from your family back home. In my frat, it doesn’t matter what ethnic or sexual orientation you are – we treat each other with respect and we offer each other our friendship.
The stories you hear about are tragic. But they are isolated occurrences and not the norm. The positive outweighs the negative.
I am glad I chose to be a part of my fraternity.
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Are you kidding? You are justifying hazing? Comparing fraternities to the military? Wow. And the comments about behavior...there is a significant difference between fraternities (not frats) and residence halls. The difference is that we take a ritual oath to be men of good character.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is exactly why good reporters who are following stories about our negative actions immediately go to our chapter and national websites, where they find our creeds, mottos, values and ideals boldly posted. Then, they compare what we say we are to the actions that occurred.
If we are going to change, the first thing we need to do is stop wearing blinders. Then, we can revisit our founding values, look at what we are and are not, and make a conscious choice to live up...not down...to our stated expectations.