SO THIS IS BEING GREEK?
I entered college as a freshman in 1993. I was timid, religious, and longing for connection. My first roommate was a sophomore from New York, a funny outgoing kid with a lazy drawl who loved Wu-Tang, and everybody loved him. We were as different as night and day, but he was always kind to me despite that I’m sure he thought I was weird with all my then religiosity. We never had issues as roommates, but he occasionally tested my boundaries to see if he could get me caught up in whatever his debauchery-of-the-day was. We never did anything overtly friendly like sitting together in the cafeteria, and if he saw me on campus, it was likely that he might not speak. Honestly, I didn’t much care.
In the spring semester of that year, he decided to pledge a fraternity so I rarely saw him. When I did, he was usually exhausted and disoriented. He had quietly confided that he was “on-line” and, out of respect for that confidence, I didn’t say a word about it to anyone. As the semester progressed, I watched his and a few of his friends who would occasionally occupy our room because they were pledging too, descend into a confused but adrenaline-fueled determination. They talked about being chased through the woods in the dark and sounded absolutely terrified. They tried their best to be discreet about what they were going through, but it was obvious they didn’t really want to. Part of the thrill was people knowing they were being put through the ringer and were going to emerge as changed men—important people on campus, the envy of all the little people who were too cowardly to endure what they had been through. I overheard these things and somewhat admired their bravery, but also wondered why it was so important to them. I couldn’t imagine letting anyone chase me through the woods at night. The thought of it alone gave me palpitations.
I wasn’t bothered by our room being their hang-out spot or my roommate’s odd hours one way or the other until the day he came back to the dorm sleep-deprived and accidentally left his keys in the other side of the door, which locked us in. I got up in the morning to go to the bathroom and couldn’t get out of the room. Standing there, close to urinating on myself, I called his name loudly several times. He was so out of it he didn’t hear me for a few minutes. He was snoring so I knew he was alive, I wasn’t worried about that, but I needed to get out of the room to pee. Eventually, I practically yelled at him and he shot up, wide-eyed and frantic, screaming “YES, BIG BROTHER!!!” He didn’t know where he was, what time it was, or what was happening. The whole thing would have been funny if I didn’t have to pee so bad. Eventually, I called our RA, who came to the door and let me out.
A few weeks later, their line was shut down. Apparently, while being hazed … while being viciously paddled … one of his line brothers had neglected to tuck his scrotum, which resulted in it swelling to the size of a grapefruit, split skin on his buttocks, and hospitalization. When his parents got wind of the fact that their child was in the hospital, they promptly reported it and made as much noise as they could. My roommate seeemed disappointed, but also conflicted. They really wanted to cross. They wanted to please their families, fathers, and uncles who had gone through this before them. They were keenly aware that being a part of this fraternity was apparently a big deal where they were from in New York—everybody who’s anybody did it. They stopped hanging out in my room and when I saw them on campus they all looked deflated. We never discussed it any further.
I had no desire to pledge a fraternity at that time, though I did long to belong to something and have a wider circle of friends. But I had been taught in church that fraternities and sororities were “secret societies” and Christians were forbidden from participating in such things. Then there was the issue of alleged idolatry associated with the symbols used by Greek letter organizations. Now, we could pause here and talk about the hypocrisy of denouncing idolatry while worshipping pastors and church leaders, money, or even an image of white Jesus, but do we really need to?
I don’t know that I really believed all that business, but I accepted it anyway.
DESIRE, DENIAL, SELF-DISCOVERY
Fast-forward to 2010, to a time when I was a full-grown and married adult. My ex-wife, who was in graduate school, decided she wanted to join a graduate chapter of a sorority. I supported her in that choice, and because I was still searching for connection, belonging, and male bonding, I thought maybe it was something I should look into also. I was in graduate school myself at the time.
I didn’t need to do a tremendous amount of research to decide on an organization because there had always only been one that I felt aligned with who I am as an intellectual. Because of what I witnessed with my roommate, in my undergrad years, I had dismissed the whole thing as frivolous and dangerous, but secretly thought about how cool it would be to be one of them. So I went for it, certain the graduate experience would be different and safer. I made the right connections and talked to the right brothers of a local graduate chapter. I attended an interest meeting and began the process. I borrowed a HUGE amount of money from family and friends who were willing to support me and, voila!, I was “on-line.”
I quickly became aware, however, that the graduate pledge process wasn’t as respected as the undergraduate process because it was not viewed as being rigorous. Some called it a paper process, but I didn’t care. There are some Greeks who will admit that this sentiment is pervasice while others deny it. It IS pervasive. We could pause and talk about the insanity of the idea that if you haven’t subjected yourself to willful abuse you’re not authentic enough, but do we really need to? We could probe the psychological underpinnings of ritualized violence and shared trauma paired with notions of bonding and kinship in relation to the historical blood-level memory and experiences of African Americans in slavery, but do we really need to?
There were originally five on my line and I was the Ace. One of us was cut despite the fact that he was an outright hustler who worked extremely hard to gain the respect and support of the chapter. He worked harder than any of us, to be honest, and this wasn’t his first time pledging this same chapter. He had previously been rejected, but was determined to get in. There were others in the pre-pledge process who had also been rejected numerous times in the past but kept coming back. He didn’t make the cut, we suspected, because his physical aesthetics and unpolished edges didn’t fit the image they wanted. It was probably those frizzy cornrows. He was a little bit timid when it came to public speaking, but his heart was always evident. We collectively grieved his departure and felt it wasn’t right, but what could we do? It hurt to see him nearly in tears when he didn’t make it.
I wasn’t hazed. There was some light reprimanding and verbal humiliation. There was some “bitchy” behavior by one of the brothers, who I later discovered was just “bitchy” in general—his snobbish rudeness wasn’t reserved for anyone in particular. The process was psychologically rigorous, but not physically so. I think fear magnified the rigor for me because I was in “a place” and doing “a thing” that already didn’t feel quite right for me, and I had no idea what to expect. I was also remembering grapefruits, paddle-imprints, welted split skin, and wilderness sprints. I thought, These are grown-ass men … surely not?! But in the back of my mind I also thought things could turn at any point.
I had just started taking a new medication that impacted my memory and I was killing myself trying to remember all the information … but I DID. I knew information when no one else did, and I was reprimanded for apparently trying to embarrass them. Nevertheless, I went through with it, and I crossed. It wasn’t long after that, however, that I regretted the decision because the brotherhood I was looking for just wasn’t there. Some would argue it was because of the nature of doing a graduate process rather than an undergraduate process. I’ll never know if there is any validity to that and I don’t care. What I do know is that, in life, experience is a teacher and sometimes we have to experience certain things in order to understand ourselves better, to become fully conscious of who we are, what we need, and what we don’t.
I quickly came to understand that the general ethos of the chapter was characterized by elitism and a pretty acrid and off-putting amount of ego; that the brotherhood I sought was available to some, but it didn’t feel like it was extended to me (for whatever reasons). It mattered where you worked, how much money you made, and how nice your home was. Your tax bracket and title made you someone deserving of respect. And the severity of your machismo commanded respect. But I was a sensitive artist educator who was, then, a graduate student living off loans in an apartment, driving a Nissan. I made it in because I knew my information and had the right endorsements.
I realized that I am not a group kind of guy. I came to know that I’m too much of an individual to submit myself to disrespectful and dismissive treatment just to belong to something—and I like that about myself. So, true to my line name “Black Casper,” I let it go and disappeared, ghosted. I stopped attending the same chapter meeting over and over each month and I stopped caring about being accepted. I maintained close connection with my line brothers because I did in fact bond with them, just not the chapter. But over the years the whole thing faded into being just a memory of something I set out to do and had accomplished. I never officially renounced anything because the notion of having to do so seemed stupid to me. If you don’t see me, then you know I’m not there, which means this is not something I feel the need to be a part of. You won’t find me wearing paraphernalia or promoting the organization and I’m often confused by 80 year olds in line jackets (but that’s a different conversation).
When students come to my office now, they see a bedazzled paddle hanging on my wall and remark, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Greek!?” I laugh every time and tell them I’m not. The paddle is there because one of my best friends is a carpenter and wanted to make something for me, so he crafted it and I keep it up out of appreciation for the love he put into it, but it doesn’t mean much more than that.
I’ve done a lot of reflection over the years, and a lot of things have changed in my life. I ended that first marriage and accepted myself—meaning I “came out” as an unapologetically gay black man. I now have a husband. In doing so I have been able to more acutely recognize that a lot of the discomfort I felt back then was actually their suspicion and homophobia. I’m not naive enough to think they didn’t “clock me.” They did. But to be honest … I wasn’t the only crooked clock in the room. And some of them had wives too. I was young and working through my sexuality; trying to figure it all out, but I was legible. I had been taught by the church that I needed (and was expected) to be married (to a woman) because I had also been a pentecostal minister since the age of nineteen in the grand old Church of God in Cash. “Deliverance” from homosexuality was a thing I was taught to pray and fast for. Once, I fasted for 14 days consuming only water, hoping that when it ended I would magically wake up straight. Things didn’t turn out that way; I woke up still queer inside and filled to the brim with self-hatred. My abs were poppin’, but my pride was not. Wanting to do the “right” thing, to be “normal” and pleasing to God, I got married because my pastor at the time told me it would “fix” me. But it did not.
(Ironically, one of that pastor’s beloved daughters is now a lesbian. I feel fairly certain he hasn’t given her the same advice. But we live and we learn … sometimes at the expense of others I guess?)
Clearly the straight fix didn’t take with me. The thing I was never able to say back then was that one of the main reasons I disengaged with Greek life so quickly was because they made the homophobia very apparent in the way they discussed one another and potential aspirants. It was clear that “soft” men weren’t welcome, even though there were “soft” men in our midst. Fortunately for them, they were in the right tax brackets and bore the right titles for it not to matter. Nothing firms a “man” up like money, you know. There were cliques and factions and it was clear that after crossing I still had work to do to integrate myself into a sub-group. So, long before social media personality “Sweet Brown” said it, I concluded within myself, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
I’m too smart for this, I thought.
I don’t make charitable donations to the KKK because they don’t like Black people. And I can’t in good conscience give my money to an organization that will require me to pretend to be something I’m not and know I’ll never be.
I wanted to be free then and, perhaps, in the back of my mind I always knew the marriage wasn’t going to work and one day I would be free. Whatever the case, I knew I didn’t belong.
Times have changed now and, from what I hear, some Black Greek Letter organizations are more accepting of queer brothers and sisters. I think that’s great, but as I’ve stated, I’m not made for groups of any kind. I don’t like it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I’m an educator and I don’t need an organization to serve my community; I do it every day.
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS
This past semester, six students asked me to write letters of recommendation for their pre-pledge process. They weren’t pledging the organization I was once a part of and, again, it was the pre-pledge process, so it didn’t matter that I am not financially current with the organization I pledged. They were all students I love and respect, so I had no problem writing letters that extolled their virtues as scholars, community servants, and future professionals. There was one letter, however, that I hesitated to write because I was concerned about anything possibly happening to the student that might impact their mental health. Knowing them as I did, I understood that the student had done a tremendous amount of work the previous semester to heal and recover from some pretty traumatic occurrences. I worried that something could possibly upset the balance they had found. But the student wanted it and I wanted to be supportive, so I did it anyway.
An unsettling sour-stomach kind of nervousness sat on me after writing that letter. In my head I imagined the worst mental health outcomes. I thought about how it would feel if it happened. I wished I had said no.
I was relieved to hear several weeks later that they had dropped from the line because they made the decision themselves that it was too much to risk considering their current circumstances and some new challenges that had arisen in their life. Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief because I had hoped they would come to that conclusion. But I also felt a little guilty. I had ignored my intuition in favor of what they wanted so that I didn’t have to be the faculty member who disappointed them.
A MESSAGE FROM THE GRAVE
In February, Caleb Wilson1, a 20 year old student at Southern University in Baton Rouge Louisiana, died while pledging Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Reportedly, he had been repeatedly punched in the chest by a graduate member and possibly others, and he collapsed and died. No one called 911 and no one summoned an ambulance. Initially, the participants attempted to lie, claiming that he collapsed on the basketball court. The truth was quickly discovered and three people have been arrested so far with possibly more arrests to come. The fraternity’s official statement about the incident is piss-poor (you can read it online2). It is severely lacking in remorse, humanity, and accountability, which is saddening, but not uncommon or surprising. This incident will likely migrate from the forefront of the public’s mind eventually and next spring we’ll see if there is yet another. The organization will eventually be restored and allowed to pledge aspirants again at some point years down the road, and hopefully they will be smarter and safer. Nothing will change, however, if we are not willing to have some really difficult conversations about Black Greek culture, trauma, toxic masculinity & femininity, notions of power, and the problematic social concepts that divide Black people even when they are ostensibly educated and relatively informed.
I often wonder what it would look like if HBCUs encouraged and promoted the principles that supposedly undergird Black Greek organizations for the ENTIRE student body. What if we approached learning and teaching with the kind of forceful demand for excellence (minus violence and harm) that BGLOs are known for? What if we built a concern for community service into the GEC curriculum instead of it just being an annoying obligatory graduation requirement? What if we TAUGHT service in our curriculum? What if we built entire campuses of competent professionals and instilled the necessity of networking in everyone? Maybe I’m too idealistic?
Caleb’s death got me thinking … what if I write a letter of recommendation for a student and, by some misfortune, some irresponsible incident, something happens to them during their pledge process and they die? How could I live with the part I played in that? How could I ever forgive myself for supporting a student in something I don’t even believe in?
I know that there are millions of people who have had safe and harmless experiences pledging. Many of the people I love dearly are die-hard apologists for the Divine 9. They will unfriend you in real life and get aggressively argumentative if you speak ill of their organization or Greek life generally. I don’t begrudge them that. I don’t make the assumption that every pledge process is violent or fraught with danger. I don’t assume that because I didn’t find brotherhood that it doesn’t exist. I haven’t concluded that because it was useless to me it is useless to everyone else. In fact, I watch the camaraderie I often witness among students who have pledged and older graduate members who have done the same, and I think in all iterations, black love is generally a beautiful thing—however you find it. But I do question the necessity of violence in bonding. And I question why we’re resistant to acknowledging the realities of more than a few organizations and pledge processes; the flaws in the system.
Personally, as someone who was abused as a child, I could never feel connection to anyone who subjected me to violence. I could never reconfigure my mind to accept it as a pathway to manhood, masculinity, brotherhood, love, or community. If anything, it would have quite the opposite effect. But that’s just me.
I wonder if there is ever any consideration of the history of a pledge; whether they too may have already suffered abuse, and whether further abuse normalizes it and distorts the person in unhealthy ways. I wonder if the apologists simply feel obligated to do and be so because they can’t allow themselves to admit that even though they survived it, it wasn’t necessary or healthy. As a child, I was physically abused by someone who was supposed to LOVE me … someone much closer than a brother. I survived it … but it definitely wasn’t healthy.
I think about the proximity of breaking a person down to psychologically re-order and reconstruct them as suitable participants for group-thought and hive-mind to cult practices and “buck-breaking.” I think about the brother who didn’t make the cut because he wasn’t aesthetically good enough and how dishonest and disillusioned the prominent notion of “making” men is if you’re only interested in candidates who are already 90% refined. Doesn’t it make sense that the person who really needs a group that can reform and enhance his life is the one who is only 10% refined? Isn’t that the greater challenge and the more celebratory achievement?
I gave it all some serious thought and questioned my own ethics. That process brought me to the conclusion that as an adult professional, writing a letter of recommendation for a situation in which I cannot guarantee that my student will be safe is unethical and dangerous. Hazing is banned, yes, but we all know it still happens. Pledges sign agreements that if any hazing arises they will promptly report it and refuse to participate, but we all know they won’t. Under the pressure of potentially being the person who ends a line, they will most likely keep silent even if it means being in danger. Under the pressure of not disappointing their family’s legacy, they won’t give up. Having been conditioned by ritualistic community and familial expectations, the rites of passage they have always heard about, they will endure whatever it takes to get those letters. Why do we insist on pretending this isn’t the case?
I don’t have any biological children of my own. But if I did, I don’t think I could roll the dice on them hoping they don’t crap out.
It is a complex situation in which there are no guarantees, and that means I’m going to have to get comfortable with disappointing people. I’m sure they’ll find someone else to write letters for them, but it can’t be me. My conscience is not built for that kind of guilt potential.
I wonder what Caleb’s recommenders are feeling and thinking right now?
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/caleb-wilson-hazing-death-omega-psi-phi/ ↩︎
- https://oppf.org/statement-on-caleb-wilson/ ↩︎
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