Something deep inside flared when I saw the video of the young men at the University of Oklahoma gleefully sharing a drunken chant extolling racism and endorsing lynching.
I’ve felt the same pang when reading accounts of fraternity houses used as traps for hapless young women and the renewed debate about whether fraternities – vestiges of 19th Century white, male privilege – have a place in 2015.
These things touch me because — this may come as a shock to even some close friends — I’m a Kappa Sigma. I became one a long time ago at what was then Georgia Southern College. I’m a lousy alum, having never attended a fraternity related event. Never contributed a dime. My old brothers accuse me of being a recluse. Yet, I vowed to be a Kappa Sig for life. And so, I guess, I am.
So, my judgment is clouded by memory. We had fun. Many of the guys were great. At times, we believed we owned the campus (much to the chagrin of the campus).
Yet, I understand the argument that fraternities are anachronistic remnants that have no place in a world of diversity and transparency. I don’t recall anything approaching the OU episode, but I’m grateful that my fraternity cohorts and I were able to display the worst possible version of ourselves in an era without iPhones. I’m happy to have evolved from the 21-year-old version of me.
But the video represents more than a stupid indiscretion. It reveals something more troubling: Fraternities can have dark place where racism and sexual predation linger.
Even though I recall little that crossed the line, I saw plenty of men behaving badly. In what I’ve rationalized as juvenile bravado, the guys would proclaim fairly venal intentions as we mixed grain alcohol punch in large plastic trash cans in hot anticipation of a flock of unwitting 19-year-old sorority girls. (The drinking age then was 18.) I believe most of the guys were gentlemen, but I doubted some then and doubt them now.
And we Kappa Sigs were notorious for filling the padded benches outside the Landrum Hall cafeteria and rendering ratings of the relative attractiveness of young women braving the gauntlet to check their mail.
I sat there with them many mornings. I comfort myself by believing that I was a mere observer, but I’m ashamed that I did nothing to protest this brutish ritual. I can’t even imagine the thought of having a daughter judged that way, and I wish I could apologize to every woman we humiliated.
To do anything about it would have required courage I just didn’t have then. Such cowardice is enabling.
The same kind of cowardice also enabled a racist moment or two. In the 1970s, Georgia Southern was nearly exclusively white. We had a few black classmates but not many. Many of the white students, particularly the ones like me from Atlanta’s affluent suburbs, had grown up with little contact with black kids. Yet, we came of age in the loftiness of the late 1960s and early 1970s and were game to have black friends.
In fact, a few of us from Atlanta even ventured to bring a black guy into the fraternity. We were naïve. Our brotherhood included many young men from small Georgia towns where this kind of social association with blacks was unthinkable. Their reaction ranged from sincere discomfort to unadorned racism.
The idea died with little debate. I wish I could say I resigned in protest.
I don’t want to give you the impression that our ranks were rife with racists and sexual predators. Most of the guys were the best of the best. Many grew up to be lawyers, doctors, preachers, CEOs and even a journalist or two.
But I do want to make clear that something can happen in a fraternity to muffle your own values in favor of the greater good. You swear loyalty to your brothers and acknowledge that breaking that oath carries grave consequences. The bond is sheathed in mystic rituals and shared secrets that seem to elevate a passing friendship to something nearly sacred.
It becomes you and your brothers against the world. You lock arms to shield each other and your traditions against outside forces - including college administrators (think Dean Wormer) and social winds like political correctness. Maybe this groupthink was at the core of that SAE video – the boys were joined together by flouting the holiest of holy PC sins - racism and violence. Defying such taboos together is a form of blood oath. To submit to the oath, you must surrender part of yourself. This is the power and danger.
Yet, I can’t completely condemn fraternities. For most of us, they provided diversion, friendships and even a little structure – a definitely overrated but certainly real benefit. Fraternities can provide a taste of leadership experience – I was our pledge trainer and had to nurture and indoctrinate (brainwash?) successive waves of young men. Fraternity men fill CEO suites and Capitols. Ted Turner, Sonny Perdue, Jimmy Buffett, Hoagy Carmichael and Robert Redford are among my Kappa Sig brothers. But so is John Erlichman, made famous by an adult prank known as Watergate.
In part to maintain a good public face, fraternities raise millions of dollars for charity and contribute countless hours to community service. And their slogans and teachings are designed to support a life of service and honor.
But none of this, in my mind, fully erases the dangers of their dark side.
Still, I remain conflicted. My sons have no such ambivalence: Both deliberately avoided Greek life. Neither could square joining a fraternity with the worlds they live in or the beliefs they learned at home.
Unlike their dad, they could never surrender so much of themselves.
