@sylvan8798 I agree that one doesn’t have to “hate” to be racist, but if my friends who had made the remarks about Jews didn’t want to associate with Jews, they would have stopped associating with me. I knew them for years, and there was nothing otherwise to indicate they were racist or anti-Semitic. Sometimes dumb, ignorant statements are just dumb, ignorant statements. They aren’t necessarily deep reflections of people’s souls.
I find it amazing the way people can look at a short video clip, or read a couple sentences, and think they know what’s going on deep in people’s hearts. They conclude that people are either angels or demons, and there’s no room for anything in between.
Yeah, it was frat boys being frat boys. Frat boys say dumb things sometimes, just like everybody else… You’re acting like this was a KKK rally.
@simba9 You’ve made a couple of interesting points within this thread, but every time you utter things like it was just frat boys being frat boys, you lose any chance at credibility.
@TheAtkantic. You are right. Short sightedness on my part.
Not sure whether this should be used as a teachable moment though. It’s really up to these kids to learn what they have to learn. But like I said, they will learn there will be consequences - intended and unintended - even if as Simba poster says is a dumb or stupid action.
@RandyErika Because that’s what it was - frat boys being frat boys. I was in a fraternity, and we did some stuff that there’s no way I’d publicly admit to. It wasn’t illegal (except for the underage drinking and another situation that I won’t go into) and we didn’t quite do anything at the level shown in the video, but it would have been awfully embarrassing if people outside the frat found out about it. Yet no one I know of in my frat went on to lead a life of evil. The same thing happened in a lot of other fraternities. I’d expect the same outcome for these frat members. You get a bunch of guys together in their late teens and early twenties, and they’re going to do dumb things, not because they’re depraved, but because they think it’s funny. I saw the same thing among that age group when I was in the military.
I don’t think these kids were evil either. But the fact is their actions caused a stain on the image of Syracuse Univ and frats. So they will learn the hard way. Yes, in some sense they were unlucky that this came to light, but like I said, they got no one to blame but themselves.
Like I said, I have seen dumb actions or utterances lead to race fights which put several kids in hospitals. So dumb things are not harmless.
This isn’t a big social fraternity but a professional one.
Kind of ironic that Harvard would allow this co-ed fraternity to exist on campus but not other single-sex sororities or fraternities where members were being awarded Rhodes scholarships or elected captain of a sports team.
Yeah, if they are not blaming anyone else, they would have learned a lesson. I also would give them credit for that. I kinda understand where Simba poster is coming from.
I am not surprised that so many on this thread took advantage of this incident to go after what I would call traditional fraternities. This is a professional engineering co-ed group and not a traditional fraternity. The behavior of this Syracuse group was disgusting and stupid. People should remember that bad behavior by fraternities is the exception and not the rule and almost never sanctioned by the majority in any fraternity. If you don’t like them, then don’t pay for your kids’ dues. I would pay in a minute because, given the right group, fraternities and sororities can help provide for a very positive college experience.
It is a professional fraternity, but it is more like a social fraternity than other professional societies. The chapters of Theta Tau often have houses on campus (or near) and involve the members all week, socially and academically. In this case, I think the national organization let the house run like a social fraternity that just happened to have engineers as members rather than as a professional society. No women members should have been their first clue.
My daughter belongs to a couple engineering societies with greek letters in their names, but they are not social (other than snacks after the meeting). She also belongs to a social fraternity (sorority). Very different purposes.
The second recording showed frat members pretending to sexually assault a disabled person. Apparently, they had posted the videos to their frat’s Facebook group. Nice job, dudes.
It isn’t a matter of white guys forcing innocent minorities to do bad things. Everyone there is taking part voluntarily, and bears full responsibility for being a jerk, or having an underdeveloped brain.
The thing I like least about frats is the thundering, overwhelming, suffocating compliance demanded from members. Time after time you see a roomful of otherwise smart, engaged kids doing the dumbest things, surrounded by their approving bros,and no one is raising a word against it. Even allowing for conservative politics I bet none of those guys talk that way outside the house to folks not in their group. Bros being bros is a fake thing. Guys don’t grow out of it, it’s something they temporarily turn into in some environments.
In my youth (80s) I had plenty of friends in frats, and fitting in (hair, clothes, politics, girls, major, everything) was way more important to them than most of my other friends. The pack mentality they sought was just toxic. I never understood the appeal.
When you’re older and more self-confident, it’s easier not to go along with the crowd. The guys in the frat aren’t there yet. Feeling the need to conform isn’t a problem exclusive to fraternities, though.
But yes, people will do some pretty stupid things as part of a group that they wouldn’t do individually…
I guess that’s the thing that’s most frustrating about frats. Given how much they talk up their missions (the development of the man, his role in the world, etc etc etc), that is exactly what should come to the fore in situations like this. But year after year there are massive failures in how poorly the “men” behave in these hazing situations, and racial insensitivity incidents, and repeated sexual assaults, and fatal drinking cases. The first instinct should be to correct, not forgive.
I am sure people do all kinds of dumb things everywhere; but IMO there are dumb things that have nothing to do with saying hateful things against other groups. So, if they just did dumb things without hating or mimicking hate for other groups, then everything is good and they had fun. This is a dumb act plus some sort of hateful act or mimicking hateful act – that’s the troubling part. If they wanted to do dumb things, they could have just rolled around naked and acted like monkeys and filmed it, I guess. lol Or ran across Syracuse campus naked.
I also did many dumb things but I never called other groups offensive names along with my friends. I guess I am somewhat against just putting everything under “dumb” things. Now, I did dumb things once or twice by participating in race fights when a group of white kids called my friend an offensive name. I get that these kids didn’t actually yell any offensive words to actual persons but man, mimicking a raping act of a disabled person – that’s not just dumb but sort of beyond dumb, you know what I am trying to say?
The thing I find disturbing is referring to them as frat boys doing frat things. Not to try to inject politics but for by way of analogy it is like making fun of grabbing women unconsenually by the p***y and saying it is merely locker room talk. One of the listeners lost a 10 million dollar job over that. Hopefully if these boys get expelled they will learn lessons for later in life. It is not a defense to a murder case that the shooter was only 18
People do dumb things.