<p>We all heard that as pledges and ceased throwing around the other four-letter f-word.</p>
<p>When people say “frat” it’s like nails on a chalkboard. It also tells us we’re dealing with someone who either</p>
<p>A) was not in a fraternity or sorority, or</p>
<p>B) Did not take the commitment seriously… or</p>
<p>C) was in a fraternity or sorority, but left under nefarious circumstances.</p>
<p>Sure, it’s just as bad as that. <a href=“Why is "frat" a bad thing? [Archive] - GreekChat.com Forums”>GreekChat.com Forums;
<p>It is to those who actually care. Much like the word women use against each other there are cretins who will disparage anything. This is a perfect example of not judging members of a group by the worst of their group.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Inasmuch as the statistical reply presents its own sets of problems, that really does NOT answer the question I posed. Unless I am mistaken, you mentioned to hit the bad apples and honor the good ones. </p>
<p>Again, do you consider a fraternity responsible for two deaths/murders as a good one? Or do I have to assume that, in your book, two deaths come within the range of the acceptable? Rounding errors? Collateral damage?</p>
<p>Would you really say the same thing to the mother or the dad of your two aspiring brothers?</p>
<p>Here is the largest problem. It does not get any better. I would be the first one to admit that I never thought much about the issue when I left for college. Like many others, I only looked at the fun to come and the parties to be had without curfew of the presence of parents. And then came a call about the murder (and that is the right term) of one of my closest friends. An incredible young man had been left to die with his body desecretated by the people he called his brothers. </p>
<p>Since then, many have tried to find a silver lining in that hige loss. The parents and many friends have worked hard to educate and honor their son with understanding and not with blames. Their work is wonderful. But just a decade later, there has been little to no changes in attitude and very little action by the ultimate responsibles, namely the schools that prefer to look the other way. </p>
<p>Just as many prefer to look the other way, and this until the “rounding error” of the casualties hits one of their true own. So, again, when is enough really enough? It ain’t a trick question! And what would a fraternity have to do to earn a permanent national ban? </p>
<p>Again, the theory is that we should only punish the bad apples. So, what is that one has to do to get just a bit more than a slap on the wrist? </p>
<p>PS If this site was still easily searchable, you might have liked t0 read the contributions of a strong-minded fraternity member who talked about personal responsibility. And this until he died from the same practices he defended so firmly. </p>
<p>The very notion of fraternities defeats the entire point of going to college.
Your four years at college represents perhaps the best opportunity you will have to spend time with people from diverse backgrounds. </p>
<p>Creating exclusive organizations with arbitrary social criteria as admissions standards flies in the face of what college stands for.</p>
<p>A bunch of 20 year olds have no business sitting in judgement as to the “acceptability” of a bunch of 18 year olds.</p>
<p>I was in a fraternity and I use the word frat all the time. It’s not disparaging, just shorter.</p>
<p>Phi Kappa Tau at my son’s school has a pretty rapey reputation, but so do most of the frats.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Who is “you” in this case?</p>
<p>For the record, there was only ONE post that include the word “frat” in this entire thread. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And one that spelled fraternity incorrectly. Look it up! It is in here: “Let’s just do the simply math. How many fraternaties are there in the US?”</p>
<p>Interesting that you seem to address a poster who started with … I completely agree. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Yes, two out of tens of thousands is statistically low. Nobody forces anyone to drink. Maybe the mom and dad should have talked to their kids about the dangers of binge drinking. There is plenty of blame to go around.</p></li>
<li><p>What groups people choose to form or join is entirely up to them. You can’t ban the KKK or the NAACP just because they are racist.</p></li>
<li><p>If that Phi Tau chapter is so “rapey”, surely cases and convictions will follow. If not, it’s probably a case of a lot of talk sans the action to cause it.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Meanwhile, while you are ranting about Greek organizations and I and others are defending them, those orgs are responsible for helping disadvantaged people either directly or indirectly.</p>
<p>Hmm…well there is a difference between a typo and a misspelling. Since I clearly spelled it correctly in other places, it was a typo. I do apologize. I am generally better at catch my errors. It must be nice to be perfect.</p>
<p>And yes, I can call out someone with whom I agree on a topic if they do something offensive I don’t dump people into piles wherein I either like whatever they do or hate whatever they do.</p>
<p>As for ‘you’ it refers to the person doing the stated behaviour, thus, if you are not being offensive, it does not apply to you. I am too old and tired to look up every poster’s handle to personally point out who said what. If you are the one using bad form, my comments were intended for you. If not, it wasn’t about you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t actually have a definition, I’ve never used the term. I was going by the author’s description, or implied description, of guys judging a girl negatively, or to be a “slut,” because she has slept with X number of guys.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how feminists can be offended by this, if sleeping around indiscriminately is considered fine by them. It is like saying guys are not allowed to judge women negatively for walking. Walking is fine, so who cares if guys judge you for it? It is their prerogative to decide to be judgey about something that is neutral. Why should anyone care?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I certainly call out the KKK. It’s a secret terrorist organization directly responsible for murders and maimings of men, women and children. That’s a FACT. A comparison with the NAACP is beyond consideration.</p>
<p>What kind of U.S. history did you study in your college education???</p>
<p>The name of the group itself…</p>
<p>Would you not consider a National Association for the Advancement of White People to be racist?</p>
<p>Do I need to post hate-filled anti-white racist rants by NAACP members?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to digress by being sarcastic/sardonic… but we’re going nowhere together if we continue to perpetuate our differences… the kind we cannot control, like race.</p>
<p>Hey, kid. What’s the first rule of holes?</p>
<p>I came upon this website where they list student death attributed to alcohol. I look through it very quickly, but I didn’t see that many deaths due to drinking at fraternity parties. There were a lot of deaths due to students doing stupid things after having too much to drink.
<a href=“http://compelledtoact.com/Tragic_listing/Main_listing_victims.htm”>http://compelledtoact.com/Tragic_listing/Main_listing_victims.htm</a>
Here is an article about Williams College:
<a href=“Williams College addresses binge drinking problems on campus / iBerkshires.com - The Berkshires online guide to events, news and Berkshire County community information.”>Williams College addresses binge drinking problems on campus / iBerkshires.com - The Berkshires online guide to events, news and Berkshire County community information.;
They do not have Greek life, but they still have issues with binge drinking.</p>
<p>prezbucky, please educate yourself.
<a href=“http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan”>http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan</a></p>
<p>Words vs violent acts. Gigantic difference.</p>
<p>
That is such an egregious, out of context statement that it actually makes me sad. Do you really have no historical understanding of the “acceptable” terms in use for non-white races over the years? Do you really not understand the difference between a highly oppressed, recently enslaved (when the organization was formed in 1909) group versus the absurdity of a similarly named group for the oppressors/race of privilege? One can certainly debate the continuing relevance of this organization and/or the actions of some of its members (and I do mean debate, not implying anything about my own view), but your example is ludicrous. That just had to be called out.</p>
<p>Now let’s keep the discussion focused on fraternities or the thread will need to be closed.</p>
<p>Wow a thread about fraternity life pops up and Xiggi pops into rant about them. I for one am shocked by this.</p>
<p>I’m always sort of amused by these threads-- they always seem to take the same turn.</p>
<p>Fraternities and Sororities at different schools function very differently and they do evolve. At one school that I’m familiar with the type of students in one chapter has changed dramatically over the last 30 years.</p>
<p>I wasn’t in fraternity but was in a special interest group that essentially functioned as one (we lived together in a house and definitely had a set of rituals).</p>
<p>I was in a college fraternity, at a university where the fraternities were supposed to be non-stereotypical (MIT), but we had most of the same problems frats had at other universities. (Yes, we called them ‘frats’–it was non-pejorative.)</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that fraternities themselves, when it comes down to it, think they are supposed to haze their own members and drink to excess. There are some frat members that don’t and some whole frats that don’t, but this historical definition or ideology pushes people along the spectrum toward drinking more and toward hazing their own pledges. That is, whatever their own innate susceptibility toward participating in these activities, the frat culture and underlying expectation pushes them in that direction toward more extreme behaviors of this type. Regarding the power of connotations, I almost feel like if a fraternity disbanded but had the same group of guys and called themselves something else, that it would be much less likely to engage in hazing practices and even may drink less.
By the way, science shows that it is a bad idea to have an organization where a couple of people have control over others. I think we are all familiar with the Stanford University psychology study where a couple of people were designated as ‘prison guards’ with complete control over others; they soon abused this power. <a href=“Stanford prison experiment - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment</a>
This sort of asymmetric power relationship between pledges and brothers is what bothered me most about fraternities. With all the liability issues these days, I don’t see why any college allows pledging. I don’t believe in fraternities in general, but I can see how a university administration would not want to risk offending alumni by banning them altogether (although I think its cowardly if they are only motivated by this reason.)</p>
<p>Another thing that no one gets: a death due to someone <em>requiring</em> you to drink to excess in order to not have to is a very different thing than people When I was in college, one student did actually die due to a drinking ritual. Actual death was and is fairly rare if you look at the statistics. But hazing in various degrees was very common.and so were drinking rituals and drinking to excess As for the latter, I believe long-time CC poster and professor “Mini” @Mini does research in the field of alcoholism at universities, and he has said that the binge drinking problem is worse in the fraternities. In addition to the hazing and drinking, there is a level of BS and groupthink at fraternities that I can’t stand, the same sort of BS that is present at businesses and Wall Street; in other words, doing a lousy job and pretending otherwise–sort of like the scam mentality that embodied “The Wolf of Wall Street”. I don’t know whether sexual assaults are worse there, and it’s definitely something to look into, but I think that the poor treatment of males, particularly underclassmen males, should be enough in itself to prompt corrective action.</p>
<p>By the way, I have met some people at the same exact fraternity I was in, only separated by about 5 years, and they seem to actually have had a positive experience. For instance, they got help on their homework from some of the older brothers. However, even those that had good experiences in fraternities should recognize the pervasive endemic problems that afflict it. </p>
<p>Back in college, I was as upset about this issue as xiggi, partly because a classmate of mine actually died in a pledge drinking ritual, but I sort of burned myself out on it because of the college administrator’s inaction on this issue. I think xiggi’s characterization of college administrators as cowardly is accurate.</p>
<p>One thing I wonder is why so many parents are willing to pay for their kids to be in a frat. I feel there are too many problems and issues and I certainly wouldn’t. And if my child’s response was, I’ll earn the money myself, mine would be, that should be applied to your college costs first. I wonder how the parents who enabled their kids to join feel about it after their child was abused or died.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s “a pretty low morbidity rate” for a fire brigade. It’s an incredibly high morbidity rate for an organization that’s supposed to help people make friends and happy memories.</p>
<p>Add the potential harm done to non-members and it looks even worse (and more indefensible, since members at least sign up for it voluntarily).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Forcing people to drink is a very straightforward example of peer pressure, actually, and definitely happens.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There are thousands of websites on the internet devoted to explaining why rapists in college do not, in fact, get convicted. I suggest you seek them out and educate yourself instead of glibly minimizing the issue.</p>