Quote:
Originally posted by broomstick
And that's where prejudice comes into play. Making a judgement without having all the facts. All FIVE of our pledges were having a great time; they were having fun. I guess no one saw the smiles on their faces or heard the laughter coming out of their mouths.
"'Hazing' refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate."
I know I feel humiliated, degraded and at risk of emotional and/or physical harm everytime I do a few jumping jacks and push ups. *sarcasm*
The point is, according to the above defenition of hazing (from stophazing.org), we weren't hazing. Our pledges did not feel as if they were being humiliated, degraded and/or at risk of emotional and/or physical harm. It didn't even look like hazing (do people smile, laugh and crack jokes while being hazed? I don't think so). But someone who didn't follow protocol, who gave into a prejudice, who didn't look at the whole picture, said "oh my gosh, they're hazing." The person who reported us for "hazing" didn't even do anything about it imediately, which (according to stophazing.org) would make them a "hazing enabler" and is just as "guilty" as we were.
When we went to our J-Board hearing, we said "Hey, we don't agree that we were hazing, even our pledges don't agree they were hazed, but we understand that you can't take even the slightest case of hazing lightly." So we offered a fair (IFC even agreed it was more than fair) punishment for ourselves and that we would attend a Hazing Education Class/Seminar just to go that extra step. IFC comended us for the matter in which we conducted ourselves, but unfortunately a week before this, IFC had passed a bylaw stating that probationary members (which we were, we were planning on applying for full membership this last spring) who plead guilty to any accusation (which we essentially did, even though we didn't agree with the accusastion that we were hazers) are automatically kicked out of IFC.
The person who reported us as hazing felt horrible about it. He said that he wished he hadn't done it. He had no intention of getting us kicked out of IFC, he just initially felt that what we were doing was hazing. He didn't look at the whole picture.
So in part, hazing is all about perception, and sometimes your perception can be wrong. Just make sure that if you think you see someone being haze (1) confront the situation right then and there and (2) make sure you're looking at the whole picture... (is there really a danger here? do people who aren't having a good time really laugh and smile that much?)
Don't jump to conclusions, and look at the whole picture.
EDIT: I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that this hazing policy is supposed to look out for the individual, but it has been turned into this focus on actions. And in my fraternity's case, someone saw just the action (as mild as it was), and didn't even look at the individual(s). It's a delicate balance between the two to be aware of that's important.
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I don't understand how you don't see how someone could easily interpret exercising on the front lawn as hazing. When you're driving by a fraternity house, you probably don't take a close look at faces to see whether they are laughing or look humiliated. But it just looks ODD, smiling, laughing, whatever. You still haven't explained to me the purpose of doing this instead of going to the gym.
Anyway, I'm not saying that you were hazing. So any further information about the definition of hazing is really irrelevant.
It sucks that your fraternity was kicked out of IFC for not hazing. And I understand your point about prejudice. But you were called out by someone IN THE GREEK SYSTEM who thought you were hazing. What do you think the average non-Greek student thought when they saw your brothers doing push-ups in the yard? What about your professors? Parents of potential students checking out the school? The chancellor? You have to take responsibility for the way things APPEAR, not the way things really are. This is grossly unfair, but it comes with the territory, for all of us, of belonging to secret organizations with a reputation for hazing.
And voluntary was the correct choice for your first sentence... sorry, I tend to get picky.