Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchkin03
I can't say I'm totally surprised by the turn of events. We saw something similar happen with ZBT at UF. A fraternity is a very easy and believable target of these accusations--in part because so many of these things actually happen.
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So many of what things? Homophobia in fraternities is a huge issue, and I do not doubt that at many given campuses (if not most), bids are denied, flamboyantly gay members are not admitted to parties, etc. But this man alleged he was ganged up on, unprompted, by several men, punched in the face, and stripped naked. "So many of those things" do not actually happen. At my alma mater, which wasn't exactly Ole Miss but was an extremely large, traditional, and stereotypical Greek school, a chapter that did the above would be absolutely unthinkable. Subtler displays of homophobia, unfortunately, would not. Not to say violent, homophobic assault hasn't happened in places (although still, that would have been utterly unthinkable in my chapter and campus), but I think we are doing a huge disservice in terms of moving chapters forward by dramatizing the issues our systems have. By holding that incidents like this are what we are talking about, we are steering away from the real discrimination that happens on a day to day business...ie, comments like "Well he's chill, but do we want to be known as the house with a gay pledge?" and "Well if we bid him, I don't want him in the showers" etc.
This reminds me of the UVA rape debacle, in which the story was run about several men coordinating and premeditating an attack in which the victim was raped repeatedly, punched, cut by glass, etc. People were quick to jump on that story too, which to my ears as somebody who has been in a fraternity sounded patently absurd and completely made up. It turned out to be false. Similarly, I don't disbelieve the fraternity culture has rape issues, but it seemed from my time on the college campuses that many of them were issues of questionable consent/drunk consent/between friends. The idea of anybody in my chapter meeting up to discuss luring a woman to our house and beating her up is so beyond plausible, however, the idea of some of my brothers getting a little too drunk with a girl and taking silence for consent is not. We need to work on fixing the latter attitude.
I think the media jumps on the most extreme stories because they meet a public perception that people have, whereas many of the issues actually in the fraternity system are of a far subtler (but no less insidious) nature. I think we are going to see something similar with the UCLA "Blackface" party, where it is becoming more and more apparent each day that no actual blackface occurred. However, that is not to stay that subtler issues of discrimination, like parties that may lead to ethnic stereotypes, need fixing here. But students and media labeled it blackface before any proof was found, and no such proof has actually appeared.
And of course, after these chapters are smeared through the mud, no public retraction ever gets even a tenth as much of attention, and these students are left as guilty in the public eyes, all the while losing the opportunity to correct subtler issues of discrimination, sexism, racism, rape culture etc that may have actually existed in those chapters.
Your mileage may vary tremendously, of course.
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