A day or so ago, an essay came across my social media feeds with the title: “Greek Like Me: Confessions of a Florida Fraternity Brother.” I clicked through, and saw the subhed: “The frat code held us together—until it kept us from saving a life,” and started reading with a resigned sigh, figuring it was bound to be a huge topic of discussion among the faculty, so I might as well read it before I felt obliged to. (I haven’t fully internalized being on sabbatical yet…)
This turns out a story that is not particularly well served by that headline, and especially not that subhed. While those combined with the venue led me to expect yet another lurid pseudo-expose about the unremitting awfulness of fraternities, it’s actually a much more ambivalent piece. And the death teased in the subhed is not anything hazing-related, but something that I doubt would’ve played out all that much differently outside the Greek system.
In fact, the core of the piece is actually a pretty good attempt at what I called for in a post about “The Positive Features of Drunken Idiots”— a sensitive and perceptive explanation of (one of) the big factors driving students to join Greek organizations:
Boys in Greek letters are still just boys. They worry about their hair and their breath and whether people will think they’re cool. Maybe they came from a high school where they were one of the smartest kids, or the handsomest, or the sportiest, or the wealthiest, or the funniest. Or maybe they were the opposite of those things, or somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t really matter, because nobody is a somebody on the first day of undergrad, which means anybody, with enough thought, can be whoever they want.
Every young man goes about this conquest differently. Bold froshes charge ahead, confident in their ability to rapidly accumulate new and high-value social capital, while the shy boys and the geeks and the hicks inch their way into college social life like cats exploring the nooks of a new house.
Some boys are better at satisfying themselves than others. They mosey on over to frat row the first week of class in the clothes that make them feel best, their hair looking just right, and begin hunting for older boys to like who will like them back. The savvy ones not only have the boldness necessary to ingratiate themselves, they know what to look for. Sports insignia can indicate that another boy likes the things you like and thus may also like you (frosh boy, to older boy in Red Sox hat: “Hey, you from Boston? Me too.” Boom. Instant camaraderie). Hairstyles are also helpful. Long hair: Maybe he smokes weed and surfs, things I also like to imagine myself doing/have done. And music, obviously: Is that [insert music you have maybe heard of or even listened to] I hear coming from room 12? I love [insert music you have maybe heard of or even listened to]! Maybe this dude will like me.
In the beginning, it is all yearning and nothing is nefarious. All frat-row neophytes want to get drunk and laid, of course, but they have more innocent wants as well, at least one of which is the same thing they wanted when they were 15, and 11, and six, all the way back to the pre-verbal days: a safe place, loving arms around them. Oh, what boys will do to secure that embrace!
The picture is not all rosy, to be sure– though I suspect the author, Mike Riggs, might be a little too cynical about some elements– but his story about joining up and finding a place where he fit is great. It also parallels some of my own experiences, not with a frat (again, Williams didn’t have them), but with the rugby club.
So, it’s a complicated story about a complicated situation, with both good and bad elements. Which makes it lousy fodder for outraged faculty-list emails, subhed notwithstanding. But the understanding at the center of it is something the arguments around Greek organizations could use a lot more of; thus, this post. It’s good, go read it.