There’s a horrible hazing story coming out of Penn State. Man, this is a lot to go through to join a sweetheart group. I won’t get into that part today, though.

She expected hot sauce thrown on her face and in her eyes.

The wet towel snapping against her face so hard that it ripped — that, Trowell thought, was a little too far.

“OK. I guess so,” she remembers thinking.

But the next night, she and two other pledges were brought to a field behind a State College church and beaten for more than three hours by two older students who kicked her in the head, punched her until she bled, and stomped on her face and back, she later told police according to a police report obtained by The Patriot-News.

The beatings were so brutal, she said, the attackers had to take breaks because they exhausted themselves.

Know what the most telling part of that story was to me? That these women decided not to come back for more. Perhaps that was because they were incapable. The beating described was inhumane. I can’t fathom that sort of pain, and I certainly couldn’t imagine the morning after.But I’ve heard insane stories about hazing in fraternities, and those guys kept going back for more. Some would tell me that, after they were seriously maimed, the big brothers took it easy on them or something like that. Either way, nobody would say, in any way, that the shit had to stop. Maybe not for everyone, but certainly for that individual.It didn’t have to be because the person couldn’t handle it. For many reasons, many have proven they could. No, you walk away from getting your ass kicked because you’re not about to stand there and let somebody kick your ass and call it love. It is a simple matter of dignity and self-respect, even before it becomes about health and self-preservation. It’s unlikely someone would truly endanger one’s health with one swing of a paddle, but that should be enough to make you take your balls and go home. 

But we know that it’s not. I won’t begin to explain why it’s not because I simply cannot understand what makes people go through hazing processes. I’ve never wanted anything badly enough to go through so much to get it. You’ll have to ask those who have gotten the shit knocked out of them on a nightly basis what was so important to them that they’d get the shit knocked out of them on a nightly basis.

I do know, however, that we have to stop heaping praise upon people willing to get the shit knocked out of them on a nightly basis (those who knock the shit out of them).

Let me be clear: the nine black Greek letter organizations — even you, to the three Iotas out there — have made many positive contributions to this country in general and the black community specifically. A long list of great men and women are members of these groups, including the single most impressive man the United States ever produced. There is more to any of these organizations than simply hazing.

Hazing, however, is a bigger deal than anything else. As long as we all know this violent hazing goes on, yet still treat these organizations as though they are elite and worthy of aspiration, we’re walking kids into the slaughter.

::Receive Bomani’s Blog, Videos, and Podcast. Subscribe to The Email Jones.

These organizations with these rigorous intake processes all carry great social gravity. In black America, fraternities and sororities are treated as an elite class. Their colors and letters mean something to most people. Their members wear their affiliations proudly and see them as representing something larger and more noble than themselves. Membership in Greek letter organizations is something black people aspire to as children. They don’t just decide to join an organization in college, in most cases. So many people dream of doing so from the moment they became aware of what a frat or sorority was.

But as long as we keep doing that, are we not kinda pushing kids into this system? And as long as people still want to be Greek so badly, will there be a true impetus for the abuse to stop?

People have been suing these organizations for years. Their coffers have been drained. They have been embarrassed publicly by hazing for decades. The stories now just go into a pile will all the rest. And still, people fight — and spend money — for the privilege of getting their asses kicked.

So when do we consider our role in making membership seem so cool that it’s worth going through all of that?

It should be a clear that nothing is worth being beaten. That point is unequivocal and inarguable. But if we all know that being beaten is a reasonable, if not likely, possibility of a Greek intake process, then how can anyone say that’s something one should want to enter?

I recognize not every process involves someone being sent to the hospital. I also know there are plenty of Greeks who would have walked out of some of the harsher processes. But everyone’s got to be honest: you can’t open the door for violence and expect it to stay under control. That might happen. One could say that would probably happen. But to expect it is silly. There are simply too many volatile factors at play for anyone to think order will be maintained.

The only way to stop people from being killed and injured is to completely eliminate the violence. That, also, is inarguable…unless you have so much faith in the responsibility of the 18-22 crowd. And the adults who still hang out with the 18-22 crowd. Can’t forget about them.

Will that happen? I find it unlikely.

Somewhere along the way, we have conveyed the message that pledging is worth all of that. Between the parents who almost brainwash their kids with their affiliations, the women so eager to sleep with them, and the dudes who want to be cool with them just to say they know somebody, we’ve created the impression that being in a frat means just that much in our society. If that weren’t the case, there’s no way so many people would have made it to the other side. Most people couldn’t hang for more than a week working the docks at UPS, but they can deal with pledging? Cats are going in expecting more hell than they could imagine. And they still go through it.

That says a lot about the significance we’ve placed on being Greek. And as long as people want it that bad, it will be nearly impossible to make it stop. That desire will make members more powerful over pledges — and more aware of what they can get away with — pledges more docile and prone to silence, and supervisors more inclined to try to keep things quiet to protect the organization. Without a great deal of independent oversight and monitoring, nothing will change. That’s simply how these dynamics work. Their machinations make nearly any other outcome impossible.

So we can keep wagging our fingers at the intake processes. We can continue being horrified when a hazing story makes the paper. We can take our sides on the Greek debate, and we can listen to those willing to make fools of themselves defending brutality.

But as long as we pay homage to institutions that we know do great harm, we are complicit. As long as we encourage an atmosphere where we treat this dead-ass-serious issue a bullet point on a list of pros and cons, we’re in on this.

I don’t care if it’s a gang, a marching band or anything else. I don’t have respect for those who beat on those who are effectively defenseless, simply because they can. I don’t have a great deal of respect for those who knowingly walk into it. And I damn sure don’t respect those who, wittingly or otherwise, encourage kids to do so.

And to be clear, there are many Greeks who are sick of the hazing. They aren’t even quiet about it. But how effective have they truly been?

This shit has to stop. And while Greek letter organizations have struggled to make it stop themselves, we don’t have to wait for them to get the work done. The rest of us can treat the whole process with the scorn it deserves. Then, maybe you won’t have to fear for your kids while they’re pledging.

They’ll say “no” before it even gets that far. And until big changes, that’s exactly what they should do.