Test of a Man

The tragic passing of Caleb Wilson came as a shock and has Black Greek life in mourning and stunned. There’s nothing worse than losing lives, especially black lives when they are easily preventable. Not only do we have a lost life, which is the most important piece of this, but now we have to deal with hazing and manslaughter charges for multiple Black men. Hazing isn’t anything new. It’s been done in other organizations including the military and non-Divine 9 Greek organizations. However, it’s highly scrutinized amongst Black people and especially at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and within Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs)  due to their legacies and mission statements.  The Divine 9’s fraternities aren’t new to the hazing criticisms though. In fact, I’ve seen the effects of both sides during my freshman year of being at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU). The “Deadly” Delta Theta Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma had an incident in the Fall of 2009, where hazing happened and dropped off the potential future member after extended time of vigorous exercises, they refused an ambulance and took the initiate to the hospital themselves. He would later be pronounced dead. PVAMU  would shortly have another incident with Alpha Phi Alpha on campus within the span of a few weeks in a hazing incident. While nobody passed in this incident, initiates’ bodies were brutally beaten and found by a mother of the initiates and demanded an investigation. Shortly upon returning to the university, Prairie View A&M University made the choice to suspend all Greek-life new membership for a few years until they came up with the membership intake process. Their proactiveness in establishing what should and should not be done on campuses’ regarding hazing would be adopted by various other higher educational institutions. It’s also saved the university in scandal for years to come regarding new membership intake. Senseless violence and lack of maturity by young members can lead to unacceptable outcomes. It begs the question, why is suffering seen as a prerequisite for brotherhood/sisterhood?  

Let’s put everything in historical context, as pledging was public at first and has since shifted to underground pledging/hazing. Initially all of Divine 9 organizations had public processes. I’ll take into consideration “Tap Day” at Howard University when the Beta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha would tap who they wanted to join their organization. Everybody knew why you were there and everybody wanted to join the organization if they were there.This was in 1907. Public pledging began to fade away shortly after the late 80s/ early 90s. The shift became official in 1990, after the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) formally abolished pledging and created the Membership Intake Process (MIP). Some of the reasons that public pledging stopped will sound familiar including: lawsuits and liability, negative publicity, university consequences, and shifts to secrecy. Hazing-related injuries and deaths led to lawsuits, which would put our organizations at financial and reputational risks. Regional and national stories of brutal hazing, hospitalizations, and even deaths put the Divine 9 under constant scrutiny. Schools also started banning and suspending Greek organizations involved in hazing. All of which never fully ended hazing as it was just moved to underground/secretly pledging which is why many people/organizations are in the situations they are in now. While MIP was supposed to formalize the process and make the process shorter, it was to also have little to no physical activity. Many members of these organizations complained about the changes to the process and felt like it weakened the brotherhood because the process became easier. 

Many members struggled with processes becoming easier for others and not having to go through the same thing in a false sense of “tradition.” Many of the dangerous practices that were brought to Divine 9 organizations  can be attributed to the military-roots that accompanied members following their service in World Wars I and II. Many of the veterans that joined these organizations incorporated the learning they had from the military to toughen you up. They believe that the hardship they put you through would prepare you for the adversity that would come later in life while building your discipline and resilience. Even some of the training of the military such as marching, physical drills, verbal abuse, and endurance tests became a part of the process to join our Divine 9 organizations. These traditions became more prevalent in underground pledging. While these activities don’t seem overly rigorous, they can turn into overt exertion, over aggression, and unnecessary as they can lose the plot such as physical violence. Many incidents have happened where these military acts of physical exercise, verbal abuse, mind games, and even physical abuse have lost the plot of what the actual meaning or lesson that was supposed to be taught during the process. Likely, it will continue to get lost until you get rid of the physical necessities and various abuse is ended. 

The increase of physical violence continued in the 90s after the rise of hip-hop record label, Death Row, became more prominent and gained national attention. This along with the themes of hypermasculinity, violence, and earning your stripes/respect through suffering mentality became more mainstream as well. You can also see these same themes in gang initiation and hood politics. Death Row’s affiliation with the Mob Pirus would not only be heavily documented but also mainstream-accepted. That is until violence was documented nationally/globally and generational talents/thought provokers/artists like Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. lost their lives. These misinterpretations of brotherhood and loyalty would drastically impact the definition of what it means to be “Made” in Greek life and continued to make excuses for hazing leading to physical abuse and even deaths of young scholars. 

While we can’t blame all of this on military and gang-like initiations, we have a responsibility to think for ourselves and what’s best for you as an individual and as a collective. Somewhere through the years, people started believing that the harder your process is than the more respect and authenticity you and your line must have. A false equivalency to say the least. It’s a false prestige that not even our founding members lived by. It’s also an indicator that you’re too invested in what other people think of you to pay into an organization that’s just there to berate you and cause mental/physical harm. This is the only time I’ve seen Black people get praised for allowing others to physically harm them. In majority of Black households, you wouldn’t even allow your child to come home without putting up a fight against someone who’s put their hands on them. But all of a sudden, we are now accepting of getting physically abused for membership to organizations. While we know it’s not only about respect but also social capital as others are more worried about somebody else’s process. But, what can social capital do for you when you’re on the verge of losing your freedom and going to jail for manslaughter of a future member of your organization? What does social capital do for you when you go against the foundations and objectives that these organizations were built upon? Are you so worried about what others think of you that you’re willing to die behind their opinion or are you so shallow that it’s one of the only things that matters?

Brotherhood/sisterhood needs to be redefined. On our own terms and not to harm others. Hazing/ underground pledging isn’t necessary and it never will be. Black people have to find new ways of connecting with our communities and finding love for one another and it shouldn’t be trauma bonding.