Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities

5 The Hegemonic Struggle and Domination in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities

Afalsehood has been perpetuated about black Greekdom—graduate chapters do not haze. Like many stereotypes, the belief is grounded in a modicum of truth. Usually, graduate chapters do not carry the intensity of their pledge periods to the same levels as their undergraduate counterparts. Admittedly , many have even abandoned the practice altogether. At the same time, however, undergraduates have been wrongfully characterized as the only ones who haze. In some instances, in fact, hazing in graduate chapters can be even worse than in undergraduates because the graduate chapters do not have university administrators or fraternity advisors overseeing their activities. If a graduate chapter’s membership generally agrees that pledging or hazing should be an accepted practice in the chapter, very few procedures, checks, or balances are in place to stop them. In the mid-1990s, my own chapter wrestled with the choice of continuing or relinquishing our commitment to pledging. This chapter is a very old one established in a state with much historical significance in Kappa Alpha Psi. It was founded in 1927 in Kentucky, the birth state of Elder Watson Diggs, the fraternity’s principle founder. The city of Lexington itself is 67 The Hegemonic Struggle and Domination in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities Chapter Five notable because it was the city in which Diggs was married a short time after the fraternity was founded. Lexington Alumni holds a copy of his marriage certificate in the chapter’s archives. As many brothers from the chapter agree, “Kappa runs deep in Kentucky.” Before the death of Michael Davis, the chapter had always pledged—sometimes harder than others. After the death of Michael Davis, however, our chapter and fraternity faced a moratorium on pledging for more than a year. Eventually, we were allowed to bring in new members and the inevitable debate about how these new brothers should be initiated ensued. Obviously, the issue was a bit contentious. Our direction at this juncture was important for me because I was now— at twenty-seven years old—the Polemarch of the chapter. A Polemarch so young in a graduate chapter was rare. Even then, I was by far the youngest graduate Polemarch in our Province. The matter at hand was pressing for many reasons. First, it was my first major decision as the chapter’s leader and the eyes of older brothers were on me. Whatever I did, I had to make sure that brothers understood the decision was mine and no one else’s. If they got the impression that I was a “puppet king” and not the “sovereign,” I was doomed to be challenged and disrespected at every turn for the remainder of my tenure. I also knew very well that any mistakes or violations of fraternity rules ultimately would be my responsibility. At the same time, if we did not pledge “our new boys” and they turned out to be poor brothers or the rest did not accept them, I could be blamed for that, too. Hence, I examined every angle very carefully. I still remember my former dean sitting in his basement with several brothers as opinions bounced back and forth. He listened intently as he inhaled from one of a long line of cigarettes and finally said, “I don’t know, brothers. I’ve never believed in letting people walk into the fraternity. If we do it the way headquarters wants us to, Kappa might as well be a club—not a frat.” He was not alone. The former Polemarch, who was one of my closest friends, had developed a reputation during his younger years as a brutal hazer. After undergraduate school, however, he set on a path of reform. Although physical hazing had fallen into disfavor with him, he had not abandoned his commitment to what we called “hard” pledging. “I agree,” he said. “If we let all of our traditions go, the frat is going to hell in a hand basket. We need to have some kind of process.” Another “old head” brother who had pledged at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Virginia) in 1974 and was now a high-level executive at Toyota Motor Company chimed in, “Brothers, nobody is saying we need to beat the hell out of these guys or anything like that. I’m just saying they need to do some things together. They need the opportunity to bond, you know. We’d be doing them an injustice if they don’t have any stories to tell when this thing is over...