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Ask HN: Fraternities. “There will never be a nigger in SAE”

6 points by nickysielicki 12y ago

In light of the recent incident at the University of Oklahoma, [1] I'm interested in speaking with the HN community about fraternities and what role they play in the tech world. I feel fraternities are at a very interesting intersection between the privilege and socialization that is necessary for funding and business success, and yet fraternities are very much at ends with the progressive ideals that so many in the tech community hold. Many, perhaps even a majority, of successful startups have been founded by people involved in fraternities. From Alex Ohanian, to Zuckerberg, to even Peter Thiel, all were all involved with their college fraternity. Yet, many of us would agree that fraternities represent a kind of old and outdated institution that is on its way out, regardless of the incidents that have arisen in the past few years. With scandals surrounding hazing, racist chanting, rape scandals, and loads of superficial partying, it's hard to imagine that the modern tech society has any ties at all to greek life. Forgive me for generalizing, but I tend to find that the tech community is outspoken in their support for meritocracy over status, in their support for gender equality, and with high wishes for higher education to be unpolluted from sports and partying and changed to something more distilled. These are all contrary to what comes from greek life, at least in its current state. There's definitely some cognitive dissonance here. So, HN, how do you feel about greek life? Are they beneficial to the personal success of their members? Was it beneficial to your career in tech? Will they adapt to modern society? Are they on their way out? One thing I'm sure we can all agree on, is that the recent video out of OU is unacceptable. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBq4_A9nQvw

b6 12y ago
This is more or less how all frats seemed to me, admittedly, from a distance, so I never got involved with them. Isn't it obvious that they're a throwback to tribes? Chanting, ritualistic violence, binge drinking, etc. I can't understand how anyone can look at that stuff and be attracted to it. I don't want to be a part of a tribe, I want to dismantle all tribes. The question of whether it might have helped my "career" is, to me, totally irrelevant. I'd still never ever be involved with something like I saw in the video. I'd much sooner throw my "career" away completely. I was actually born in Oklahoma. The weirdest thing to me is, even though these kids were saying "nigger", I think if you actually sat down with those kids individually, you'd find out that they don't actually hate black people at all. My best reading of this is that they were actually just sychronizing on some unifying crap, and it didn't really matter what it was. We're all drunk and happy and we're all yelling about the thing that makes us special and different!!!!! They're like dogs in a pack, barking a certain way to know that they are in a pack. They don't hate black people. They don't have any reason to. Just stupid kids being stupid. Certainly, not all frats are anywhere near that bad. But what is the point? Have friends the normal way. Meet people at your local hackerspace. I don't think frats are on the way out at all, because humans don't really change. We're the same people who loved the chariot races. And that makes me a little sad.
- proveanegative 12y ago
  >I want to dismantle all tribes. I'd say that people who want to do this constitute a (de facto) tribe.
  - mod 12y ago
    I'd argue they'd have to act together and recognize one another.
    - proveanegative 12y ago
      I think it is more contingent on being able to recognize definite outsiders, which they are able to.
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  I would have loved to have seen a more thought-out solution e.g. where the fraternity had one month to come up with a plan on how they would do volunteer work with under-privileged black communities over the next year. And how they would meet X ratio of black students into their fraternity or then be disbanded. Otherwise likely this has just taught them don't get caught in the future and not much else.
izolate 12y ago
The only time I ever give fraternities any thought is when a college student on HN asks my opinion on them. Hopefully that hints at an answer to your question.
dpeck 12y ago
I loved my fraternity experience and still hold friendships established there as the ones I can count on the most. Fraternities at their best are like sports, they make good men better and bring out the best qualities. At their worst they're binge drinking clubs with little more than mysoginistic, homophobic and racist behavior to bond over. Very tribal, which seems to be the default nature of us. That said, I know my experience was very different than most. We had a dry house, we had white, black, indian and plenty of others. We were mostly straight, but had a few brothers come out as gay during or after college, to encouragement and support. We ran our own house, doing any repairs and improvements ourselves, we cooked for ourselves, at one point I ran a kitchen that served nearly 100 people a night. It wasn't perfect, there were plenty of disagreements about how involved we should or shouldn't be on campus, what kind of budget we should have for a band party, how often we should have meetings and a million other things. I can look back and see that these things, and the different ways of thought I was exposed to, made me a better person. I wish others had the same experience but I feel it was far too rare.

6 points by nickysielicki 12y ago

b6 12y ago

This is more or less how all frats seemed to me, admittedly, from a distance, so I never got involved with them. Isn't it obvious that they're a throwback to tribes? Chanting, ritualistic violence, binge drinking, etc. I can't understand how anyone can look at that stuff and be attracted to it. I don't want to be a part of a tribe, I want to dismantle all tribes. The question of whether it might have helped my "career" is, to me, totally irrelevant. I'd still never ever be involved with something like I saw in the video. I'd much sooner throw my "career" away completely. I was actually born in Oklahoma. The weirdest thing to me is, even though these kids were saying "nigger", I think if you actually sat down with those kids individually, you'd find out that they don't actually hate black people at all. My best reading of this is that they were actually just sychronizing on some unifying crap, and it didn't really matter what it was. We're all drunk and happy and we're all yelling about the thing that makes us special and different!!!!! They're like dogs in a pack, barking a certain way to know that they are in a pack. They don't hate black people. They don't have any reason to. Just stupid kids being stupid. Certainly, not all frats are anywhere near that bad. But what is the point? Have friends the normal way. Meet people at your local hackerspace. I don't think frats are on the way out at all, because humans don't really change. We're the same people who loved the chariot races. And that makes me a little sad.

proveanegative 12y ago
>I want to dismantle all tribes. I'd say that people who want to do this constitute a (de facto) tribe.
- mod 12y ago
  I'd argue they'd have to act together and recognize one another.
  - proveanegative 12y ago
    I think it is more contingent on being able to recognize definite outsiders, which they are able to.
Gustomaximus 12y ago
I would have loved to have seen a more thought-out solution e.g. where the fraternity had one month to come up with a plan on how they would do volunteer work with under-privileged black communities over the next year. And how they would meet X ratio of black students into their fraternity or then be disbanded. Otherwise likely this has just taught them don't get caught in the future and not much else.

izolate 12y ago

The only time I ever give fraternities any thought is when a college student on HN asks my opinion on them. Hopefully that hints at an answer to your question.

dpeck 12y ago

I loved my fraternity experience and still hold friendships established there as the ones I can count on the most. Fraternities at their best are like sports, they make good men better and bring out the best qualities. At their worst they're binge drinking clubs with little more than mysoginistic, homophobic and racist behavior to bond over. Very tribal, which seems to be the default nature of us. That said, I know my experience was very different than most. We had a dry house, we had white, black, indian and plenty of others. We were mostly straight, but had a few brothers come out as gay during or after college, to encouragement and support. We ran our own house, doing any repairs and improvements ourselves, we cooked for ourselves, at one point I ran a kitchen that served nearly 100 people a night. It wasn't perfect, there were plenty of disagreements about how involved we should or shouldn't be on campus, what kind of budget we should have for a band party, how often we should have meetings and a million other things. I can look back and see that these things, and the different ways of thought I was exposed to, made me a better person. I wish others had the same experience but I feel it was far too rare.