Most Americans are not very familiar with Black Greek-letter organizations. Their small numbers and obscurity, however, do not lessen their threat, and it is high time we give it serious attention. I would advise college and university administrators, students, parents and all others of good conscience to educate themselves.
Mainstream America’s greatest exposure to Black Greeks has been filmmaker Spike Lee’s “School Daze.” Among his numerous critiques was a story thread that took the organizations to task for their cultural shallowness, retrograde apoliticism and unchecked misogyny. Even though Lee intended “School Daze” to, at least in part, chastise and even condemn Black Greeks, he failed to effectively highlight the groups’ greatest problem — ubiquitous, life-threatening hazing. In fairness to Lee, “School Daze” was released a year before Joel Harris died attempting to join the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Lee’s and my alma mater, Morehouse College, in 1989.
Almost two decades later, another theatrical representation of Black Greek life has entered into America’s public sphere. Disturbingly, “Stomp the Yard” does little to address some of the troubling issues Lee touched upon. Contrarily, it largely plays like a “brag piece” centering on one of the most superficial, but popularized aspects of Black Greekdom — stepping. At the same time, the movie emphasizes the romanticized benefits of membership that Black Greeks glorify without end — purpose, unity, sacrifice, teamwork and love. Unlike Lee’s movie, “Stomp the Yard” makes little effort to substantively speak to the deeper sociopolitical quandaries faced by Black folk. This latest characterization is unfortunate and dangerous.
It should be understood that Black Greek-letter organizations are almost exclusively populated by college-educated African-Americans. Hence, one would expect them to be in the vanguard of the struggle for an egalitarian society. This, however, is not the case. Organizationally, Black Greek voices are, in fact, absent in most discussions of today’s pressing issues. When have they substantively addressed Black poverty, political disempowerment, disproportionate incarceration, police brutality, etc.? Make no mistake, the intentional or unintentional simultaneous glorification of certain aspects of Black Greekdom coupled with the refusal or inability to speak to its underbelly literally has deadly consequences.
When I finished writing Black Haze, the only book to date to solely center on the violence of the Black Greek pledge process at the end of 2002, I did not give the idea that the organizations may need to be eradicated any serious consideration. Since then, Black Greeks themselves have forced me to reexamine that commitment. At various speaking engagements on campuses around the country, I have talked about students being abused, injured and killed while pledging. Non-Greeks in the audiences often sit with mouths open — aghast. Greeks, however, are unflinching — emotionless. Often, they even openly defend the processes in spite of the deaths and damage recounted during our sessions.
It was disturbing. Their attitudes persist in the wake of hazing deaths and damage across the country. Joel Harris at Morehouse: Dead. Shawn Blackston at Louisville: Kidney damage. Kenitha Saafir and Kristin High in Los Angeles: Dead. Michael Davis at Southeast Missouri State: Dead. Braylon Curry at Southern Methodist: Brain damaged. Joseph Green and Vann Watts at Tennessee State: Dead. The list goes on.
In October of 2005, in the wake of an injury at Fisk University involving my own fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, I penned “Is it Time to Disband Black Greek-letter Fraternities and Sororities?” for Diverse, then Black Issues in Higher Education. The very title of this short piece ignited a firestorm of the likes Black Haze never did. The reason, of course, was simple. Even though I had not arrived at the point where I openly pushed for the dissolution of Black Greek fraternities and sororities, I certainly posed the question as to whether or not they should be. I never took that step in Black Haze. I must now not only pose the question, but answer it with a resounding “yes.”
