12.20.06 6:00 AM CST
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Letters
• Chip Rowe
The January issue contains several well-considered letters in response to "The Basement" (October), Jonathan Littman's harrowing account of the hazing death of Matt Carrington at Chico State. Elizabeth Allan, a professor at the University of Maine, mentions that "hazing and being hazed are presented to young men as ways to prove their masculinity, to show they are strong, courageous and solidly heterosexual." Soon after we received Allan's letter, we got another from a college student that seemed to reinforce her point:
"I am a member of a fraternity at UC Santa Barbara. Your article overlooked an important point, which is that hazing has a purpose, namely to bind you together as a pledge class. While in the process of imposing humiliation, strain, physical pain, and mental endurance the pledges are placed on equal levels with each other and are able to be molded and instilled with the values and work ethic desired by the active members. The military exercises similar practices of physical pain and humiliation when they train soldiers.
They break them down physically and emotionally with the hopes of building them back up with the values and morals that almost every soldier shares. I am not justifying the actions of the Chi Taus at Chico State. But the real problem is that, unlike the military, hazing in fraternities and sororities is unregulated."
About the same time we also came across a note in Found: The Best Lost, Tossed and Forgotten Items from Around the World, which is a scrapbook of artifacts that people have found and submitted. In this case the note had been discovered outside a frat house at UC Berkeley:
"Aaron—Tonight's event was just a tradition of the house. It was not gay even though you had to pull down your pants. At least you don't have to show it to all the actives! Just your pledge master. It's meant to prove your manhood and that you are not a boy. You swear we want to see your dick! Every one has done it but none of us are gay. Aside from all this, I want you to know that I've seen some improvements out of you since you 1st pledged. Keep up the effort and have a positive attitude of things. I tell ya, it's all worth it once you have crossed. Take my word for it! Just hang in there, okay? I want you to have dinner with me when you free someday. It's a great chance for you to get to know me better and for me to answer questions you
may have, alright? Good shit little bro. A.J."
It's NOT gay, he claims, but then asks the pledge out for a dinner date! No wonder these kids get confused.
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