Fraternity Hazing Is Deadly
Stories of hazing incidents are all too common in the news media today. It would not be out of the ordinary, upon opening the newspaper, to read the testimony of some fraternity pledges "'We were taken to a deserted park and blindfolded...We sat on our knees for an hour. Then they began slapping us on the back of our necks, real hard, and then they started pouring hot wax down our back'" (Milloy CL). Also, an article stating that "...A sophomore at Alfred University in New York was locked in a car trunk with two others and told to drink a bottle of Jack Daniel's, wine and a six-pack of beer, one wintry night in 1978. He died of alcohol poisoning and exposure" (O'Connor 32). Fraternities are getting away with hazing practices, every single day. If a stranger did this to a civilian, they would automatically be arrested and imprisoned.
The humiliations of hazing are said to build bonds between pledges and fraternity brothers. According to fraternity beliefs, the theory goes, if you and a couple of friends go through fraternity initiations, drinking excessive amounts of beer and being beaten by fraternity members etc., and only you and your friends go through it, then this gives you all something in common. An example of a hazing victim is typically a white male 19 to 20 years of age, who is experiencing some types of injuries between the months of February and April or September and October (the pledging seasons). Men are experiencing injuries including those caused by "blunt force (beatings, paddling, motor vehicle crashes, pedestrian accidents, and falls from height), cold exposure, heat exhaustion, gunshot, asphyxia, electrocution, cannon and beer-keg explosions,..." (Taff 2113), just to name a few. These supposedly bring the fraternity "together." Hazing also occurs in both sororities and black fraternities (which are seen differently from regular fraternities), but it is not as severe in sororities as it is in fraternities.
One cause of hazing is that fraternity members do not want to change tradition. Hazing has been a part of fraternity initiations ever since fraternities were founded. Hazing was used to test the pledges that wanted to join the fraternity, to make sure that the pledge was "fraternity material." According to one pledge, fraternity members have "'a feeling that if I went through it, you should too...So as long as there are people in the fraternity who were beaten, they feel they have a right to beat you'" (Milloy C10). If fraternity members think this way then how can hazing be prevented so that innocent men do not die just for friends and a "feeling of belonging."
A second cause of hazing is that since...
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