Ibram X. Kendi, author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, compares fraternities with (criminal) gangs… it does not look like he is a fan of fraternities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/america-frats-and-gangs/555896/
If you put a group of men together in a tribe, and they do not have a common purpose, such as slaying the woolly mammoth so that the rest of the tribe can eat, or in modern times, relieving poverty, then all that energy is going to go somewhere else. At the very least, it’ll be excessive partying. At the worst, it’ll be raping and pillaging.
People in groups need a common goal.
This is stereotyping at its worst. My son was in a frat in college. They had Saturdays on which they cleaned up litter from the side of the road, they had programs for reading to children at the local schools, they raised money for a member who had been paralyzed in an accident. No one was ever accused of sexual assault.
If anyone stereotypes racial minorities it is condemned, rightly so. But it’s perfectly all right to stereotype fraternities.
The difference between racial minorities and fraternities is that the former are largely involuntary designations while the latter are voluntary membership organizations.
This does not mean that all fraternities are animal houses, of course.
Gangs are voluntary associations for the purpose of committing crimes. Fraternities are not organized for the purpose of criminal activity. Yet he compares them.
Gangs have been formed for all sorts of reasons, including black kids not being allowed to join whites only boy scout troops, for example.
I think for clarity we need to define what “gang” means.
Is it a group of young people who enjoy getting together for social companianship? Historically it did not infer illegal activity. “Hey, hey! The gang’s all here.” song as evidence.
Does it now strictly have a criminal definition?
I would posit that any fraternity that deliberately serves alcohol to minors or in breach of their campus strictures is a criminal organization.
“Gangs are voluntary associations for the purpose of committing crimes. Fraternities are not organized for the purpose of criminal activity”
I doubt that frats openly state it in their charters, but it terms of their actual functionality, a major focus of many frats is indeed criminal activity - namely illegal underage drinking.
^^^^When I was in college, the legal drinking age was 18, which was almost all fraternity members. So were they not “gangs” back in the old days by that definition?
When I was in college in a state where the drinking age was 21 even back then, fraternities were strongly associated with drinking alcohol without regard to the drinking age.
That is a great article. I was given a subscription to The Atlantic and have thoroughly profited from reading it.
This notion that frats are simply networking groups of fine upstanding philanthropic youngsters who occasionally get out of hand would be eyerolling nostalgia if not for the sexual assaults and substance abuse culture in many (not all) fraternities and sororities.
College dorms seem to be groups of people who like to get together to eat and drink. Some have a leadership structure, vote on social activities We had activities with other dorms, even had a prom. Dorms don’t even pretend to have a philanthropy or social purpose.
Should we end all dorms too?
^^No, twoinanddone, no problem with the dorms. We all know that there would be no drinking or sexual activity of any sort on campuses if it wasn’t for fraternities. 
^But do dorms have the same rates of assault and hazing so much that people die?
Bad analogy. Dorms are basically bare bones apartment complexes with common bathrooms and a common dining facility. They are typically run by the university and the university usually assigns students to their given dorm often with little or no input from the student. They are structured this way to enable efficient, low-cost housing on or near the campus. They do not have an expressed or tacit purpose of enabling and promoting criminal activities such as underage drinking.
Moreover, current dorm residents do not get to vote on who gets to move in, and they most certainly do not get to assault new residents nor force them to engage in degrading and humiliating acts or drink alcohol as some sort of bizarre initiation ritual. Exclusive membership, initiation rituals, and promotion of criminal activities are characteristics of gangs, not dorms.
Dorms may not necessarily be low cost… but another reason they exist is that many new frosh students have no experience with finding rental housing on their own, especially in an area that they are not familiar with. I.e. it is an “easy” choice for non-commuter new frosh students and their parents.
Of course, at many colleges, their purposes have expanded into attempts to enhance the academic and non-academic experience beyond merely being a convenient place for new frosh to live. Though enabling underage drinking is typically not the intent.
Both my daughters are in sororities where the schools own the Greek housing. One operates as you’d think of Greek housing, with the chapter deciding who lives in it and payments made to the chapter, not the university. There is no alcohol allowed (and there is none), no males allowed upstairs in the sleeping areas, etc. Yep, it’s a wild place. When she lived in the dorms (across the street) she controlled her living space as far as alcohol, male visitors, etc. For the fraternity houses, the school will revoke the housing privilege and kick the chapter off campus if rules are broken about having wild parties and alcohol. And they do revoke them.
The other school has a Greek village. Each chapter has priority over the 12 bedrooms in the unit (3 floors, separate entrances for each floor), but the school handles each housing contract and it will put non-members in those rooms if the chapter can’t fill the 12 rooms. Some of the units in the village have non-greek members in them as there aren’t enough houses to fill all the units. They are like apartments, and the students have all the liquor or opposite sex (or same sex) visitors they want. All the parties they want (although it is against national panhellenic rules to have alcohol at sorority houses). They are dorms without RAs.
There are a lot of assaults and drugs and liquor in traditional dorms on all campuses. The colleges aren’t doing a great job of controlling the dorms.
With all of the colleges in the country, there are thousands, or even tens of thousands, of frats and sororities. An extremely small percentage of these have situations that end up in the news. These stories are very sad and usually preventable, but rare. Many well known astronauts, successful business people and scienctests were members of frats and sororities.
Neither I, my H or two D’s joined a sorority or fraternity in schools where they were prevelant. But my S did join a frat. at his school. ALL of us were at social events that involved drinking,drug use and hooking up. Hard to avoid in college. Whether to partake or not is a choice.
A person must choose to join a group. If you do not believe in what they do, don’t join. If they are trying to make you do something you do not want to do, drop out. .
My S’s frat experience was a highlight of his life. His frat never required members or pledges to drink, accepted all men regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. They had parties where there was drinking, but two members had to remain sober to watch over to make sure all were ok. No one was forced to drink.
There are many parents on CC who say their kids had great experiences in the Greek life. I do not think their Greek membership should be equated to anything but other college groups and not outside gangs.
I would be hard pressed to equate underage drinking, which is a voluntary activity, with the robbery, rape, and murder typical of hard core criminal gangs. The analogy is just idiotic.