Ibram X. Kendi: What's the Difference Between a Frat and a Gang?

[Nrdsb4]

Bad analogy.

Really bad analogy.

[OHMomof2]

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

No alcohol is typical of sorority houses whose national orgs do not wish to pay the insurance cost, but definitely not typical of fraternities.

The original comparison of gangs was to fraternities, not to sororities, so I’m not sure how your kids’ sorority details are relevant. Some sororities do haze, of course, but again, that wasn’t the comparison being made.

“What’s the Difference Between a Frat and a Gang?”

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.

I agree, though the comparison included violent hazing, and rape.

[twoinanddone]

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No alcohol is typical of sorority houses whose national orgs do not wish to pay the insurance cost<<

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It’s not typical, it’s a requirement of all National Panhell members that there be no alcohol allowed at all, even for those who are over 21. The member organizations have insurance (many of the houses have mortgages so it is required) but those rates may be lower than the fraternities.

Several ‘sororities’ are legally fraternities and chartered as such by including one my daughter belongs to. If the author uses the term ‘fraternity’ then he should know what he’s including in that term - the academic fraternities, the black fraternities, the female fraternities, the music ones, Christian ones, the ethnic ones. He needs to be specific that he’s only referring to THOSE fraternities, the ones that have keggers 24/7, where the college doesn’t control the housing, where there actually IS housing (many male fraternities do not have the big houses like the female groups do), that he’s excluding ‘good’ or ‘nice’ schools from the gang reference.

[OHMomof2]

It’s not typical, it’s a requirement of all National Panhell members that there be no alcohol allowed at all, even for those who are over 21.

Substitute any word you prefer, but the original article still isn’t referring to sororities.

He needs to be specific that he’s only referring to THOSE fraternities, the ones that have keggers 24/7, where the college doesn’t control the housing, where there actually IS housing (many male fraternities do not have the big houses like the female groups do), that he’s excluding ‘good’ or ‘nice’ schools from the gang reference.

If you read the article I don’t think he’s excluding any particular type of fraternity, though he talks most about ones that host large parties as a setting for sexual crime.

Obviously the comparison is imperfect, if it were perfect there would be no appetite for an article about it. He’s pushing us to think, to compare gangs (he doesn’t specify only criminal gangs either, but that’s what most of us think of I’m sure) and how membership increases members’ criminality, to fraternities and how they increase members’ criminality. He makes direct comparisons, mostly to sexual violence and how much more likely fraternity members are to commit that than non-fraternity members.

And he acknowledges that

Fraternity men are not responsible for all, or probably not even most, of the sexual violence on college campuses these days. But the same was true of gangs and urban violence in the 1990s.

…and then actually he does mention sororities, but only by way of the fact that members of sororities are more likely to be victims of sexual crime than non-members:

Sorority membership. Almost a quarter of sexual assault victims were sorority members, whereas only 14 percent of nonvictims were sorority members.

It isn’t the only factor, of course. Age and others come into play.

https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/rape-sexual-violence/campus/pages/increased-risk.aspx <-the stat he quoted link to this.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf - Section 2.3.6

An Oregon study found sorority women are twice as likely to “experience non-consensual sexual contact” than non-affiliated women.

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/campus/UO-campus-Greek-14Oct%2014.pdf

None of which is to say all fraternities are bad or good or all sororities are bad or good.

And your point re: academic fraternities and so on is well taken.