Filed under: News, Opinion, Race and Civil Rights
I'm sure there are tens of thousands of college women who are beginning their Fall semesters and considering, not only what organizations to join and what guys to bag, but whether or not to pledge a sorority. Well, I have a kernel of advice: If you are considering pledging SIGMA GAMMA RHO, think again.
Apparently, Sigma Gamma Rho has become the hands-down winner in the "Beating Pledges Asses" Contest.
Who would've thunk that a sorority that is best known for living in the shadow of the AKAs, Deltas, and (sometimes) Zetas, would suddenly dominate the headlines? And unfortunately, it's not because of their excellence in community service.
The group that was previously known for not being as pretty as the AKAs, not as ugly as the Zetas or as cool as the Deltas is suddenly a hot topic.In two cases at universities this year, members of Sigma Gamma Rho, an African-American sorority, have been charged with hazing and beating their pledges with wooden paddles. OK, I think anyone who went to an HBCU or at least saw School Daze will know this is nothing new.
HOWEVER....there's stupid college hazing and there's just-too-damn-far-dangerous-someone's-gonna-get-hurt-college-hazing. This would be the latter.
At Rutgers, six members of Sigma Gamma Rho were arrested in January and charged with aggravated hazing, a felony, after a pledge reported that she had been struck 200 times over seven days by members of her own sorority. She finally went to the hospital, covered with welts and bloody bruises.
Both the university and the national sorority suspended the Rutgers chapter.
According to an article in the New York Times, Courtney Howard, a former student at San Jose State University in California, charged in a civil lawsuit filed August 31, that over a three-week period in 2008 she was subjected to progressively more violent hazing from Sigma Gamma Rho members. Ms. Howard claims that they beat her and other pledges with wooden paddles, slapped them with wooden spoons, shoved them against the wall, and threatened that "snitches get stitches."
Uhhh...get with it ladies. "Snitches get stitches?" That is sooooo like 5 years ago.
"One of the girls who was a big sister told me it was supposed to be so you can feel what your ancestors went through in slavery, so you will respect what you came from," Ms. Howard said.
I'm not sure what's worse. Someone seriously assaulting you for the hell of it and using a completely absurd small-minded premise to justify the behavior
ORRRRR
you voluntarily submit yourself to beatings so severe, they send you to the hospital, all because you have low esteem and a desperate need for validation and fake love.
So what happens to those infamous paddlers, you ask? Detention? Time outs? Well... In 2008, San Jose State suspended the sorority chapter until 2016. Four of the sorority members have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor hazing charges, and been sentenced to 90 days in county jail, two years of probation and barred from any further involvement in the sorority.
Larry Carr, a spokesman for San Jose State, also said he could not not comment on pending litigation. But hazing is illegal, he said, and the university makes serious efforts to educate all incoming students and their parents about how to deal with it.
To the casual observer, Sigma Gamma Rho would appear to be fiercely against sorority hazing. Featured on the Sigma Gamma Rho web site is the sorority's anti-hazing policy. "Hazing is wrong, prohibited and unauthorized," it says. "Members found guilty of hazing will be permanently and irrevocably expelled from Sigma Gamma Rho." Clearly the Class of 2014 did not get the email.
And two years ago, because of hazing, the sorority's chapter at the University of Texas at Austin was penalized. The sorority has more than 500 chapters, but is the smallest of the four black sororities. The sorority did not comment on pending litigation.
Better to be silent and thought a fool...