To the Editor:
What compelled me to write this letter was not the revelation that Zeta Psi publishes "sex papers" to distribute to its members, but the comment that the house's president, Gene Boyle '02, made in Wednesday's issue of The Dartmouth: "Obviously, we don't condone this kind of behavior." Wait a second. Are you kidding me? Where did that come from? I want to tell Mr. Boyle that, contrary to his use of the word "obviously," both he and his fellow brothers knew perfectly well what was going on in the house and that they did indeed "condone"-- if not wholeheartedly support -- the publication of "The Zetemouth." And the behavior "reported" in the issue is implicitly encouraged when the headline clearly reads that Zete Psi members compete for the title "Manwhore of the Year." Having said that, where does Mr. Boyle (and those of you who believe him) get off telling the Dartmouth community that his fraternity kind of/sort of had nothing to do with the actions of a few?
The same question should be raised in response to the inevitable slew of editorials written by representatives of Greek organizations immediately following events like this one. Every time a brother or a fraternity is revealed to have done something ridiculously asinine, the leaders of these groups disassociate themselves from the incident as much as possible in order to retain the "dignity" of their houses as well as the Greek system in general. So while Phi Delta Alpha, Psi Upsilon, and Zeta Psi go down the crapper, the Coed Fraternity Sorority Council as a bureaucratic body continues to "fight the good fight," as it were. After all, we all know that things like trying to burn down another fraternity, shouting racial epithets into the winter breeze, and reading about brothers' sexual exploits are just "freak" instances of delinquency, intolerance, and misogyny, right?
Well, I have one thing to say to Dartmouth students who continue to support fraternities: get over it. That is, get over your phony sense of male-order entitlement, get over your dastardly interpretation of the First Amendment, and, most important, get over the supposed "innocence" of everything you do. The reason why I say this is because the things I describe above are not isolated instances, are not legitimated by Western conceptions of "freedom" (I say the brother who wished to share his "patented date rape techniques" with others should be arrested), and are definitely not exceptions to the professed fraternal rule of gender equity. Denying the ways in which something like "The Zetemouth" is both cultivated within and perpetuated by Greek culture is as heinous as publishing the salacious material for "in-house entertainment." How many times should someone like Dartmouth staff columnist Dan Galemba '03 be allowed to tell us that these instances must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis? How long can we ignore the problems of the fraternity system as a whole?
I will venture to say that the primary reason why the Student Life Initiative is going nowhere is because students continue to deny the extent to which fraternities promote a sense of (typically, but not exclusively, white) male privilege that is rigorously opposed to change. I specifically invoke "denial" here because we all know -- more or less -- what goes on in frats even though we hate to admit it. To put it another way, we have never been innocent of "witnessing" and/or experiencing the exploitation of frosh women, the groping of body parts on the dance floor, the "morning after" walk home. That we disavow the existence of these things in order to retain what insecure men call "student's rights" is the continuing legacy/tragedy of the fraternity system. The bottom line is that if the SLI committee members wish to effect genuine and significant change, they will have to bring down the male-order culture that whimpers behind the Mask of Incredulous Innocence.
Referring to the historical justifications for white racism, James Baldwin once remarked, "It is the innocence which constitutes the crime." Just as he was fed up with America's denial of social injustices in the early 1960s, so am I tired of listening to the millennial Greeks wax (classically) poetic about how things are "really, really changing" despite the endless pieces of evidence which prove that they really, really aren't. I mean, let's not mince words any longer: either we do everything we can to get rid of male supremacy on this campus or frat boys (and their supporters) will remain in social-life power, conveniently deflecting criticism with the trump card of "That's totally horrible, but at least us brothers-at-large didn't do/condone it!" Dartmouth College, there is nothing more pathetic than watching and listening to a group of adults plea for their innocence when they know full well that there is something seriously wrong with the ground on which they stand.
