Hazed and Confused

     My dad is no Matthew McConaughey, and yet I think of my daddy whenever I catch a few minutes of the film “Dazed and Confused.” This movie, which gave birth to the McConaughey “Alright, alright, alright” mantra, begins on the last day of school in May 1976, which was when my daddy graduated from Bodenham High School. Ironically this movie was released in September of 1993, which was when I began my senior year at Giles County High School. The movie begins with a group of seniors plotting their hazing of incoming high school freshmen boys by paddling them, which was very similar to how my high school career began, well, sort of.

In my tiny hometown of Pulaski, Tennessee, on the last day of school the rising seniors would hunt down the incoming freshmen and use electric hair clippers to shave an “F” into their hair. As the end of my eight grade year drew to a close I was terrified of this looming initiation. For years, from the window of bus #102, which I rode to my Big Mamma’s house, I had witnessed  juniors in high school hop out of cars to chase down eighth graders and pin them to the ground, knowing one day it would be my turn to run. I imagine these “rights of passage” sound outright barbaric and borderline criminal to those of my children’s generation. Maybe they were. As the eighties came to a close and the nineties were in bloom, most of those rituals gradually died out, and looking back, I’m glad they did.

As much as I feared being held down by a gang of seniors violently shaving my head, it never happened to me, which oddly enough created a different kind of fear...the fear that I wasn’t important enough to get hazed; that I didn’t even register on the social scale. I was invisible. Perhaps this is why, four years later, I responded so enthusiastically to an invitation to “rush” a fraternity. 

Early in my freshman year at the University of North Alabama, I got an invitation in my mailbox to attend a mixer at a fraternity. I had never considered pledging a fraternity, but I knew that they represented something more. They were status symbols, the in crowd, the cool kids, wealth, influence, power, all things I never felt I had in high school. Now it was being offered to me. They were reaching out to me. They wanted me. At the mixer I felt like they were pursuing me, and I learned that acceptance can be intoxicating. 

I don’t know how they knew me or anything about me (probably one of them worked in the admissions office), but they knew things like my ACT score and that I had gotten a few baseball scholarship offers in high school. The fact that they knew these things about me added to the mystique and it connected with something deep inside me. I felt wanted. The “in crowd” was opening the door and inviting me join them and I ate it up. 

The following weeks were filled with the parties and the perks of Greek life. The fraternity house was like a mansion. It was an enormous three story house with a basement that had a bar, giant screen tv, deafening sound system, along with ping pong and pool tables. The backyard was literally a regulation beach volleyball court with a Corona net. This only child of teenage parents, who grew up in places with names like Chicken Creek and Dog Branch, was accepted by the cool kids. I felt like the underdog character from the John Hughes movies I grew up watching. It was kind of the reverse of high school. In high school you got hazed by the older guys and then they let you in, but here they let you in so that you would let them haze you. You get a taste of what they can give you before you learn the price you have to pay to get it. Fortunately I got out before things got out of control, though I can’t say the same for my roommate and childhood best friend who suffered through many of the indignities of being a pledge before he too decided to call it quits.

Last night I read a story that reminded me just how lucky I was to have avoided, not just the degradation, but the violence often associated with hazing. Seven students at Louisiana State University, all members of the same fraternity, were arrested and charged with battery, false imprisonment, and criminal hazing. These seven are accused of subjecting pledges to cigarette burnings, being kicked, punched, and struck with a metal pipe. Beside the physical abuse were allegations of actions designed to degrade them. Pledges said they were used as human furniture, forced to participate in a “slap game”, doused in gasoline, immersed in ice tanks and sprayed with water, and made to lie face down on broken glass at which point others urinated on them.

Recently there has been much dialogue about “toxic masculinity.” I may not be qualified to define it intellectually, but I know it when I see it, and I’ve seen in on middle school, high school, and college campuses, and in locker rooms my entire life. Any potential “camaraderie” that this type of abasement produces is greatly overshadowed by the psychological, physical, and emotional harm that comes from it. Dishonoring someone who is weaker, more vulnerable, or socially inferior to you doesn’t make you a man, it makes you a bully at least and a criminal at worst.

Where did these rituals designed to dominate, humiliate, produce fear, instill shame and exert power, all in the name of camaraderie, community and belonging, originate? Perhaps they are vestigial rites of passage left over from our more tribal ancestors seeking to “weed out” those who wouldn’t endure the difficult conditions of battle or hold their ground when facing down a bear. You would think these rituals would have no place in a civilized society, and yet some groups still see value in them. Maybe they are still employed in certain sectors of the population to determine who will “stand with their brothers” when there are accusations of sexual abuse or other illegal or unethical activities from outsiders. Perhaps they are designed to “weed out” those who would say “This is not ok” or “I’m reporting this to the authorities.” It’s likely they remain because hose who endure this type of abuse to the end are rewarded with initiation into the group. Having endured it and come through the other side they are now in a position of power and able to exert superiority over someone else, perhaps for the first time in their lives. “You are one of us now”, which typically means you will now be required to perpetuate the cycle. The recipient becomes the administrator. These hazings rituals continue to be perpetuated generation after generation via those who know firsthand the fear and shame it caused. Dignity in the present is traded for superiority, or power, or recognition in the future.

These days I’m far removed from freshman initiations and fraternity hazings, but I can’t seem to escape the scorn of the “us” and “them” mindset and the initiations that usually come with them. We may not shave an F in someone’s hair but we attach a label to them. Democrat or Republican, pro life or pro choice, liberal or conservative, resident or illegal, black or white. Labels serve to mark the boundaries for who is with “us” and who is with “them.” Once we know where those borders are located we can erect walls between us that can only be traversed through the performance of rituals or rites of passage designed to strip up of our identity or our culture or our heritage or our independence and replace them with groupthink and conformity. This is what “we” do, this is what “we” believe, this is where “we” live, this is how “we” vote, this is how “we” speak. Sometimes I’m on the receiving end of these attitudes and requirements, sometimes I simply observe them being perpetuated on others, and sadly, sometimes I’m the one initiating them. Whichever the case, I always suffer from it. Don’t we all? 

These days I’m not afraid of being left out. I’m afraid of making someone else feel excluded, unwanted, or unworthy. In a world of wall building, inclusion can be scary, especially if you’re not used to it. You might even find that people who consider you “one of us” might start viewing you as “one of them” if you open your mind, your heart or your home to others. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but it’d be a lot cooler if you did.