Enough. Actually, way beyond enough.
When you look up “hazing” in the dictionary, you’ll find variations on an “initiation” (as in college fraternity) theme that references the exacting of “humiliation” or the playing of “rough practical jokes.”
We all get it. Rites of passage underbelly–but more goofy than gory. Boys will be boys. Pay some dues. Nobody wimps out. Don’t mind the blindfold or the giggles. Of course, these are really worms.
We all thought we got it.
But “hazing” as shorthand for assault? As a euphemism for paddling and pummeling that can maim or kill?
When FAMU drum major Robert Champion died following a suspected hazing ritual, the whole parallel universe of netherworld hazing went public the only way scandals and tragedies go public these days: in a constant loop of 24/7 outrage and finger-pointing. As a result, the FAMU Marching 100 has been suspended indefinitely, its band director fired and four students expelled. The president is in the cross-hairs of accountability, disgrace and legal liability.
Part of the outrage is that Champion’s death was an extension of unconscionable tradition not an isolated, tragic incident. At least twice before FAMU band members paid their hazing dues with “paddling”-induced kidney failure. Earlier this fall a FAMU clarinetist was hospitalized after beatings by FAMU band members.
There was no lack of cautionary tales. If for no other reason, someone should have paid more attention to those kidney-failure settlements. Or made sure that third-degree felonies weren’t countenanced–let alone institutionalized. Or maybe someone should have paid more attention to School Daze by Spike Lee. It portrayed violent fraternity hazing at an all-black college that could have been Morehouse. It was, however, a parody. Lee didn’t just make it up.
Two points.
First, the irony. Imagine a number of institutions of higher learning, especially historically black ones, with a culture that actually lionizes marching band members more than football players? How refreshingly contrarian is that? Music majors as big men on campus. Only one downside: Too many of those bands, most notably FAMU’s, have institutionalized hazing that can–and has–severely injured and killed.
Put it this way. Your kid’s a clarinet player–not a contact-sport jock or a drop-out gang banger–and is beaten to death while representing his school? How incomprehensibly sick is that?
Second, it’s past time to dismantle this obscene paean to unconventional thuggery. It gives “hazing” a bad name. It’s time to look at giving the Marching 100, despite its renown, its marching orders.
We know what can happen with banks too big to fail. Is this a band too famous to disband.
Walter Kimbrough, president of the historically black Philander Smith College in Arkansas, put it into the only perspective that now matters.
“We’ve got to really ramp up the sanctions,” Kimbrough has said publicly. “Your chances of having a marching band hazing incident are zero if you don’t have a functioning marching band.”
It’s a shame it’s come to this. But it would be inexcusably shameful to let it happen again.
This post is far over due and I agree with your position on this matter. I am a former Bethune-Cookman Marching Wildcat and I suffered fractured ribs from hazing that took place on the eve of the Florida Classic twenty-five years ago. I also had guns brandished in my face on several occasions. The band director at that time was doing everything he could to eliminate hazing, but had to contend with the code of silence that was deeply embedded into the minds of the band members. The sad thing about it is that the members who embrace hazing the most were usually the worst students and musicians. Often times the “Worms” (new band members) who were the most talented were the ones who suffered hazing the most.
I think the answer to this problem lies within the recruitment process. This is no secret… many of the kids who are offered scholarships for these programs have questionable backgrounds. Some are drug dealers as well as gang members who walk around with hand guns tucked into the back of their pants… on campus. Intimidation is the main reason why the code of silence isn’t broken. Unfortunately, the backgrounds are not considered if that kid is at least mediocre at beating a drum or blowing a horn.