Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

“For certain kids on campus, the SAEs were elite in part because stories like Mountain Weekend showed what they could get away with.”

Prestigious frats like SAE are steeped in Privilege and Institutionalized Racism. Members come from wealthy, usually white families, and they rarely face consequences for their actions, including criminal actions. Mikey and Rob know that as frat members, they are more or less untouchable when they start dealing drugs at C of C.

“Before the end of the century, Kappa Alpha voted to ban expansion north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and although the policy has been reversed, all but a dozen or so of its 130 or so chapters remain in the South.”

In the 1800s, the Mason-Dixon Line marked the divide between Northern states where enslavement was banned and the Southern states that still enslaved people. In the modern day, it still represents the cultural divide in the United States. KA’s reluctance to expand its chapters into Northern states indicates its ties to white supremacist beliefs, reflecting Privilege and Institutionalized Racism.

“Unlike other fraternities, though, KA views one historical man as the embodiment of all those traits. After its section on the decline of feudalism, The Varlet begins a chapter titled “A True Gentleman, the Last Gentle Knight” dedicated to Robert E. Lee.”

Robert E. Lee was a confederate general during the American Civil War. Today, he is widely recognized as a symbol of white supremacy and of America’s racist history, as he not only fought for the Confederate army but actively upheld racist beliefs throughout his life. KA’s adoption of Lee as their spiritual founder thus emphasizes their ties to white supremist history.

“It’s easy to see a conflict between the high, gentlemanly ideals of fraternity literature and the low and dirty life of a fraternity pledge. The Varlet describes knights with feathers in their helmets, and Mikey got locked in a closet with a tobacco bong.”

Although the ideals and reality of fraternity life seem to be in conflict, they are actually two sides of the same coin. Both of them uphold particular and restrictive standards of masculinity and power dynamics, reflecting the darker aspects of Fraternity Culture and Misogyny.

“There’s social power in poorly kept secrets about funny and degrading hazing. In fact, when I called my high school friends to fact-check my memories of their stories for this book, they all made it clear that they’d do it again.”

Hazing is extremely unpleasant and dangerous, but it continues in part because people who experience it do not necessarily want to denounce it. Fraternity cultures are predicated on social acceptance and proving oneself, and hazing provides a dangerous but effective opportunity for both.

“One reason might have been the allure of hazing itself, but another was a simple cost-benefit analysis about what happens when pledgeship ends. Looking at what he’d lose as a pledge and what he’d gain as an active member, Mikey saw profit. Among other perks for College of Charleston kids, Greek life opened up that decentralized network of fun.”

Marshall assumes that Mikey views pledgeship in terms of profit, echoing the way he views drug dealing for the rest of the book. This shrewd, analytical nature is a big part of Mikey’s characterization in Marshall’s narrative.

“Movies tend to get some things wrong about Greek life—too much hair gel, Abercrombie, and diversity—but in other ways a good fraternity social calendar made an eighteen-to-twenty-two-year-old boy feel like he was living Hollywood’s college dream.”

Countless movies depict college Fraternity Culture and Misogyny as aspirational parts of an idealized college life. Although fraternities have a lot of downsides, Marshall suggests that they persist largely because they really do allow young men to have a very specific (and, for some, very enjoyable) college experience.

“When I tried a half bar of Xanax in college, it was the fastest I’d heard the buzzing in my head disappear. It turned off a fan that’d been running in my brain since childhood and revealed another level of silence.”

Marshall describes the way Xanax immediately neutralizes anxiety. Since many college students are under a lot of stress and lack a strong support network, Xanax can be an easy way to make college more manageable. However, the downside is that Xanax is a drug that can be very dangerous and harmful, introducing the theme of The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse.

“‘Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, people usually had one drug of choice,’ she said. ‘Either it was alcohol, or it was meth, or it was opioids, and they kind of stuck to that. Now that’s very uncommon. What we see now, especially among millennials, is cocktails.’”

Marshall realizes that The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse are more serious than in previous years. Combining Xanax with other drugs can have desirable effects, but such combinations also carry a strong risk of overdose and other harmful effects. People who use these drug cocktails may also have a harder time with withdrawal, as they will need to stop using multiple substances.

“To be clear, getting to that point was by no means the aim for every boy every night. Still, at least for kids in […] fraternities, blacking out was a more acceptable choice than staying in.”

Fraternity culture requires a high degree of conformity. Members are expected to participate in parties and to be able to flirt with women, which means there is pressure to join in no matter what. This creates an environment of peer pressure and contributes to rampant drug use on college campuses.

“But for the many of us who grew up learning not to say the ‘[N-word]’ but who also had deep ties to Greek life, the video stirred up an uncomfortable mix of feelings. Even if they don’t sing it out loud, plenty of elite chapters share the OU SAE admissions policy.”

Fraternities have been officially desegregated for decades, but unofficial policy means that some are still exclusively white, reflecting Privilege and Institutionalized Racism. Racism among fraternity members varies from very outspoken to veiled and implied, but it remains prevalent regardless.

“Really, for much of the first fifty years of its life, the Kappa Alpha Order told anyone who would listen that it shared the same goals as the Ku Klux Klan.”

Privilege and Institutionalized Racism are foundational for both the Kappa Alpha Order and the Ku Klux Klan. Although KA does not advertise the connection between the two organizations today, remnants of the KKK’s influence on the fraternity are evident, and the connection is an open secret.

“Instead of using public violence, though, the KAs hoped to achieve those goals by indoctrinating the region’s elite boys. One hundred years later, the KKK makes people think of trailer parks and Chappelle’s Show, and the Kappa Alpha Order maintains chapters on more than 120 college campuses.”

Though they share the same roots, the KA Order is widely accepted, while the KKK is known to be a white supremacist organization. Marshall notes many instances where fraternities seem to be impervious to consequences and able to maintain their status despite multiple scandals; this is one example of that phenomenon.

“Before Mikey could legally drink and Rob could rent a car, they’d stumbled into an ideal wealth-creation system, an item with limited supply and sticky demand. As they knew by now, Xanax is great at creating repeat users.”

The United States has an unusually high drinking age compared to most countries. Despite this, many college students are engaged in underage or illegal substance use, which contributes hugely to Rob and Mikey’s success.

“And after they’d leave, we’d all gather round to powwow, talk shit, and be like, ‘Yeah, we really should stop selling to them.’ But then the moral compass would reset, and you’re back to, like, monetizing human suffering almost.”

Most if not all of the Xanax dealers on campus also use the drug. They know The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse but continue to sell to their friends and classmates, unwilling to turn down an irresistible profit and a seemingly unlimited market.

“While Patrick bled out next to them, one housemate grabbed the two bags and ran to their neighbor’s backyard, where he hid the pills under beer cans in the trash. A second housemate walked up and kneeled down next to Patrick, but only to clean up some Xanax and swallow a pill.”

Benzodiazepines are at the center of Patrick and his housemates' lives. His housemates prioritize the drugs over providing potentially lifesaving care to their friend. The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse are dire and affect every aspect of these boys’ lives.

“Instead, one former KA said, ‘Max, I love you, but I’d never go to jail for you.’ I thought about that for a while and realized that I’d inform on him too.”

Marshall initially struggles to understand why Rob betrayed Mikey and helped the police, but he changes his mind. For all the discussion of brotherly devotion, fraternity members still have their own lives and their own desire to avoid consequences.

“For a group of guys used to being the heroes of stories, this was a cold plunge. If bros saw themselves as kings or jesters, other people now saw them as villains.”

For a brief moment in the mid-2010s, the cultural clout that fraternity brothers enjoyed seemed to be under threat. The 2016 drug bust at C of C was a big part of a cultural conversation that was already questioning fraternities’ hazing, sexual assault, and unchecked party cultures.

“The November election was approaching and Confederate statues were coming down, and it seemed like America wanted bros to taste the consequence of a life without consequences.”

The leadup to the 2016 presidential election was a turning point in the cultural landscape of the US. Even though fraternities did face a brief reckoning, they eventually came out of the situation with the same kinds of privileges they have always enjoyed, as though consequences cannot ever touch them.

“‘They want to put somebody in jail to close this case,’ she’d said. ‘You’re Black, and if you don’t have any money to hire somebody powerful to fight for you, then you can forget it. When they call this the Dirty South, they don’t call it the Dirty South for nothing.’”

Charles’s mother explains why her son is the main target of the murder investigation: He is Black, and he is not wealthy. Marshall suggests that Privilege and Institutionalized Racism work against Charles just as they work in the fraternity members’ favor.

“If the fallout from the drug bust has taught them something, it’s that as long as you’re one of the boys, you can usually go as hard as you want without having to learn anything.”

Membership in a fraternity can be a fairly effective get-out-of-jail-free card. Most of the boys busted for drugs literally do get out of jail with few consequences, unlike the life-ruining consequences that Charles Mungin faces for a conviction based on circumstantial evidence.

“As one fraternity lobbyist in a large state capital told me, although the young men he represents know they’re seen as deplorables by some classmates, in private they assure him, ‘They’ll all be working for us some day.’”

College fraternities are steeped in a culture of Privilege and Institutionalized Racism. Marshall implies that members get away with acts of violence, racism, and misogyny because of their wealth and privilege, safe in the knowledge that their future will not be negatively impacted.

“And like everyone would be crying and everything, but it’s just like once that was over, it was right back to normal. It was almost as if everything was like a Xanax blackout. Just like, ‘All right, next day, nothing happened, he wasn’t ever even there.’”

Fraternity culture pushes members to tamp down their grief and keep partying as though nothing has changed. This lack of emotional honesty is a cornerstone of Greek life as Marshall explores it, enabling members to continue ignoring The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse.