ESPN: Champion faced uphill battle for respect as a gay band member

ESPN did one of their in-depth “Outside the Lines” reports on the Robert Champion tragedy on Sunday. In the piece, fellow drum major Keon Hollis, who was Champion’s roommate on band road trips, tells the network that Champion’s homosexuality “definitely played a factor” in the lack of respect he got from some band members on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, there’s a little bit of an audio problem at the end of the clip linked above so some of Hollis’s final comments, as well as a few other things in the last 30 seconds, are blanked out. The good news is that ESPN also releases audio podcasts of its OTL stories here. The queue hasn’t been updated to include the FAMU story yet, but it will soon, at which point we should be able to literally fill in some more blanks.

[UPDATE: Full audio podcast of the latest OTL episode, including the FAMU story, is now available on ESPN’s site.]

Band Hazing: The Part of William P. Foster’s Legacy We Prefer to Ignore

By Peter McKay | FAMU ’97 | Email

A little while back, I told Time magazine’s Tim Padgett that I believe comparing FAMU’s band scandal to Penn State’s mishandling of child molestation is more than fair to FAMU. The scandals share two out of three characteristics that I think make for a fair comparison. On the third — the question of whether someone died as a result of campus misconduct — FAMU actually fares worse than Penn State.

I’ve been saying that purely in the sense of ascribing moral responsibility to institutions as a whole. But the more I think about it, I’d like to add one caveat: If we want to run with the FAMU-Penn State comparison for the sake of constructing a human narrative, I think there is one crucial detail that demands some clarification.

Who’s the Joe Paterno figure at FAMU?

Several journalists who have written about FAMU recently have defaulted to Julian White as the answer. This is certainly fair enough on the surface. He’s the bungling bandmaster left holding the bag when Robert Champion died after the 2011 Florida Classic. As the leader of the Marching 100 since 1998, he’s definitely been a powerful fixture on campus.

But if you want to answer the question in terms of the Marching 100’s full history, who had the most monumental tenure with the organization, and how hazing culture took root in the first place, the better Paterno stand-in is the 100’s founding bandmaster William P. Foster. He was bandmaster from 1946 to 1998 — an astonishing 52-year stretch that’s more than triple the length of White’s tenure. He mentored Dr. White and pretty much everyone else on staff for years, and he launched essentially all the band’s defining traditions, including weak-kneed response to hazing abuses.

Like Paterno at this point, it’s also sadly true that we’re still dealing with the fallout of Dr. Foster’s oversights even though the man himself is no longer with us. He passed away in August 2010.

For a lot of Rattlers, I realize his death is still a pretty recent memory. Dr. Foster is not yet such a distant historical figure that we can discuss his legacy with real detachment, and believe me, I hate to speak ill of people who aren’t here to defend themselves.

That said, the truth is the truth. Remember, this blog from the beginning has concerned itself with long-term hazing culture, how it’s transferred across generations, and how to break the continuity. You simply can’t eliminate hazing in the present day without confronting the past. By that standard, we can’t overlook Dr. Foster’s legacy regarding hazing in the Marching 100.

The topic is on my mind this week because of a lengthy comment by Reginald K. Wilkes, who was a Marching 100 member in the early 1980s. He thoughtfully responded to a recent post by ’90s-era alum Tracy Harmon about her experience with sorority hazing at FAMU with a frighteningly detailed description of his own experience within the band. It includes not only violence by Reginald’s antagonists but also a certain measure of the same stuff in self-defense by Reginald and his roommate who didn’t want to be hazed.

Reginald’s narrative includes this very damning passage:

I know personally of a student that was beaten with pipes, and bricks, kicked up the hill on the patch with combat boots at late night section rehearsals, after Dr. Foster gave the words. “Upperclassmen do what you must”, when the lights went down on the patch, freshmen ran for their lives to Sampson Hall and Paddyfoote Dorms.

I have to say, this story is an amped-up version of a theme that’s recurred in my own conversations with several band members over the years, to the extent that I can get Rattler friends and acquaintances to open up at all about the touchy topic of band hazing. When pressed, they tend not to describe Dr. Foster as particularly diligent about policing hazing within the band. (Dr. White, who was the longtime assistant to Dr. Foster before taking over, also doesn’t tend to come out like a gem, his recent one-man PR campaign notwithstanding. My sense is that both these guys practiced the fine bureaucratic art of plausible deniability for a long time.)

I should add: My own roommate at FAMU and current business partner, Lawrence Patrick, was assaulted by his bandmates in 1994 as a member of the Marching 100’s drumline. Like Reginald, Lawrence didn’t want to subject himself to ritualized hazing, which led to what you might describe as a more “freelance” sort of violence. Lawrence complained and came away highly unsatisfied with the response by both Dr. Foster and his then-assistant Dr. White.

I’ve been encouraging Lawrence to write something for the blog so you can hear the full details in his own words, and I think we may still get him to do it yet. If that day comes, you’re in for another doozie of an anecdote, believe me.

One AKA’s Story

Today we want to pass along an amazing personal story from Dr. Tracy Harmon, a 1998 FAMU grad who’s now an assistant professor of marketing at University of Dayton. Using this site’s online reporting form, she recently passed along a powerful anecdote about hazing she and her roommate experienced while trying to join Alpha Kappa Alpha during their student days. She also provided some great insight about the broader issue of hazing.

Courageously, Dr. Harmon has allowed us to quote her by name, all for one very simple reason.

“I want to set an example for students on campus,” she told us by phone. “I often talk to students about hazing, and I think that’s important.”

In her form submission, Dr. Harmon said she experienced multiple hazing incidents as a student, all of them in categories like verbal and psychological abuse that fell short of violence. Nevertheless, her experience does sound pretty scary, as you’ll see below. When asked to describe her experience in more detail and what FAMU might do to fight hazing in the future, Dr. Harmon wrote:

The norm for becoming a member of the sorority was to go through introductions and to familiarize yourself with members of the chapter. In one case, my roommate who was interested in joining called a member of the sorority who happened to also be a band member.

The young lady did not appreciate the call from my roommate (we are not sure why). She begin to yell at my roommate over the phone, and my roomate hung up on her. The sorority member/band member called our apartment back using the *69 feature and began to interrogate my roomate about her identity. She never told.

During a seminar a few days later, the members of the sorority took attendance and identified me and my roomate through a process of elimination. The surrounded us in our car after the seminar by parking their car behind ours, so we could not reverse the car. This took place in the parking lot in front of McGuinn/Diamond, so we could not drive forward either.

Roughly 10 members of the sorority begin to pound on our car windows/doors and demanded we get out of the car. It was like a scene from the movies. My roommate decided that we were not going to roll down the windows or open the doors, they kept trying to get in and when they couldn’t they cursed us out. They kept demanding that I get out of the car.

As much as I didn’t want to meet my fate, I figured it was the quickest way to get out of there. I got out of the car and they questioned me about my roommate and her phone call to a sorority member in the previous days. They put their hands in my face and pinned me against the car and continued to shout and demean me and my roommate.

After they were satisfied, they all laughed and walked away. I returned to the car with my roommate. They all got into their cars and waited about five minutes or so before they removed their vehicle from behind ours.

I called my mom and told her about the incident. Seeing as how she didn’t have a college education and came from a large rural family, she told me not to call home about “that nonsense” anymore, because if I was going to let someone hit then I deserved it! I never called home again about hazing.

Today, I am a university professor. I never joined AKA at FAMU, but I did join the graduate chapter some years later and I am currently an active member. So is my roommate. There were many other cases, but none as egregious as this one.

I think hazing is a phenomenon that is borne out of factor larger than the actual activity. If there was a rubric to profile a person who would haze someone else, I think you would find they would all have a predisposition towards the activity.

FAMU should for starters increase their admissions standards. Hazing is associated with power and most academically successful students gain power through their accomplishments and not necessarily social acceptance and power.

FAMU can also create a position that caters to issues of hazing on campus. In this capacity, the person would convene members of a jury to address reported hazing incidents. Incidents would be reported through a online anonymous system. Most predominantly-white institutions have a similar reporting system for bias/race related incidents.

Report hazing allegations on the students’ transcripts so that employers can be made aware of a student’s behavior. Hazing is a reflection of poor character. Which company would want a hazer to be affiliated with their company?

Make hazing sessions mandatory during orientation time for both parents and students.

Have students sign an anti-hazing agreement which informs them of the penalties.

Deny admissions to students who have an interest in band from “feeder” schools. These schools can be identified by examining the high schools of those involved in past and current hazing allegations.

Have students write about the importance of anti-hazing behavior during their admissions essay. Filter students out by their response.

Why Alumni Hazing Stories Matter

By Peter McKay | FAMU ’97 | Email

New York Times columnist Charles Blow, a Grambling alum, wrote a powerful column in the paper Saturday about his own experience being hazed in college. An excerpt:

I was first paddled when I pledged a fraternity in college. It was one of our first meetings as a pledge group and the brothers were working their way through a line of us from shortest to tallest. Eventually they got to me. No. 13.

I moved to the center of the room and assumed the position. I stared straight ahead. I tried to brace myself for the blow, but nothing could have prepared me.

Swat!

The force of the impact nearly knocked me over. I rose on my toes to keep from falling forward. The pain of it crackled through my thin body. My vision blurred. The sound in the room grew muted as if I was listening from underwater. My temples throbbed. My nostrils flared. My nose ran and my eyes watered despite my best efforts to prevent it. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I was on fire. My body demanded that I scream, run, cry, do something. But I knew that I could do nothing. I stood firm.

“Thanks — may I have another?”

…When I view what we did with a mature mind and enlightened eyes, it seems insane. But, in the moment, as a young man, it seemed to be a perfectly reasonable rite of passage. And that is the attitude that must be changed. It’s not reasonable. It’s ridiculous.

We must end the “conspiracy of silence.”

Charles’s column is amazing enough when taken at face value. Between the lines, it also eloquently highlights an issue I’ve already come across in the last few weeks blogging about FAMU’s strain of hazing: What’s the point of alumni telling these old stories?

A few people have asked me this, especially since I wrote about the initial round of data we’ve collected regarding FAMU hazing, including firsthand accounts dating back nearly 50 years. (The database continues to grow, by the way. We’re now up to almost 30 entries, doubling in size from the initial round I wrote about. People are submitting their stories at a pretty consistent clip of one or two everyday.)

To me, the answer has two parts. The first is that alumni stories help illustrate what’s meant by the phrase “culture of hazing.” In my social-media streams, a lot of FAMU people were essentially in denial about this in the early days after Robert Champion’s death, saying the phrase is inherently hyperbolic.

When we share stories that go back a decade or three, yet still bear serious resemblance to present-day events, it has to cut through the denial. Hazing is a long-term problem, very deeply ingrained and transferred from generation to generation. If that’s not culture, what is?

The second powerful thing about alumni speaking out is the unique standing we have to say: “When I joined Organization X, the experience was a certain way for me. But I don’t want it to be that way for the members after me. It should be different for them. Better. And I will accept them as fellow members wholeheartedly.”

That’s the sentiment that shouts out from between the lines of stories like Charles Blow’s, or the ones I’m seeing everyday from my fellow Rattler alumni. It takes a lot of maturity and courage; it’s not easy. But it also has serious power to really bring hazing to an end at FAMU, I think.

Conversely, when we as alumni set a bad example and take the opposite attitude — “Hey, I did it. It’s OK for these kids to do it. In fact, they don’t really belong if they don’t.” — we’re helping to prolong the problem.

Again: “That is the attitude that must be changed. It’s not reasonable. It’s ridiculous.”

Young Rattlers Speaking Out Against Hazing

By Peter McKay | FAMU ’97 | Email

Just wanted to pass along three hazing-related items from current FAMU students and recent alum. These young people really do make me proud as a (relative) old-timer (C;

First, the most newsy development: Orlando’s WFTV spoke to Marching 100 member Bria Hunter, who said she was violently hazed along with 10 or 11 other band members, resulting in hospitalization for Bria, just days before the 2011 Florida Classic. Drum major Robert Champion, who was one of Bria’s mentors, died after that game.

Full text and video of Bria’s story is available on WFTV’s site.

Closer to home, Famuan Editor-in-Chief Clarece Polke, who’s been coordinating with me a bit over the last few days during the setup of this blog, also managed to put out her first post-Thanksgiving print edition. It includes a great column by the boss, who writes in part:

In the whirlwind of events that have unfolded in the past week and a half, it’s almost easy to forget that a student died.

There have been protests, Facebook groups and countless other visible outbursts from students, alumni and other supporters to have the Marching “100” reinstated and former Director of Bands Julian White re-hired after the death of student and drum major Robert Champion. But where are the student-led anti-hazing protests and Facebook groups?

Where’s the outrage and frustration that a fellow Rattler has been killed and members of one of the university’s largest organizations are under investigation for causing it?

Finally, a FAMU grad who blogs under the name “Anti Intellect” has written a powerful account of his experience being hazed on campus. He doesn’t name the organization involved, but he does provide a lot of detail of the events, as in this heartbreaking passage:

The “process” was supposed to last a little over a week, but I only made it halfway. We were knee deep in verbal and physical abuse, and two of the old members enacting this cruelty on us were keying in our our perceived weaknesses. My weakness, it was decided, was my femininity. And, so, I was repeatedly taunted and bashed in regards to my perceived sexual orientation, and lack of “masculinity.” I put up with this throughout the night, but at some point I had had enough. Me and the rest of the line were doing some physically painful activity, and, I, alone was being taunted. If their goal was to “break my back,” they did. I stood up, with tears in my eyes, and said that I can’t take anymore of this. I was tired of being verbally and physically abused all in the name of joining an organization. If I thought I would be joined by my fellow line members, I was wrong. None of them came to my side, and none came to my defense. They were concerned with making it into the organization, and they weren’t going to let their previous abuse be in vain by quitting with me now, so they remained silent. The drunken men doing the hazing didn’t seem to care about my protest, and simply told me to leave. After all, they didn’t want me in their organization anyway.

After I had left the site of the hazing, I found myself alone on a dark street. I didn’t have a car, as first year students weren’t allowed to have them, so I had no way of getting home. Fortunately, I was able to call one of my friends and they were able to pick me up off the side of the road. Over the next few days I had to deal with the cold shoulders of some of my fellow line members. I did, however, receive some support after the fact from others on the line. They admitted that I had received harsher treatment, and that they had wished that they could have stood along me, but they were scared. The thing about hazing is that it warps people’s mentalities. It’s very difficult to think straight in a climate of hazing because right/wrong becomes very blurry to the point of invisible. Is it choice? Is it force? Is it abuse? Is it exploitation? Is it will? These questions seem to linger, but never get answered. It’s as if everyone else expects someone else to answer them, but ultimately no one does.

I’ve read that victims of abuse often rationalize their abuse, and I certainly know this to be true. The days following my hazing were filled with feelings of shame, lack of self worth, and guilt. I asked myself why I, unlike the others, hadn’t had the strength to continue on? Was I weak? I felt really ashamed of the fact that I hadn’t been able to withstand the physical and emotional abuse that others had.

I never went to university officials about my hazing. I am not alone. I met many students over the course of my time at Florida A&M University, and other colleges, that had been hazed, and who had not spoke out. Who wants to be seen as the one who couldn’t take the heat? Who couldn’t prove their loyalty? We are told that it is a defeating position to not endure hazing. The culture is set up so that those who accept hazing are the majority voice, the ones considered sane, but those who reject it are considered outcast and misfit.

Anti Intellect mentions elsewhere on his site that he’s gay, but doesn’t mention in his blog post whether he was “out” to his tormenters at the time of the hazing. I think that’s important given the homophobic nature of some of the hazers’ taunts. Either they knowingly picked on his homosexual identity, or they inadvertently heightened the pain of was was probably already a difficult daily struggle being in the closet.

In any case, Anti Intellect’s blog post was extremely courageous. I definitely recommend reading the whole thing.