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I should contextualize this by saying that, while I rushed frats my freshman year, I didn't ultimately end up joining one. I decided to save the money that joining a Duke frat would have inevitably cost me (most people at Duke have disposable income to burn, but I wasn't really one of them). I also kind of realized that there's an inherent homogenization (if that's the word) that comes with joining most of the Duke frats-- you must go to these parties! you must do this! you must dress this way!-- with which I couldn't really get down. A couple of my buddies who were already in frats who marched to the beat of their own drums seemed to be on the outskirts of their respective organizations, and that didn't seem to be worth the trouble/money to me. That and, you know, I didn't feel like getting hazed the entire second semester of my freshman year. But I did hang out with frat guys and their frat brothers for almost my entire time there.
Granted, that doesn't give me much insight into the history of frats. However, their present-day value is pretty obvious-- networking and mutual support, on an even more intense level than the simple support one gets from one's own alumni at a school like Duke. I know a friend in a frat who traveled across the country, simply crashing at frat brothers' houses along the way-- some of whom he had never met. I was able to get jobs post-grad based on the connections I made at Duke, so I can only imagine the types of jobs one can get when utilizing the connections a fraternity has gathered over the decades.
There's also the simple reason that I rushed in the first place: brotherhood, family, etc. The majority of the kids who rush frats aren't consciously considering the histories, the networking goals, etc. They're simply kids who want to meet cool people, go to cool parties, make some lifelong friends, and get laid. At Duke, the majority of the student body is part of a frat or sorority. It's the cool shit to do.
I will also add that, while Duke has had its share of racial insensitivity kerfuffles in the past, even when I was there a decade ago, I can't recall a single frat or sorority that didn't have minority members-- including the hardcore "Southern lifestyle" one. Again, most everybody joined a frat, so black/Latino/Asian students who didn't want to join the black/Latino/Asian frats/selected living groups would simply rush the what-I'm-sure-were-historically-white frats and join those. For a school as "conservative" as Duke is, its students' social politics have always been *relatively* progressive-- one of the fraternities had a couple of its senior leaders booted when they attempted to fight the admission of a gay dude to their frat based on his sexual orientation. The frat simply joined together, said we want this kid regardless of if he's gay or not, fuck you-- gay kid was in, phobic dudes were out. That was in 2004. So contemporary Duke may not carry as many of the negative stereotypes of historically-white frats as other Southern schools would... or, to give voice to my inner skeptic, (the overwhelming majority of) Duke frat guys are at least smart enough to pick and choose their prejudicial battles and never voice their negativity publicly.
So, while I'm not sure anyone can defend the history of any historically-white frat (I'm sure from their foundations forward, there are likely skeletons in every closet), depending where you go to school, the benefits of joining one today are pretty evident. At least to this relative outsider.
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