The hazing demise of Southern College pupil Caleb Wilson earlier this 12 months has stoked so many feelings, amongst them disappointment within the tradition that surrounds fraternities. Comic Rickey Smiley took goal at that in a latest look on the Spolitics podcast with Jemele Hill, talking from his expertise as a member of Omega Psi Phi, the identical fraternity Wilson was pledging.
“I don’t suppose Bishop Edgar A. Love would have punched anyone within the chest,” Smiley stated. “Simply, Love, Cooper and Coleman based Omega Psi Phi at Howard College in 1911. Plenty of these guys that began this tradition, I don’t care if it began within the ’80s, I don’t care when it began. It’s mistaken. In 25 years within the frat, I’ve by no means put my fingers on anyone.”
Smiley has been a member of Omega Psi Phi since 2000, and has regularly supplied assist to the Wilson household since 20-year-old Caleb’s demise by way of his platform, referring to their grief as a result of demise of his personal son in January 2023. However he discovered that the fraternity reportedly wasn’t as encouraging. “I referred to as Caleb Wilson’s dad and supplied my condolences as a result of I’m a dad that additionally misplaced his son,” Smiley stated to Hill. “You already know what he stated? You’re the first member of your fraternity to name and provide your condolences.”
Wilson’s demise, which led to the arrest of three males afterward, has sparked extra dialog about Black Greek tradition and the quite a few hazing incidents it has handled up to now. Talledega Faculty president and writer of Black Greek 101 Walter Kimbrough wrote in regards to the incident for MSNBC, specializing in the older people concerned: “I name these people ‘prolonged adolescents,’ and so they pose a very alarming danger to school campus security.”
He blasted the “gang-like mentality” that’s taken over within the fraternity in recent times. “I [joined] Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc, due to what it was based on, not the tradition that was created,” he defined. “Tradition begins with cult. It’s gang exercise…the final bodily altercations that I’ve gotten into as a person was with Ques. Why?” Smiley did acknowledge that there are members who’re working to interrupt “the generational curse of hazing” and said that he’d by no means hand over on Omega Psi Phi.
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