Fraternities have been coming under fire as of late for various different reasons. Between the UVA scandal and the Oklahoma racist chants, fraternities are setting up camp in the newspapers. My argument says that Fraternities never had inherent problems with racism, sexual assault or binge drinking at all. That the party stereotype was placed upon them during the time period that Animal House was released in theaters and gained tremendous amounts of national presence and popularity. My argument more specifically is that fraternities have become scapegoats of counterculture, that they have been created from the need to break stuffy traditions but have been ostracized when they get too out of control.
A counter-argument to my position where fraternities are seen as counter-culture would be to believe that fraternities have always had always had these inherent problems that persisted throughout time since their founding. So an argument that someone could make is that Southern fraternities hold strong ties to racism. Specifically, certain actions of the Kappa Alpha Order of University of Alabama have recently been suspended. Unlike distasteful themed-parties that are usually isolated occurrences, Kappa Alpha Order's "Old South" parade of dressing up in Confederate attire have been an inherently racist and historically persisting tradition.
Both sides recognize that there are problems with fraternities. This counter-argument serves to show that fraternities have persisting issues such as racism within their culture, whereas my argument tries to show fraternities went through a change within the relatively recent past because of public pressure.
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