After the recent Zeta Beta Chi hazing incident, I have heard a few people talking badly about the Greek community. The conversations mostly contain comments such as, all they do is party and haze one another, or who would want to be in a fraternity or sorority; someone must be really desperate for friends to join one of those.

I am a member of the Greek community and have first-hand experience with what happens within a Greek organization. I can give you some insight. Fraternities and sororities are not all about parties and drinking. Do not get me wrong, there are parties and people do drink. But it is not in any extreme like the movies and popular media portray it to be.

In reality, Greek members party and drink about as much as a regular college student, possibly even less.

Many of the activities that fraternities and sororities engage in are not hazing. Mostly it involves learning about the organization: What its principles are, how it was founded and what it stands for. In addition, you learn how the fraternity works and get to hold influential positions that help run the fraternity. Basically, you learn skills that you will use later in life.

For example, you learn how the fraternity manages finances since most are non-profit organizations. You also learn the duties the president of that organization must perform.

There are also things that help you to get to know the people who are members of that particular Greek organization, such as having one-on-one discussions or having a meal as a group. This is similar to what you do with your family when you all sit down and have dinner together. This helps you become more than just friends but family members; there is a reason why we consider each other brothers and sisters.

Greeks are not self-centered organizations as some believe. We participate in various organizations on campus and in some cases even started some; how many of you know that the Exponent was started by the fraternity Phi Sigma? There are also the hours of community service that we perform such as raising money for Badger Camp, Habitat for Humanity, or doing something as simple as raking leaves for a church or shoveling snow out of parking lots on campus.

I know that the recent article about ZBX and the few specific things they did with or to their new members has helped you form an opinion, but can you really judge a whole community on just a few flaws? Your friends have flaws that you may not like, but you are still friends with them, are you not? I am in no way condoning some of the things ZBX did, taking notes on pornography being one of them. But from what I have seen of their organization, its contributions, and the members, I know this is just one flaw which they are now working to fix.
You cannot judge the Greek community on the negatives. You have to view the organization as a whole and base your opinion on everything they do, just like you would do when you are looking at a family member.