Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism, drug dependency, murder, sexual assault, and violent hazing rituals.

“A $400,000 drug network organized by five fraternity kids and three friends was wild enough, but the conversation about deaths and millions of dollars felt like subreddit talk.”

The case that Marshall investigates in Among the Bros seems implausible at first. In fact, the case is true, and it reveals various aspects of fraternity culture and drug use that Marshall will explore throughout the book.

“For certain kids on campus, the SAEs were elite in part because stories like Mountain Weekend showed what they could get away with.”

Prestigious frats like SAE are steeped in Privilege and Institutionalized Racism. Members come from wealthy, usually white families, and they rarely face consequences for their actions, including criminal actions. Mikey and Rob know that as frat members, they are more or less untouchable when they start dealing drugs at C of C.

“Before the end of the century, Kappa Alpha voted to ban expansion north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and although the policy has been reversed, all but a dozen or so of its 130 or so chapters remain in the South.”

In the 1800s, the Mason-Dixon Line marked the divide between Northern states where enslavement was banned and the Southern states that still enslaved people. In the modern day, it still represents the cultural divide in the United States. KA’s reluctance to expand its chapters into Northern states indicates its ties to white supremacist beliefs, reflecting Privilege and Institutionalized Racism.