This is a really interesting article on the increasing number of reported incidents of brutal hazing rituals — sometimes resulting in death — among Asian American fraternities: The New Animal Houses. NPR’s Tell Me More picked up on the story with its own really interesting, really sad segment: Asian-American Frat Life Marred By Hazing.

It’s true, we’ve recently heard about a significant number of hazing-related deaths among Asian American fraternities. However, I wouldn’t necessarily single it out as an Asian American thing. There are fraternities/sororities, sports teams and other organizations that engage in hazing, regardless of race and/or culture.

Having never been involved in an Greek organization before, I can’t really speak to why young college students are compelled to join, and then go through the harrowing, dangerous and/or humiliating rituals they sometimes have to endure just to “belong.” (I am not, of course, talking about all fraternities, but you can’t deny that these practices do indeed occur.)

But I do know when a fraternity is collectively involved, it makes it that much harder for any one person to shoulder the blame and take responsibility when something goes horribly wrong. If they entire fraternity, as a collective entity, was taking part, who is really to blame?

Which member of Lambda Phi Epsilon at the University of Texas takes responsibility for the events that led to the death of Jack Phoummarath, who died of alcohol poisoning

as a result of hazing? Who’s the sad sack who gets to face Phoummarath’s family and tell them what happened that night?

All I know is, hearing Jack’s sister Marion in the NPR story, her voice cracking at the mention of her brother… it just breaks your heart. No one should have to go through that. It’s senseless.

For more Angry Asian Man, go here.

NPR’s All Things Considered, not known in youth circles for its edge, has been killing it lately with a series on the treatment of women in the US military, doing personal interviews of post-traumatized veterans.

Roadside bombs? Senseless blood and death and killing? No. the worst thing about serving in the military is being sexually harassed and raped and gang raped by their fellow soldiers and then having to report the abuse to the same people who perpetrated it.

The 2000 VA study reports that 55 percent of women experienced sexual harassment in the military. And a 2005 study estimates that more than half of women in the reserves and National Guard suffered sexual assault or harassment during their service, according to news reports.

sexual trauma, combined with combat trauma, makes women far more vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sandra, a vet going through rehabilitation in California, put it pretty baldly: “I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.”

Has US military culture degenerated to its lowest levels ever under the torture presidency or has it always been this bad?

Our fearless founder, Farai Chideya, interviewed Sen Obama yesterday for “News & Notes,” the show she hosts for NPR, for those of you living in LA, where the show tapes but doesn’t air! Here’s a taste:

Farai: You want to withdraw from Iraq by early summer next year… those will be powerful images of US convoys leaving Iraq and making their way to Turkey. Couldn’t it ruin you if people come to associate you with defeat?

Obama: Oh, I think people at this point have a pretty good sense of whose war this is. The critical task for us now is not only stabilizing the situation in Iraq and getting our combat troops out, it’s also that we’ve got al-Qaida, as strong as it has been since 9/11, regrouping in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border. And we’ve got real serious problems there. And we’re not going to be able to tackle those issues, which I think the American people understand are one of the most prominent threats we face, unless we are not entirely bogged down in this mess in Iraq.

Farai: You have said that your daughters, because of their economic privilege, should not benefit from affirmative action in the same way that some other people might. If elected, will you fight to keep affirmative action alive? If so, to benefit whom?

Obama: Oh, I’m a firm believer in affirmative action. The question that was asked was, do I think that my daughters are disadvantaged. And I said no, because their father is a United States senator and both their parents are working professionals. But what I also said is that there is a strong and ongoing intersection between race and class in this country, that racism is still an issue that has to battled. Affirmative action is an important tool, although a limited tool, for us to deal with these issues. I say limited simply because a large portion of our young people right now never even benefit from affirmative action because they’re not graduating from high school. And unless we do a better job with early childhood education, fixing crumbling schools, investing to make sure that we’ve got an excellent teacher in front of every classroom, and then making college affordable, we’re not even going to reach the point where our children can benefit from affirmative action.

Check out the whole interview at the links above.