? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Among the Bros is a harrowing portrait of America as an establishment. In 2018, freelance journalist Max Marshall arrived at College of Charleston to investigate a small-time Xanax trafficking ring. He quickly realized that drugs were the least of his worries.

What he finds are murders, unexplained deaths + USD mns floating around what is the breeding ground of US leadership. Marshall describes Among the Bros to The Guardian as a book about the social consequences of a life without consequences, an exposé of how fraternities are a pass to behave badly while being fast-tracked towards positions of power.

Marshall’s book reveals how drugs and corruption go hand in hand behind fraternity doors, as the reader is immersed in the dark underbelly of these all-boys clubs. Secretive and extreme hazing rituals during the infamous Hell Week, during which fraternity pledges endure brutal exercises of power before being initiated, are detailed in the book. Pledges were waterboarded, made to drink their own vomit, and put cigars out on their skin. And then there is the criminal activity.

Fraternity members who sold drugs said that the experience taught them supply chain economics, salesmanship, delegation, and marketing. In 2016, eight men aged 19-25 were arrested by the Charleston Police Department in South Carolina in what is one of the largest drug busts in the city’s history. Alongside the drugs, authorities found seven firearms, a grenade launcher, and over USD 200k in cash.

THE SHOCKER- The young men knew that regardless of the lengths they went to, not only would they have a soft place to land, but that they would still be viable candidates for high-status and high-paying corporate jobs after graduation.

The shocking statistic that proves his point: Only 2% of America’s population have been part of a fraternity, but 80% of Fortune 500 executives, 76% of US senators and congressmen, 85% of supreme court justices, and every president since 1825 save for two have been fraternity men, according to the author.

You can find the book on Amazon.

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