Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s PR denial, and the sociology of dissociation

“You know and I know that this isn’t the house we lived in,” Sigma Alpha Epsilon alum Blake Burkhart writes, responding to footage of his fraternity chanting racial slurs and singing songs about lynching.

On one hand, this reads exactly like standard PR boilerplate, the sort of flat denial we’re used to hearing from spokesmen and press secretaries when t…