A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Prize Finalist
An Edgar Finalist
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"Lefkowitz's extraordinary chronicle...is an important book, one that should be read by parents and educator's alike...It's possible to believe that there is not a whole new batch of "our guys" graduating from high school this year all across America...We want to think that crimes like the Glen Ridge rape are a consequence of a brutalizing environment and occur only in the impoverished inner cities...But as Lefkowitz writes: "These Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother's dream, every father's pride...in their perfection they belonged to all of us." And if a community like that, without knowing or intending it, is raising its boys to be abusive in their dealings with girls and women...then what's going on in the rest of America? Is there some dark unforeseen underside to the American Dream that leads decent, privileged boys to behave like a pack of jackals? Lefkowitz...argues persuasively that there is...for if we are raising our male children to be feral, which is to say, if they are becoming incapable of empathy for others, especially their female counterparts, then what will their children be like?"--New York Times Book Review, front page
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These boys had been raised to feel empowered, that they could get away with things that other *mortals* could not. They treated most women and girls with disrespect. They had very little contact with girls or women in a situation where the girls could be their *equals*, since all of their activities involved sports teams. None of them did volunteer work, were on the school paper, or in activities where they worked on an equal footing with females. What was especially alarming and dismaying was that the girls, the Jockettes or Little Mothers, as Lefkowitz calls them---put up with the vile behavior of these boys and defended them!!!! I kept thinking of bits from "Reviving Ophelia" when I read about these girls. They must have felt that they had no identity apart from these boys.
Lefkowitz writes of the boys who raped Leslie: "'These Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother's dream, every father's pride. They were not only Glen Ridge's finest, but in their perfection they belonged to all of us. They were Our Guys."
This next quote is from the book, and refers to Laurino, who was the prosecutor in the case: "But there was something else about this case, something that seemed to provoke him more than it provoked his fellow prosecutors: the values of the defendants. He discerned in their relatively brief lives a pattern of abuse of power, a corruption of decent intent, for which these young men andmany of those who had guided them shared responsibility."
It was beyond his reach, but if he could have done so, Laurino would have convicted the values of Glen Ridge. "They believed themselves to be invincible....that problems that would arise would be taken care of out of the deep pockets of their parents or the compassion of a small-town police department or the compassion of a small-town school system or the compassion of small-town residents who knew each other and wanted to handle things among themselves. They've been getting free rides all their life."
I would highly recommend this book, especially for parents, coaches, and teachers. This lionization of student athletes by these people ultimately does no one any good and can destroy lives. There has to be a better way.
Anyone from a high school where football players were special beings, or who is familiar with that phenomenon, will appreciate the focus of "Our Guys." The power these kids exercised in Glen Ridge was atrocious, as was their behavior. Enabled by their parents, teachers and peers, they dominated social situations, treated girls like trash, turned parties into destruction derbies and pretty much behaved like animals.
The story is told very well, making for interesting reading. And particularly if you have kids approaching or presently living their teen years, it will scare the H out of you.