Our Guys

Our Guys

Adult nonfiction
"Seated behind the parents were the pumped-up athletes who were
friends of the defendants and their younger brothers. And more:
grandparents, parents, teenagers, friends, ministers. Breathe deeply
and you could imagine the smell of fresh-cut grass and barbeques in
the courtroom. Judge Cohen--who lived in Maplewood, an attractive
upper-middle class New Jersey suburb, who drove a red convertible
sports car, who had a son who wrestled in school--recognized those
faces. They looked like the faces he had spent much of his life
with. Hard-working, churchgoing people. People who sent their kids
to the Little League, who belonged to the Civic Association."
Judge Cohen, described above, presided over a trial that
captured the attention of a nation. In 1989 in Glen Ridge, New
Jersey, a very upscale suburb, a group of golden boys, star athletes
from the town's elite, was accused of gang raping a mentally
challenged peer, shoving a stick, a broom handle, and a baseball bat
into her vagina. How could this happen? Why would teens raised in
the lap of luxury, kids who were hometown heroes and had everything in
their favor, do such a thing? What had gone wrong? How had a serpant
have entered Paradise?
Columbia University professor Bernard Lefkowitz attempts to
answer these and similar questions in his extensively researched Our
Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb.
Readers get intimate looks at the lives of the major players and the
society the teens grew up in--one in which adults looked the other way
when confronted with things they didn't want to see in their towns,
their schools, even their own families. I found it to be quite a
disturbing, thought provoking cautionary tale.
What struck me most strongly was the role of binary and power
imbalances in the legal process and administration of justice. Four
in particular were on display.
The first was athletes and their supporters versus the non
sports obsessed. The accused played prominent roles in high school
team sports. When the news broke that they were accused of about a
vile a crime as one could commit, the public reaction was concern on
their behalf. The futures of these promising young men (our guys),
somehow more promising than non jocks, were in jeopardy. This slant
portrays them as victims, rather than active participants.
Strongly related to this is people without disabilities versus
people with them. Because of the victim's intellectual impairment, a
lot of people, even some who believed that the incident had happened,
believed that ignoring her pain and suffering and any trauma that
would effect her future was an acceptable price to pay to keep "our
guys" out of jail. Although the victim and the accused grew up in the
same town, there is the persistent implication that they belonged
while she was an outsider.
The accused were male; the victim was female. This imbalance
permeated the book. For example, the victim was often portrayed as a
seductress the "poor boys" found impossible to resist. Most telling,
however, was that her previous sexual history was put on full display
while theirs were never alluded to. Lefkowitz discovered that as
early as middle school the boys were getting away with sexual
behaviors such as touching female peers in unwanted ways and
masturbating in front of them.
Finally, the families of the accused were powerful, socially
connected, and well off. Their status worked for them and their
parents had deep pockets. Shenanigans such as underage alcohol
possession, theft, country club vandalism, and the total trashing of a
disliked peer's home, acts that would have gotten less well off kids
in deep trouble, were overlooked when parents pulled out checkbooks.
Besides being a spellbinding read, Our Guys is a cautionary
tale. Glen Ridge, rather than being an aberation, is representative
of number of nice towns. I can imagine something like this happening
in the suburb in which I live. How about you?
On a personal note, my sibling has severe brain damage. He was she in
high school and about as savvy on peer interactions as I am on nuclear
physics. I can easily imagine teen age Harriet being victimized by
entitled boys and revictimized in court. I had to testify against a
guy who attempted to rape me. It's a hostile environment and a
challenge for even someone who is fully mentally capable to navigate.
Never mind someone with the social savvy of a first grader.
A great big shout out goes out to the author for uncovering and
sharing these inconvenient truths.
jules hathaway



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