Our Guys: the Glen Ridge rape and the secret life of the perfect suburb

The community of Glen Ridge, New Jersey is shocked by a rape scandal in Bernard Lefkowitz's book. Leslie, a 17 year old retarded girl, is lured by a group of football players into a basement where she is raped with a broomstick and baseball bat. Leftkowitz explores the aftermath of this shocking incident in the perfect suburban community. His sociological study of the community explores the town's affluence and white male jock culture and how the confluence of both contributed to the boys' actions and the community response. The same factors that created the sense of entitlement in these "golden boys" lead many in the community to defend them and condemn the victim. The result is a fascinating study of privilege, gender, and athletics that eclipses the story of the rape itself.

The Working Poor

According to the American Dream mythology, if you work hard you can support yourself and your family. David Shipler documents the fallacy of this myth through his profiles of some of America's working poor. The strength of this book is its balance in showing how many factors--including both societal factors and personal choices--contribute to working class poverty and, in turn, can lead to possible solutions. Through the individual stories of all varieties of the working poor (urban families, migrant workers, etc.), Shipler shows the interconnection of various factors that lead individuals into poverty and prevent them from working themselves out from under it. Affordable, safe housing, reliable transportation (public and otherwise), preventative health care, affordable and reliable childcare, the public educational system, family support, basic parenting skills--a deficiency in any of these areas can easily lead to a downward spiral that can affect every other area as well. And while in many cases poor choices by individuals contribute to the cycle, Shipler explains that the middle class may make the same choices but they are less devastating because they have a support system that includes family, education, knowledge of resources, and opportunities, that the working poor do not. I found this to be a very powerful book that deserves to be read by people of all backgrounds.

Amazing Grace

I had a conversation with a coworker who was reading Amazing Grace this weekend. For awhile in college, I wanted to be Jonathan Kozol when I grew up. Kozol has been a tireless and passionate advocate on poverty and education issues since being fired from a Boston school in the 60’s for teaching a Langston Hughes poem that deviated from the curriculum. Amazing Grace features the neighborhood of Mott Haven in the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country. Drugs, childhood asthma, and AIDS are prevalent and jobs and fathers are scarce. Through conversations with the people of this neighborhood, Kozol shows the grace and humanity that remains in a community where so much seems lost. Kozol may not be good at offering solutions, but he does pose important questions about what and who we value as a society.