The complete case file must be obtained from the District Court in which the case was last heard.
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Should Sociologists Run for Public Office?
Upcoming national election inspires sociologist to contemplate the merits of bringing sociological imagination to elected office
by Jack Nusan Porter, University of Massachusetts-Lowell
http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/septoct04/fn7.html
Jack Porter, Leslie Schneider KO’d in prelims – Newton Tab Newspaper (September 17, 2003)
“Alderman Candidate Jack Porter and School Committee Candidate
Leslie Schneider were eliminated in Tuesday’s preliminary election,
clearing the way for the other four alderman candidates and two School
Committee candidates, and at-Large Alderman from Ward 3 was Leonard
Gentile who got 2,425 votes. He was followed by Ted Hess-Mahan, with
2,364 votes, David Donahue with 1,582, and Paul Snyder with 1,172. . . .
Porter only received 454 votes, and Schneider received 971 votes.”
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| Dr. Rabbi Jack N. Porter |
This Newton Tab synopsis captured last fall’s local
preliminary election results of an affluent suburb west of Boston called
Newton, a city with 85,000 citizens. Of course, about four times as
many people voted in the final election in November, but the rankings
were the same—Gentile and Hess-Mahan, both fine candidates, won. I lost.
It was my second time running. I had run for School Committee three
years earlier and garnered over 2,000 votes.
Running for Public Office
Did I learn anything from all this? Did my PhD in sociology help
or hinder me? Should other sociologists run for office? The answer is
“yes.” Personally, I learned a great deal about American politics. My
PhD both helped and hindered me but in unexpected ways. And, yes, more sociologists should run for office.
A small ad in an issue of Footnotes last year, in which I
solicited information from other sociologists who had run for office,
yielded only one phone call. It was from sociologist Richard Hill of San
Diego State University who ran for U.S. Congress in 1982. Yet, I know
others who have run. Mike Malec, Boston College, ran successfully for a
similar Newton aldermanic seat a decade or more ago.
How can sociology help or hinder a political campaign? The
problem is the Millsian sociological imagination itself; it is a
powerful lens that when aimed at our society presents an unfamiliar
picture to which we are not prepared to respond.. Moreover, it implies a
leap of understanding and a need for cooperation and involvement for
which U.S. citizens are only at times able to accept.
This lack of sociological imagination is what makes U.S. politics
so frustrating for energetic agents of change. Let us examine the
components of what I mean by the sociological imagination.
As regards turning personal problems into public issues, the best
political candidates do this well. For example: To an audience of the
unemployed, the skilled politician asks, “What is President Bush doing
about it?” To the parents of a son who died in the Iraq war the
strategic politician demurs, “Did our government lie to us?” “You
cannot afford medications? Why?”
C. Wright Mills’ “big picture” presents a more difficult
challenge for Americans, with their anti-socialist history and their
abiding trust in business and government to comprehend. For example, I
tried to have my Newton constituents understand that the traffic and
parking in Newton—a major problem confronting most suburbs—were caused
not simply by drivers cutting through Newton streets to avoid tolls, but
by inadequate promotion of public transportation. We need to get more
people taking the T, our subway system, and leave cars on the periphery
parking lots. (Interestingly, the late visionary architect Louis Kahn
said the same thing 40 years ago in Philadelphia in the recent
documentary, My Architect, by his son Nathaniel Kahn. While his idea was totally rejected by the city powers, L. Kahn was right.)
Too often, politicians piecemeal solutions to problems, and eschew the “big picture.”
Personal Involvement
Mills was not a Howard Dean, and to my knowledge wrote little
about actually organizing the masses, but this country needs more
personal responsibility and involvement by its citizens. Take the case
of traffic, again. My sociological training taught me to understand that
maybe we have too many cars on the road because the family structure
has changed. This is a large leap for politicians to make and a
dangerous one. It implies “blaming the victim,” so to speak. What it
meant for me on the stump was to tell audiences to give up a car and
perhaps to get a smaller car.
The reasoning went as follows: 20 years ago, when my wife and two
kids moved to Newton, we had two cars, one each for my wife and me (we
could have had only one car, since I took the T or I could have driven
her to work and picked her up). But today, our kids are grown up and
each of them wants a car, so we have doubled the number of cars from one
or two to three or four or even five cars in a matter of two decades.
Plus some of these are SUVs, much larger than my former cars.
“Blaming the victim” did not sit well with Newton’s “yuppies.”
This sociological “leap” was too much for them. They wanted government
to “fix” things for them and immediately. They do not consider
themselves part of the problem nor do they want to give up any
“comforts,” such as their huge cars. As Pogo said, “We have confronted
the enemy, and it is us!”
But it wasn’t for these issues that I lost the preliminary
election. In fact, it made my campaign more interesting and more useful.
I ran not simply to win but to create a platform for my ideas, and the
real challenge was to put sociological and political and economic ideas
into practice. It is easy to theorize and sermonize, but to practically
build something that helps people is infinitely harder. Try it sometime,
and then criticize your local pols, as you will have earned the right.
To win in America, you need three things: money, organization,
and ideas. You might win with two of them, but ideas are definitely
needed in every campaign, and you definitely need organization or money,
preferably both, although one can win a campaign with superb
organization. Money alone will not win an election, but it certainly
helps.
I
had great ideas but little money and not an effective organization. I
also was inexperienced in running for office and made a lot of mistakes.
I had to learn to ask for money, but it got easier as I went along. I
will run again, especially if the right position opens up. If Barney
Frank decides not to run for U.S. Congress, I will run. But for these
races one needs at least $100,000. But heck, if Howard Dean can raise
$41 million for the presidential race, one hundred grand should be easy
to raise.
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Cabaret Nights: Tales of One Rabbi’s Short-Lived Pulpit in Paradise
By Jack Nusan Porter
The Jewish Daily Forward - December 19, 2003
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| Rabbi Dr. Jack Nusan Porter |
For a month before and a month after the September 11
terrorist attacks, I was the southernmost rabbi in the continental
United States or, as my brother liked to say, the “Key Vester Rebbe.”
My memories of those days resurfaced recently when I
read “Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret” (University of Chicago Press,
2003), by two University of California at Santa Barbara sociology and
women’s studies professors, Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor.
The 801 Cabaret — at 801 Duval St., on Key West’s main drag, excuse the pun — is a place whose inner walls I once knew well.
It all began when I answered an ad — interestingly
enough, it had appeared in the Forward — that announced “Rabbi Wanted in
Paradise.” For a rabbi with only three years of experience, it was a
great opportunity, especially in light of the ennui that ensconced me
then, a side effect of my divorce. Key West did indeed sound like
“paradise,” especially when one factored in the $50,000 salary — and the
free apartment.
I was hired by the nondenominational Bnai Zion
synagogue to do outreach to Key West’s citizens, be they Cuban exiles,
“snowbirds” from the North, Jews who “immigrated” from Miami, gays,
lesbians or drag queens.
While I had briefly attended the interdenominational
Academy for Jewish Religion in New York City, I was ordained by an
Orthodox rabbinic court in Manhattan. Basically, I’m a Conservative
rabbi with nondenominational feelings, that comes from an Orthodox
family background. All of this means that I’m a fairly radical rabbi,
maybe even too radical for Key West, but forgive me for getting ahead of
myself.
Known alternately as the “Conch Republic” (after those
fibrous mollusks), “the Rock” (as in “I need to get off the Rock”) or
simply “Paradise,” Key West is closer to Cuba (90 miles) than to Miami
(154 miles). For years, it has provided a haven to writers, kooks,
smugglers, artists, intellectuals and tourists.
It’s not perfect, of course, but it does come pretty close. Even so, I only lasted two months there.
My mandate from the synagogue board was to try to
increase shul membership, and one great untapped source — the synagogue
and I agreed — was the gay and lesbian community. One way to reach out
was to do kiruv to the heroes of that community — the drag queens.
To Rupp and Taylor, drag queens are not simply gender
benders; they are social protest personified. Every night, on stage at
the 801 Cabaret they educate the public about what it means to be a man
or a woman in our society. To be a drag queen is not for the
fainthearted; as some say, it takes “balls.”
My goal was to reach out to these men, or at least to
the Jews among them — and to get them into synagogue. As jobs go, it
wasn’t unpleasant. It was certainly colorful.
At the 801, there were Inga (Roger), Kylie (Kevin),
Sushi (Gary), Milla (Dean), TV (Timothy), Scabola (Mathew), Gugi (Rov),
Desiray (Joel) and Margo (David). Other Key West favorites include Lady
V, Mama Crass, Baby Drag, Krystal Klear, Raven, Mr. Randy Roberts and
the Bitch Sisters. Of them, only Margo, Mr. Randy Roberts and possibly
the Bitch Sisters were Jewish.
At first, there was some confusion on my part. But the folks at the 801 were more than happy to clarify for me.
“Jack, I could go to shul as Margo,” David told me,
“but what would be the purpose? It would be a bit of a shock at first,
and Bnai Zion would accept me, but I would most likely go to shul as
David, not Margo. Margo is my stage act. It would serve no purpose
except for entertainment value to go as her. I’d go as David.” But in
the end, he never came.
I got into trouble with Mr. Randy Roberts when a Boston
Globe reporter writing about my outreach efforts ended up calling him a
“cross-dresser” in the article. He is an entertainer and a female
impersonator, he told me, and don’t you forget it.
I was told that I was the first rabbi to come to a drag
show. While that is not entirely true, I was pleased and honored. At
one show, I was a “victim” of Randy’s humor, no matter that I was a
rabbi. I had gone to the bathroom during his act; when I returned, he
asked me in front of the entire audience: “Did you wash your hands,
rabbi?” Dutifully, I responded, “Yes, I did.”
While dressing in drag goes against the halachic
prohibition of men dressing in women’s attire, drag queens could
certainly bring some much-needed energy and spirit to synagogues and
schools. Plus, they could teach lessons about tolerance, diversity and
sexuality.
However, it would take a very liberal congregation
indeed to have drag queens teaching Hebrew school. Despite its
tolerance, I doubt even Bnai Zion would allow men in drag to teach
Sunday school, although out of drag would be a different story — albeit
one that never came up.
Well, this rabbi may have been too radical or simply
just too “inexperienced” for Key West; I was fired after two months. It
turns out I’d become too involved in Key West’s nightlife, neglecting my
duties. Among the side projects I poured myself into instead was a
screenplay: “Key West Rabbi.”
That’s Key West for you.
Jack Nusan Porter is the author of “The Jew as Outsider”
and “Sexual Politics in Nazi Germany,” and editor of “The Sociology of
American Jewry” and “Jewish Radicalism,” among other books, and an
adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts in
Lowell.
Dr.
Jack Nusan Porter of Newton has thrown his hat into the democratic race
for the 4th Congressional District from Massachusetts seat. Making his
announcement this week, Porter joins me in the studio to talk about how
he thinks his new kind of democrat approach may help him win but
perhaps more importantly, move the Democratic Party towards the center.
