It's a stance a lot of us feel we often, if not always, take. The fight can be against school districts denying students with disabilities an appropriate education; against oversized government agencies that seem to provide a few shadow services and a lot of frustration; against society itself when people gawk and point when they see someone acting "weird” or a child being “bad.” While all the naysayers are whispering Why don't you listen to reason and take what you're being given, what you're lucky we're even offering to you?; while they’re rolling their eyes, throwing tomatoes, jeering, we’re still out there over-exerting ourselves physically and emotionally to get what's right, to get what is due. 

Contending with Child Study Team members at an IEP meeting or blank-faced bureaucrats who represent the State may seem like small potatoes as compared to standing up to, say, the crooked bosses of unions under mob control on the docks. But there's a fervor, a deep-running kind of emotion, a sense of social justice, that many of us (all of us) often feel when we're called to speak for what we believe in. For me, this sense keeps me going when things aren’t looking too hopeful.

And this is why (well, it's one reason why) I've taken a lot of inspiration from the subject matter of Jim's book, On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York, and in particular from the "crusader" in the subtitle, the Rev. John M. "Peter" Corridan, S.J.. Corridan was the model for Father Pete Barry, the "waterfront priest" played by Karl Malden in the 1954 Academy Award winning movie On the Waterfront, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. The "gruff, guarded" Jesuit sought to break the mob's hold over the lives and livelihoods of the port's longshoremen and their families. Corridan played a central role in the creation of On the Waterfront, forming an unlikely but enduring alliance with Schulberg, the son of "Hollywood royalty.”

Budd Schulberg died on Wednesday. Jim's written a succinct yet detailed account of his life and works. Among much, much else, he was “an amazingly gifted listener; perhaps the result of a lifelong if highly manageable speech impediment, but more likely because listening was simply his supreme gift.” Schulberg had the crusading spirit himself, saying that "'It’s the writer’s responsibility to stand up against" the power of the Mr. Bigs of the world, be they mob bosses or "political ideologues." "'The writers,'" Schulberg said, "'are really almost the only ones, except for very honest politicians, who can make any dent on that system. I tried to do that. And that’s affected me my whole life'" (New York Times).

As I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear, over these past 10 years I, and Jim for sure, have watched On the Waterfront many a time. If you see the movie, there’s a scene known as “Christ in the shapeup” in which  Fr. Barry speaks in the bottom of a ship after a longshoreman has been killed by a “a slingload bearing cases of his beloved Irish whiskey.”  The speech about “‘what’s wrong with our waterfront’” was originally delivered by Corridan on the Jersey City waterfront in 1948:

“…You want to know what’s wrong with our waterfront? It’s the love of a lousy buck. It’s making the love of the lousy buck — the cushy job — more important than the love of man! It’s forgettin’ that every fellow down here is your brother in Christ! But remember, Christ is always with you — Christ is in the shape-up.”

I’m not, I should note, a religious person. I’m constantly not only inspired, but moved to act when I watch this scene or read the text of Corridan’s speech or, indeed, see the movie. And again, while it might seem more than incongruous to talk about (on the one hand) standing up to mob bosses on the docks and (on the other hand) standing up for one’s child to school administrators in an IEP meeting, the spirit of advocacy hovers over both. Because when it comes to my son’s education---the education that makes it possible for him to get a job and work at the job, to have a livelihood---we’re not going to see him sold short: He will get his chance to be a contender.

Jim will be appearing in a segment about Budd Schulberg on WNBC, at 7pm tonight, 7 August, Friday.