?New York? magazine: Mayor Rawlings is anti-domestic-violence ...

Mayor Mike Rawlings as seen in the anti-domestic-violence PSA posted yesterday

We can?t recall the last time a Dallas mayor had such a high national profile ? maybe when Laura Miller showed up in that Robert Redford-narrated coal documentary? But this has been a particularly good week for Mayor Mike Rawlings: Fresh off his Dallas cameo last night, alongside Patrick Duffy and Mark Cuban and Jerry Jones, the mayor is now the subject of a lengthy Q&A just posted to New York mag?s website in which the mayor talks about his anti-domestic-violence activism, which will include the March 23 rally in front of Dallas City Hall.

Rawlings was in New York just days ago with, among others, Patrick Stewart and Michael Bolton to launch the Ring the Bell campaign, and only yesterday Rawlings released that video in which he says, ?You can call a guy who abuses women a lot of things, but you can?t call him a man.?

Rawlings, on the other hand, is ?The Man?s-Man Mayor Who?s Trying to End Domestic Abuse,? according to the headline accompanying the New York Q&A, which begins:

You don?t need a Y chromosome to know Mike Rawlings is a man?s man. Before he became mayor of Dallas in 2011, he was the top executive at Pizza Hut and, before that, an athlete. He has a full of head of gray hair and a voice like Jeff Daniels. When he talks, he relies heavily on sports metaphors. None of this should make his anti-domestic-violence activism surprising, but it might make him the movement?s most refreshing new spokesman.

Last month, Rawlings firmly requested the presence of 10,000 Dallas men ? Boy Scouts welcome, too ? at City Hall on March 23, to show their solidarity for his just-announced Men Against Abuse campaign. ?I decided to call out the men of Dallas,? Rawlings told the Cut. ?I said, this is not a women?s issue, this is a men?s issue. Eighty-five, 90 percent of domestic violence is men on women.?

He also addresses local response to his newfound role as activist:

Any ideas, then, as to why domestic violence persists?

I was just kind of mad and suddenly people, at least in Dallas, were saying ?Oh my God, thank God, he?s taking this point of view.? It?s like, really? This one?s easy. In basketball parlance, this is a layup. All you have to do is stand there, throw it against the backboard, and it goes in. It?s real simple: Do not hit a woman.

Read the whole thing here.

Source: http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/new-york-magazine-mayor-rawlings-is-anti-domestic-violence-movements-most-refreshing-new-spokesman.html/

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