On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Shallal tells Paul Jay how speaking out against war led to his passion about schools.
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced March 26, 2014.
STORY TRANSCRIPT
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. Iām Paul Jay in Baltimore. And weāre continuing our series of interviews on Reality Asserts Itself with Andy Shallal. Heās the owner of Busboys and Poets group of restaurantsāwill soon be seven restaurants in the Washington, D.C., areaāand theyāre more or less the hub of most things progressive in Washington, D.C. And Andy now joins me in the studio.
Thanks for joining me again.
ANDY SHALLAL, D.C. MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Thank you so much, Paul.
JAY: So just quickly again, Busboys and Poets was founded in 2005. In 2003, Andy founded Iraqi Americans for Peaceful Alternatives in opposition of the invasion of Iraq, and heās been very involved in the peace movement. And weāre going to continue our discussion.
So, before we move on, I got to do aāwhat do you call it?āa lie of the land, a rules for this interview, ācause weāre starting to move into territory that involves the elections in D.C.
Now, we planned to do this series of Reality Asserts with Andy before there was an election for mayorāthat Andy was involved with, anyway. Weāthe idea for us was just heās an interesting person and Busboys and Poets is interesting and we wanted to know more about Andy.
But the timing worked out that it actually happened while Andyās running for mayor. So, as we havenāt yet interviewed anyone else running for mayorāalthough I have to say we have invited now most of the other candidates, and if any of them take us up on it, we will interview them as well, but that being said, weāre going to create a few specific rules about this, which Andy has agreed to.
The main rule is Andy canāt say anything negative about any of the other candidates, he canāt be critical of anyoneās record or anything, ācause theyāre not here to defend themselves and they may not be here to defend themselves. And I donāt know that Andy would have spent time doing that anyway. But the deal is heās going to be constructive. As he talks about his ideas about public policy, itās all about what his vision of solutions are, his vision of the future. And we are not going to trash anybody else whoās running, or even talk about things in the news about various people who are running. Weāre going to keep it clearly to what he thinks are solutions to the problem.
And that being said, letās get started.
SHALLAL: You really want me to be political and not trash anybody? Thatās an oxymoron.
JAY: I know it is not the American way.
SHALLAL: Really.
JAY: You know, I used to produce the main debate show on CBC in Canada, called CounterSpin, and we would invite leaders of partiesāyou know, we were on CBC, so we got very senior peopleāand we had that rule even in the middle of the election. They were not allowed to say a single negative word about another candidate. They could only talk about their constructive vision for policy. And itās unfortunate how little they had to say.
SHALLAL: Really. Thatās true.
JAY: Okay. But weāre not going to start immediately with policy stuff, although weāre going to kind of go there.
Off camera I was asking you whatās another important moment, formative moment in your thinking about how you look at the world, your politics, and you were talking about your kids and them going to school. So tell us that story.
SHALLAL: Well, you know, when you come to this country, it takesāand youāve already established your identity somewhere else, it takes a while for you to give up that identity and start a new one. And so, when you give up your old identity, you want to come into something that you feel really good about. You know, like I always say, Iām an American by choice, so I really am an American that takes my Americanism very seriously. And so I want to make sure that we hold this country to its values, to all the things that make it a desirable place for people to come to and live in, so the idea that once you start asserting yourself and become an American you start looking much more sensitively to how we do things in this country.
So I got very involved in my childrenās schools; all my kids went to public schools, and so I got very involved in them. And I remember being PTA president and, you know, getting involved in all levels of the school system, working with school boards, working on commissions, working on creating a better environment for kids, a more diverse environment, etc.
So one yearāit was 1996, I believe, when Clinton was getting ready to do his second termāthere was a moment there where there was a lot of friction between Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and the United States. And Clinton, I think, ordered some strategic attacks, some Tomahawk missiles that were sent into Baghdad and hit the airport at that time. And I was very upset about it because ofāagain, the collateral damage is always not talked about. And, in fact, during that one attack, Iraqās top artist, Layla Al-Attar, was killed and her daughter was blinded. They just happened to live not far from the airport, so she became the collateral damage for that attack. So I was very outspoken about it.
JAY: Itās also, was it not, the period of sanctions against Iraqā
SHALLAL: Yes, there were sanctions, of course, throughout the ā90s.
JAY: āthat some people suggested had killed tens of thousands, some people even say hundreds of thousands of children.
SHALLAL: Very damaging, very damaging. There was, you know, medicine that was withheld, some basic needs, like pencils and things like that, that were, you know, withheld from being able to, you know, be shipped to Iraq. So it created all kinds of hardships for people.
So I was very outspoken against that, very outspoken against the attacks.
And I remember that one year when the attacks were happening there was this fervor, anti-Iraq fervor that was going on, and I didnāt feel comfortable with it, you know, having kids in school who identify as part Iraqi at least. And I remember my daughter, my oldest daughter was talking to me about Iraq and trying to figure out what is this Iraq thing weāre talking about here, why are Iraqis such bad people, and, you know, didnāt realize that we are Iraqis too. You know, theyāre not bad people. It justāthe policies are the problem here.
So I went before her classroom to try to talk to the students about Iraq and Iraqi culture. I didnāt want to be politicalāthey were fourth graders. You know. So I wanted to have that opportunity to share the culture with the students. And the teacher at that time said, I donāt think itās a good idea for you to do that. And that was a moment. It blew my mind. I said, what do you mean itās not a good idea? This is actually a teachable moment. This is what teachers live for, that moment where they can connect reality with what theyāre teaching. Wouldnāt that be the perfect time for me to do that? And it had to be pushed up the chain to the principal, and then the communications director of the school system, and then the superintendent. I thought, wow, I want to talk to a fourth-grade class about Iraqi culture, and suddenly I have to talk to the superintendent of schools in order for me to be allowed to do that. What other parent would put up with that?
And so I really got very, very upset and ended up, you know, asserting myself. I said, here I am, PTA president. I, like, painted walls in the school. I served, you know, at the fairs. I baked cakes for the school.
JAY: I mean, itās a little bit of a softball question, but do you think if you had gone to talk about Israeli culture, you would have run into the same problem?
SHALLAL: Well, what prompted me, actually, to talk about Iraq, even, was that they were promoting military activism for kids. In fact, there was a parent that came who happened to be in the Navy, and he was promoting career opportunities in the Navy to fourth graders. And I thought, well, he can do that, but I want to be able to come and also talk about Iraq. You know. And that was reallyāso he was completely allowed. He didnāt have to go through the chain of command. He didnāt have to go through the principal and the superintendent. He was more than welcomed.
And here I am, talking about Iraq, and suddenly I became the outcast. And I realized how easy it is for someone who has asserted himself into a culture, became an American by choice, values what this country has to offer, and suddenly I felt like an outsider.
JAY: Again.
SHALLAL: Again. And it was very disturbing, frankly, very emotionally disturbing to me to see how easily that could be taken away, that youāre always looked at with those suspicious eyesāyouāre not really an American.
JAY: Yeah, because really being an American means really believing in the religion of Americanism. And you donāt critique America when itās at war, you donāt talk about the enemyā
SHALLAL: Absolutely.
JAY: āin any positive way during a war, ācause that just aināt American.
SHALLAL: And to me that was the complete opposite of what an American is, that an American should be one that questions everything, questions their government. In fact, I always feel like people like me are the insurance policy for American democracy. We are the ones that hold this democracy to the standards, ācause a lot of times people in it donāt really appreciate it or recognize it.
JAY: So weāre going to segue now into some of the issues youāre dealing with. And the schools is a big passion for you. You said you were president of the PTA. You got into this whole, you know, fight over just speaking to a class. This has been a preoccupation of yours for a long time, and, I would guess, mostly ācause youāve got two kids, you have two daughters, and I knowā.
SHALLAL: And two sons, actually.
JAY: And two sons.
And I know that it wasnāt in factāyou know, recently I hadāI guess people that watch know we had twins recently, so now all of a sudden Iām thinking about schools in a completely different way. Itās not, like, just someāyou know, one of many issues; itās like, where are these kids going to go to school in a little while?
So your ideas about education make it a bit personal how you came to some of these conclusions. And then what would your vision be? What would you do to fix the school system?
SHALLAL: Well, I live in D.C. now, so the school system is always at the forefront of discussion in D.C. We are in a situation where we have a city that has some of the most educated people in the entire country. We have more degrees per square inch than any other city in the United States. And yet schools are failing. In fact, in some areas, 60 percent of the kids drop out before they finish high school. Fifty percent of them come out functionally illiterate. And if we were a state, weād be number 51. That is not a good record.
And schools are important for a number of reasons. First of all, if you have kids, certainly theyāre important directly to you. But even people that donāt have children see schools as something very significant in their community, because oftentimes school determines so much. They determine how safe a community is, how clean it is, how tightly knit the neighborhood is. All of those things revolve around a school building. So itās really important to have good schools. And, clearly, they determine the value of your home. Thatās for sure. Certain school districts are coveted, and the homes are much more expensive to buy because of that reason.
So I have a real passion for schools because I do believe that schools are the foundation of a community, of a society.
JAY: And given how much trouble most city school systems are in, unless youāre talking some top-tier private schools and such, do you think thereās a sort ofāwhen I say they, I mean, you know, in the American eliteātheyāre quite happy with a kind of two-tier educated society. You know, youāve got the upper-tier private schools that are trainedālike, if you go to New York, especially, theyāreāyou know, kids are being trained to become the new rulers of the society.
And to a large extent, you know, itās interesting: in this information age, you can actually be completely uneducated and still be quite productive. Like, I made a film in Afghanistan, and I met guys that did not know the Earth was round, did not know where Germany was on a map, couldnāt find it, but they could drive a modern truck, they could work an AK-47, like, they could understand a certain piece of technology.
So, I mean, do you think thereās, likeāthey donāt want people to be in the know in any real way?
SHALLAL: I think itās reallyāitās hard to know what intentions are, obviously. But I think people that are moving to cities nowāand more and more people are moving into cities, more people that have money, more people that have power and influence are moving into cities. They expect more. So thatās why thereās been this huge changeover about education suddenly in urban environments, because for a while we just thought urban schools just didnāt matter. You know, the people that were there didnāt matter. Their voice didnāt matter. They didnāt have the power, they didnāt have the money, they didnāt have the clout, so it didnāt matter. And now that people are moving into cities that feel it mattersāyeah, I want my kids to go to good schools, and Iām not interested in spending $40,000 a year to send my third-grader to elementary school. Thatās whatās happening in many of those cities. Itās happening in D.C. So the focus on schools, unfortunately, has started because thereās a certain class of people moving into urban areas.
JAY: With gentrification.
SHALLAL: Absolutely. So whatās happening in D.C., for instance, if we want to look specifically about one area that Iām very familiar with now, is that in D.C. the achievement gap has gone off the charts. The factāthe achievement gap between black kids and white kids has gone off the charts.
The fact of the matter is that if you look at the school system in general, you see an increase in numbers as far as standardized tests. Now, Iām not saying standardized tests are the be-all and end-all. They shouldnāt be. Iām not an advocate of just standardized testing as the only matrix to judge a school. But I am saying that if weāre going to use thatāand thatās what theyāre using now to determine what a school is doing well or not wellābut letās use that matrix that they use. So if you use that matrix alone, you see that in D.C. public schools thereās been an increase. Weāve been doing well year after year since education reform in 2007.
If you peel one layer outside of that, you see that the increase has been solely due to demographic changes, not that weāre doing better. In fact, black kids have flattened out. The gap between black kids and white kids today is double what it was in 2007 when education reform started.
JAY: Why? How did educationāis educational reform itself one of the reasons for it?
SHALLAL: No. Education reform did nothing to improve the school system is what Iām saying. The fact of the matter is you have demographic changes that have come in in some schools.
JAY: No, but Iām saying youāre saying itās actually worse now.
SHALLAL: Well, the gap is worse. And the reason why the gap is worse is because black kids have not changed at all. Theyāve stayed flat. Itās like we have done nothing.
But what weāve done is weāve closed a lot of schools, weāve fired a lot of teachers, weāve restructured schools, weāve privatized schools, weāve opened a ton of charter schools. And all of that has resulted in zero advancement for the kids that need it the most. The fact that you have kids that come in that have the parental support, that have the wraparound services that they need, that have afterschool programs, that have a rich environment outside the school system, of course theyāre going to do well. Thatās given.
JAY: So the schools are doing better when theyāre dealing with people in gentrified areasā
SHALLAL: Absolutely.
JAY: āand have that class sophistication and demand for that kind of education.
SHALLAL: Absolutely. And the schools that are in areas that have not gentrified yet are doing very, very poorly. So weāve created this double-tier system.
JAY: And I know from what weāre seeing in Baltimoreāand Iāve seen other kinds of studiesāsometimes thatās quite deliberate, in the sense that people that are sitting on real estate and want real estate speculation, they want conditions to get so bad people just leave, and then you build a nice grade school and bring in a whole different kind of class and, often, color of people.
SHALLAL: And thatāsāI think thatās the rumble under the surface that people are really upset about, and thatās why thereās been a lot of tension, racial tension especially, in Washington, D.C., because people feel that tsunami coming. You know, itās like what happened in Southeast Asia when people that were on the beach were hearing this rumble but they couldnāt figure out what was happening, but they were afraid, and there wasnāt ground high enough for them to go to, and suddenly theyāre washed away.
JAY: And the rumble now is?
SHALLAL: Is the gentrification is moving, that people feel like all of a sudden the streets are getting cleaner, all of a sudden thereās new buildings going up, all of a sudden school buildings are being refurbished and renewed.
JAY: And where is everyone who used to live there?
SHALLAL: Everyoneās getting pushed slowly, slowly out. Prices are getting more expensive. Itās getting harder to live there. And so they get moved out.
JAY: I mean, itās very relevant to Baltimore, because a lot of people think thatās the plan.
SHALLAL: Well, I think in most urban areas, in most cities thatās happening. You know, people have realized that cities are valuable real estate. Theyāre important. You know, theyāre centers of power. And so letās push everybody elseā.
You know, for a while there it was the oppositeāyou know, went out to the suburbs. And now people from the suburbs say, hey, wait a minute, this is not a good lifestyle. It takes too long to get there. You know, I have to fight traffic. I have to drive for a long time. My quality of life has diminished. Wouldnāt it be nice if I lived walking distance to my office and walking distance to the coffee shop and walking distance to my friendās house?
JAY: Right. So everybody wants to fix schoolsābut fix them in whose interest?
SHALLAL: Right.
JAY: So in the next segment of our interview, weāll talk about how you want to do it.
So please join us for the next segment of Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.