Sharif Street

At-large City Council candidate, Democrat

by Brian Hickey

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Published: Apr 11, 2007

herbal tea with...

Things went a little differently during a recent sit-down with Sharif Street, the mayoral son and coffin-crooner's nephew who wants to be your next at-large councilman. In place of a cocktail came a cup of Bija double-ginseng tea and in place of a taproom, he and a handler met me at Govinda's, a vegan joint at Broad and South.

Well, sobriety made it all the more surprising that my ginseng-amped self walked away thinking: I've written some real nasty columns about his dad, but dude was engaging and made much sense, even while making the case that he's new blood despite his familial DNA having been in some capacity of power for 28 years. (I did, however, grab a beer and pair of shots afterward to confirm I wasn't roaming the desert on some of Guatelmalan-insanity-pepper-fueled hallucinatory trip.)

Granted, he emitted a sense of media wariness — as in, peeking at my notebook a few times as I scribbled his quotes — yet Street happily talked about being John's kid. Harking back to when he was 4 or 5 years old, he talked about a lesson learned early on: How to avoid getting hit by a brick. Which is an important thing to know when you're a black kid, during the 1970s, in the back of a pickup driving through South Philly to rally against charter change and looming gentrification. "And they were trying to hit us," he recalls. "What you have to do is get up against the wall, duck and stay down."

He never got hit, but he did get bit by the political bug. Engrained were the lessons learned from watching rich white people trying to throw them out of their homes and Rizzo's stormtroopers who "wanted to beat us up."

"We were complete outsiders then," he says. "I'm still amazed when I think about how we're not the outsiders anymore."

It's an interesting word choice, because there seems to be a grassroots groundswell crying to throw da bums out. Add Sharif's last name, and it's an easy leap to figure he has little chance. Wrong you'd be, says the candidate. At 33 years old, age seems to be the concern for some.

"It's really a question of whether I'm able to take the mantle of leadership. And in the African-American community, the question is whether I'd be a good role model for the kids," says Street, who's well aware that his name alone means some votes will never go his way. "I get the 'Are you really a man?' questions, and 'Am I ready to lead now?' Most people I talk to end up saying yes. ... Anything can work for you, or against you, if you let it."

Having lost a state-rep race to Frank Oliver a few years back, Street draws a distinction between Center City issues and what fuels passions in the neighborhoods. As in, go up to North Philly or West Philly and people are much less focused on ethics reform. "For most of Philadelphia, it's about the playground around the corner," he says. "They ask if I know they have a playground, and that they're having problems with it. Then, they want to know what my plan is to do something about it."

When it comes to plans, Street, a real-estate attorney by trade, thinks the city should take over responsibility for fixing both sidewalks (a particularly resonating point since the bride and I just had to shell out some hard-earned coin to have ours fixed) and driveways. He also delves into treatment courts and mass-transit funding, advocating for the state to divvy up the money so municipalities control what to spend it on.

And sure, he admits, people want change, but "there's not a need to completely change the party."

The ward system, he says, engages a lot more people in the process as opposed to what happens in a place like Atlanta — he attended Morehouse College there — where the narrow door into politics is through getting a job at a big-name law firm, and political victory comes via getting the pastors of five or six mega-churches to deliver massive chunks of votes.

Asked to name the biggest positive and negative he'd glean as lessons from his father's political tenure, he cited a dedication to giving neighborhoods a voice and a perceived inability to connect with people on a personal level. Declining to endorse a mayoral candidate — imagine the headlines — he conceded he's feeling a little heat. This, Street says, is because people in traditional-Street strongholds are uncomfortable with the potential of a Street-less city government for the first time in nearly three decades. They needn't worry, he says: "I can be a bridge between the old guard, the emerging new guard, and help them both see value in the other."

 

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