Chauncey Bailey, Oakland, Race and Religion

From time to time, I'll copy a comment fashioned elsewhere to this blog if I feel it clicks in with other interests and observations that contributes to the character and definition of my essentially American experience.  This responds to a modelmayhem.com thread on Oakland, California journalist Chauncey Bailey.

The original poster wrote, "Bailey did write about corruption cases, and he had some enemies.  In my opinion, Oakland is conflict zone!  That city has beauty, but a violent past that still permeates the streets today."

My response:

Out of Oakland:

http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

http://www.newsreel.us/panthers/index.htm

Aspects of the Black Panther Story fit with the transformation of other organizations, including the Jesuits, that may have a militant life, wing, or event in one era and persist as a charitable civic organization otherwise.

From The San Francisco Chronicle, November 27, 2005, "Nation of Islam, Store Owners Slam Vigilantes" :  http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/27/BAGLKFUO5J1.DTL

Here's a blogger's note, "Playahata.com", on the same incident--"Did Nation of Islam ransack Arab alcohol supply?" : http://playahata.com/hatablog/?p=1088

To parody someone else's pet phrase, cities don't have violent pasts (or futures)--(specific) people do.

Same story, this analysis from "Liquor Store Attacks Go Deeper Than Booze," Pacific News Service: "But the arrests didn't totally answer the question of why a splinter group of black Muslims were angered enough to wreak havoc on an Arab-owned mom-and-pop store in a poor black neighborhood."  http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b4e9325402f2cb20b16c3b6e6e49b95f

The race card kicks in fast--Arab store, poor black neighborhood--but now that all know about and understand the strict prohibitions against alcohol in the Ummah, the term for the true, overarching Nation of Islam, what do you think?  But not too fast.  Notably, "Nation of Islam spokesperson Tony Muhammad vigorously condemned the attack, and stressed that the vandals did not belong to the Nation of Islam."

As you may imagine, Louis Farrakhan's group comes in for a lot of scrutiny, no matter what. 

I'll leave the rest of the Googling to you.

Among the hallmarks of guerrilla action is the "melting away" and blending back into the countryside or village.  Moreover, political groups that actively lobby or negotiate for their goals may publicly separate themselves and yet privately retain an armed wing to help them manipulate or shape their environment and what they perceive as the road ahead.

Oakland has been very much a "conflict zone", but any place can be made one, and the flag bearers of the First Amendment, journalists and other writers (like novelist Salmon Rushdie) often tackle dangerous subjects and stand tough by their facts or their opinions with no other armoring than faith in the goodness of what they do.

Chauncey Bailey fit that mold as do others around the world.

We'll see how the story plays out, but we know it sure wasn't a simple hold-up.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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