OAKLAND: How neighbors see Muslim group

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/4/5 | Jim Herron Zamora and Meredith May

[SmithL]

How neighbors see Muslim group Some perceive Bey's legacy of progressive action overcome by factionalism and recent violence.

In the late '60s, Your Black Muslim Bakery was one of the few businesses that took a chance on a blighted North Oakland neighborhood, offering jobs to ex-cons, fixing run-down storefronts and feeding the hungry.

For that, neighbors have overlooked rumors that the Muslim group operating from the bakery and originally led by the late Yusuf Bey sometimes relied on back-alley justice to enforce its business and religious dealings.

But since Bey's death in 2003, neighbors say the group is changing in frightening ways. Two heirs to Bey's leadership have been killed, and a third successor -- Bey's 19-year-old son -- was accused of vandalizing one of two Oakland liquor stores that police say were trashed on Nov. 2 by a group of men wearing suits and bow ties.

Yusuf Bey IV and bakery associate Donald Cunningham, 73, turned themselves in to police and were charged last week with hate crimes and false imprisonment in connection with the vandalism. Police are investigating whether Bey operatives kidnapped a merchant and torched his liquor store.

While the crimes have sparked discussion about the overabundance of liquor outlets in the African American community, the dominant topic of conversation in the neighborhood is about the crumbling Bey organization. Neighbors fear the group is deteriorating into a street gang caught in an internal power struggle and far removed from its original goal of black empowerment. Employees at the bakery declined to comment.

[Gay State Conservative]

Here's hoping that they open a bakery on my block.We don't get many opportunities to get a "taste of the hereafter" 'round these parts!

[Prost1]

I wonder if becoming a black muslim moved them forward in line for government backed minority business loans...

Hard to find a smaller minority!

[Steely Tom]

Anyone who wondered what was meant by the phrase "soft bigotry of diminshed expectations" need only look at the excerpt of this article.

[LA Conservative]

"Neighbors fear the group is deteriorating into a street gang caught in an internal power struggle..."

Street gang? Internal power struggle? Why this would certaintly atrract the other gangstas as nature abhors a vacuum in power. Jesse? Al? Louis? Danny? Y'all listening? A consulting opportunity.

[lrb111]

I suppose young Bey the fourth was being exemplary with his leadership skills, and reaping his street creds..

[old school]

I don't know what the point of this posting is, but I do know that these people have always been a tyranical gangster organization in the neighborhood.

[mcg2000]

I don't underststand?? It's capitalism and a free market!? If demand wasn't there ... the stores wouldn't be open.

[mcg2000]

btw --- what kinda scum bag uses religion as a front to garner more business for their own personal gain?!?

"The Taste of the Hereafter."

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

No bitter hereafter taste?

[Grizzled Bear]

"The Taste of the Hereafter."
___________________________________________________________

Is it a blast getting there?

[spokeshave]

"I wonder if becoming a black muslim moved them forward in line for government backed minority business loans... "

And maybe they hired Tooky Williams as a gang / enforcer consultant

[Boazo]

Hot as hell for sure.

[bdfromlv]

jesse who

[jiggyboy]

I don't know what the point of this posting is...

I can't speak for the poster so I'll speak for myself (I was preparing to post it): This is probably both the clearest and boldest incident of Islamic terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11. Yes there have been lots of arrests for planning and so on but this is an actual attack. They're not Arab but they're Muslim and that's what's important. The good guys and the bad guys will do well to consider this a test case of whether the U.S. will fiddle and dawdle thus allowng low-level, constant, intifada-type Islamic terrorism on its own soil or whether we will stand up to it and crush it immediately and completely.

(Quite frankly, I myself am not optimistic. It's been over a week and there seems to be no interest by the Feds at any level. The Oakland PD is completely overwhelmed under the best of circumstances -- which never exist in Oakland -- and there are only two people arrested so far.)

How, and how quickly, will the police deal with this fascism? It's dressed up (pun intended) as black empowerment but it's really pure Islamic hatred -- do it our way or we will destroy you. We need to know about these people. What kind of people are we dealing with? Are the neighbors scared of them? (Yes.) That sort of thing.