Posted on 01/10/2006 4:13:08 AM PST by Flavius
OAKLAND, Calif. - They weren't your ordinary thugs. Dressed in bow ties and dark suits, nearly a dozen men carrying metal pipes entered a corner store, shattered refrigerator cases and smashed bottles of liquor, wine and beer, terrifying the clerk but stealing nothing. ADVERTISEMENT
The just wanted to leave a message: Stop selling alcohol to fellow Muslims. In urban America, friction between poor residents and immigrant store owners is nothing new. Nor are complaints that inner-city neighborhoods are glutted with markets that sell alcohol and contribute to violent crime, vagrancy and other social ills.
But the recent attack at San Pablo Liquor — and an identical vandalism spree at another West Oakland store later that evening, along with an arson fire there and the kidnapping of the owner a few days later — have injected religion into the debate.
The two episodes highlighted tensions — and different interpretations of the Quran — between black Muslims in this struggling, crime-ridden city of 400,000 and Middle Eastern shop owners, many of them also Muslims.
Six men connected to a bakery founded by a prominent black Muslim family have been arrested in the Nov. 23 attacks, which were caught on store security cameras. In both instances, the vandals asked store clerks why they were selling alcohol when it was against the Muslim faith.
One of the men arrested on charges that included hate crimes and vandalism was 19-year-old Yusuf Bey IV. His father, Yusuf Bey, a black Muslim leader who died in 2003, founded Your Black Muslim Bakery, which sells Malcolm X books along with baked goods.
The elder Bey was accused of raping young women between 1976 and 1995. The accusations were later dropped. But his organization has been lauded for providing jobs and guidance to young black men from poor communities.
The younger Bey was arrested after police identified him as one of the men in the video. The younger Bey's attorney, Lorna Brown, suggested Bey was a victim of mistaken identity. But she also said the vandalism has prompted discussions throughout the black community.
"I think it's pretty clear that the number of these stores in low-income communities is not good for people," she said.
San Pablo market owner Abdul Saleh, who has kept his store open following the attacks, said his decision to sell alcohol is "between me and God."
"We're just coming here to make a living like anyone else," he said.
While black and Middle Eastern Muslims may pray at the same mosques on weekends, their worlds do not tend to overlap beyond that, said Hatem Bazian, professor of Near East and ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
The Middle Eastern store owners tend to live in the suburbs, the black Muslims in the cities, Bazian said. The immigrant shopkeepers also interpret Islam to allow the sale of alcohol.
In the wake of the attacks, community leaders have targeted the glut of corner markets selling fortified wine, malt liquor and cheap alcohol as one of the most pressing problems in Oakland, where roughly 16 percent of families live below the poverty line.
The City Council president and the city attorney vowed to crack down on nuisance liquor stores, and recently forced a store to agree to a plan to curb drug activity on the property. Also, at a recent community meeting, Christians and Muslims pledged to work together to bring better businesses to their neighborhoods.
West Oakland, a predominantly black and poor section of the city where the vandalism took place, has 69 stores selling alcohol, 28 above the maximum number acceptable under a state standard that prescribes no more than one store for every 2,500 residents, according to anti-poverty group Urban Strategies Council.
Steve Ernst, deputy chief of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, could not immediately confirm those numbers.
But he said many of the stores were opened before the regulation was put in place more than a decade ago. And the standard can be waived if a license applicant passes muster with the state and city and there are no protests from the community.
"If there is a location that is a blight on the community, we want to work with the police and the community to address the situation," Ernst said. That can include revoking a store's liquor license.
Jamillah Smith, 33, lives in a West Oakland neighborhood close to several liquor stores and corner markets. She said that the stores are hubs for drug dealing and violence and that drunks often urinate on the walls of the markets.
Smith said she has been afraid to let her children, ages 10, 12 and 14, walk near the shops ever since a man was shot in front of a market. But she does not own a car and occasionally buys essentials at the stores.
"If I had known it was like this I would have never moved over here," she said, adding that the markets should sell more fresh foods.
Mohamed Saleh Mohamed, president of the Yemeni American Grocers Association, which represents 250 to 300 Oakland merchants, said that before Middle Eastern immigrants started buying corner stores in the early 1980s, they offered nothing but alcohol. The merchants expanded and began to sell more produce and other food, he said.
"We're the easiest targets for community blame," he said.
i say get the hell out of Oakland!
The Nation of Islam is a selective cult. No alcohol...but they totally ignore other beliefs.
For example, the Fruits of Islam promote homosexual behavior in prison. Kind of contradicts TROP tenets but Calypso Louie's gang consists of alot of gays...I suspect it is like other TROP adherents...they consider women to be subhuman so like to play Bareback Mountain instead.
The immigrant shopkeepers also interpret Islam to allow the sale of alcohol.
They are going to interpret Islam (fake religion) to mean anything that benefits them anyway. Black folk need to stop shopping in these places and lining these foreigner's pockets. Some of their money is going to support terrorist causes. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
I would love to own that store.
I bet the next time they were entering, I could blow a hole through three of them with a single .45 bullet.
From the tone of the article I would have to say that the author is on the side of Calypso Louie and his followers.
One day they will walk into the wrong store and the owner will blow away some bow tied followers of the religion of hate.
This is what trying to be PC to Muslims has brought us. And it's going to get worse unless people wake up.
"we are our own worst enemies"
Until we realize that these moos will play us for all we are worth, we are.
WHAT HYPOCRITES!
THEY WON'T DRINK ALCOHOL BUT GLADLY SELL IT TO YOU !!
The just wanted to leave a message: Stop selling alcohol to fellow Muslims.
If you found yourself in a blind alley with a gun with one bullit, a black muslim and a middle eastern muslim, what would you do?
Oakland must be in France /sarcasm
Assuming they were planning to attack me, I'd ask them to stand in line and take turns...then hope my .45 had enough penetrating power to take out both.
> The author makes it sound like only wealthy people should be allowed to drink.
And Chardonnay, at that.
Having checked it out with CAIR, the AP has picked up this story. It's a start...how many people in Peoria have ever heard of Sharia thugs?
I say they are trying to force their beliefs on us. The American Press gives the religious right hell but this crap is happening all over this country and this is what their jihad is about. With the influx of all these illegal aliens Americas identity is being destroyed. Instead of blending in they are trying to force us into changing to their way of life and you can well bet America is headed for another civil war and for us to survive the sooner the better or we will not have a chance. Our government protects them over us and really the government has let it go to far to control.
What is this? This is a perfect example of how these Muslims want to force us to accept their culture and beliefs. This is AMERICA. This is not Pakistan. We're allowed to sell and drink alcohol so as long as we do not break other laws associated with it. (Such as drinking and driving). If these Islamo-wackos don't like it, they can leave the country!!
Who the hell do these people think they are trying to bully us into going their way? This is America and if the laws state that the owner of a liquor store is allowed to sell to anyone over 21, (or whatever the age is out in CA), then the person should be able to do so without being bullied by these domestic Islamo-fascists.
Billy Kess
No, they drink it too. Just take a trip to Bahrain or Dubai. Same with pornography. I once sat duty in a Kuwaiti aircraft control tower in which the Kuwaitis I was working with took a break from watching pornographic videos to pray to Mecca...before turning the TV back on to watch more porn.
This is not the first incident of the criminal behavior. People should note this is between muslim for the most part. One sect is homegrown Nation of Islam and the other is immigrant islam. Interestingly enough they attend the same mosque, which should mean they are hearing the same messages.
Their criminal behavior isn't going to stop the poor muslims from purchasing alcohol. The use of violence will fail to cleanse the area in any productive manner. Violence will only plunge the area into deeper poverty and despair. They have the ability to use the law to clean up the neighborhood, but they refuse to use the existing laws(note: these are the US muslims).
We are watching the establishment of the ruthless muslim thugs within our own poverty stricken areas. There is a crisis going on that is going to suck up these people into a system similiar to the ME. And it is being laid down upon these areas by US muslims or at least that is the appearance at the present time.
Solutions:
Re-establish the rule of US law, not islamic vigilante koranic justice. The vandals must be caught and properly punished through the courts.
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