Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Now for some Bay Area blogging! The story that’s really taken a hold of us (besides Barry Bonds) is the murder of local journalist Chauncey Bailey. Bailey was something of an advocate for Oakland’s Black community, editing the Oakland Post, a weekly aimed towards blacks in Oakland.

The police made a series of arrests today of people associated with the “Your Black Muslim Bakery” – Bailey was investigating the bakery when he was killed. It’s thought that by many journalists and community members that the bakery is something of an organized crime ring/gang is run out of the bakery that extorts local businesses, kills people and threatens local journalists who investigate them. The son of noted Oakland community figure and founder of the bakery Yusuf Bey, Yusuf Bey IV, was arrested in the raid. Interestingly enough, a string of liquor store assaults and vandalisms in Oakland last year were connected to Bey IV – who apparently was going around in his Nation of Islam issued suit and bow tie getting his Carrie Nation on, insisting that liquor stores stop stop selling booze to the local black community.

Yusuf Bey himself was something of an interesting figure. Like so many black community leaders (especially connected to the Nation of Islam) who arose in the post civil rights era, he was a mixed bag. He certainly was a pillar of the Black Muslim community in Oakland, promoting black empowerment, entrepreneurship and community organization. He was also (allegedly) a serial sexual abuser and, like so many Nation of Islam leaders, had his anti-Semtic moments. Not to mention accusations of fraud, corruption and violence against other business and even the city government and police. He was the near archetype of those that drove so many liberal intellectuals (especially Jews) into the open arms of neo-conservatism in the early 70s and 80s.

Of course, local political figures were up to the eyeballs in associating with Bey and his Bakery, even after he died and his thug son took over. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D) and former Congressman, now Mayor Dellums, had issued statements of support when Bey IV filed for bankruptcy.

In his filing, Bey also wrote that he met with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, both of whom promised to support him in maintaining the bakery. Dellums “has even pointed out his official support of me continuing in my father’s successful pattern of running the business,” Bey wrote. Dellums’ office said the mayor had no comment. Lee spokesman Nathan Britton said Friday, “Congresswoman Barbara Lee is on record supporting the bakery as a community institution.”

I don’t have much to add to the story besides that my association with the Bakery, besides occasionally driving by it, is their stands in the San Francisco and Oakland airports, which always seemed to provide some decent coffee and pastries at a reasonable price without a side of murder and extortion.

Chris Thompson, a reporter for the alt-weekly East Bay Express, had a two part expose of Bey in 2003, well worth the read if you have any interest in the particularly dysfunctional aspects of Oakland politics.

(Photo: Bailey’s Oakland Tribune Staff Picture – AP)