All too prevalent among white Americans is this mindset that comes from people like David Horowitz. Horowitz, himself a nationally known white author, lifelong “civil rights activist”, one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and the editor of its most influential magazine “Ramparts” wrote a treatise on reparations called "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too”. But that’s the problem. How in the hell do white people suppose that they can even speak to what’s good for Blacks when it comes to racism and slavery no matter how apologetic they may seem to be about these issues?

This is the thing about the white liberal mindset. It is at once paternalistic and at the same time suspiciously reeks of reaction formation. For how else could anyone who has done so much for the cause of civil rights wage arguments against remuneration for civil wrongs? It is the lingering effect of slavery which fuels the shame and denial associated with slavery. People seem to want to be absolved from the horrible atrocity of slavery and simply relegate it to the past. The fact is that even after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery endured in the form of Jim Crow laws and the continued exploitation and subjugation of Blacks right up until 1965 and the Civil Rights Act. I was 13 years old at the time and I watched my father and my grandfather and what this nation did to them and me so I KNOW they owe me.

Send any and all submissions and correspondence to The Poet’s Bench, P.O. Box 421324, San Francisco, CA 94142. We can be reached by phone at 415. 655.9031 Or [email protected]. The Poet’s Bench has been in existence since the summer of 2005. In 2007, we want to increase our service by going bi-weekly (scheduled for October 2007), and coordinating the activity of the website (www.geocities.com/poetbench) with the hard copy version.

Our mission is simple and clear: To provide critical information, essays, poems, reviews, interviews, and a showcase for advertisers in an effort to facilitate dialogue, entertain, encourage and enlighten, all toward the aim of fulfilling “The Cultural Imperative”. We will continue to try to facilitate free expression of opinions which may not get through the mainstream filter. We can always use donor support. Make a much needed donation of any amount to the address mentioned above.

---- Craig 17X

Chauncey Bailey: Shot Down Like A Goddamn Rabbit!

Bay Area residents were shocked and horrified early Thursday morning, August 3, 2007, to hear the news that veteran Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey had been fatally shot in a parking lot at close range by a gunman wearing a ski mask. In front of eyewitnesses and in broad daylight the brazen murderer dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, walked up to Bailey and brandished a shotgun or automatic weapon. He then fired two or three shots at close range, killing Bailey who was shot once in the back and once in the head according to Oakland Fire Department Capt. Melinda Drayton.

Oakland police spokesman Roland Holmgren said the back shooting gunman immediately fled the scene and was still at large. "It does not appear to be a random attack," Holmgren said. "It looks like the gunman was looking for this man. This is madness. It's 7:30 a.m. in the middle of downtown Oakland."

The next morning, Friday August 3, 2007, heavily armed police officers, using flash grenades, stormed the Your Black Muslim Bakery, detaining as many as 19 people including the organization's “leader” Yusuf Bey IV. Police allegedly seized a small cache of weapons including shotguns and ammunition for assault weapons. It was not immediately known if the raids - at the bakery and at three Oakland homes - were related to the sidewalk assassination of Oakland reporter Chauncey Bailey. Sources said Bailey was doing an investigative piece on the Bey Empire. Bey IV was arrested without incident in his Oakland home and a search of the house turned up at least two guns in plain view in a bedroom.

Later in the day on Friday,

Police said that "firearm evidence" confiscated during the series of early morning raids was connected to the slaying of Bailey. According to Joseph Debro, an Oakland businessman who writes a column for the Post, Bailey had been working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery. The group has had a controversial history

The founder, Dr. Yusuf Bey fought accusations that he had raped or molested several girls who worked at Your Black Muslim Bakery between 1976 and 1995. In 2003, he was awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused a girl who was 13 when she began working at the bakery. When he died, a violent succession battle ensued. Antar Bey, Dr. Yusuf Bey’s designated heir, was gunned down as he talked on his cell phone at an Union 76 gas station in Oakland in October 2005. That slaying still remains under investigation.

Yusuf Bey IV, took control of the original bakery and several franchises. In 2005, he was accused by police of being the ringleader in a group of black Muslims who smashed liquor bottles in Oakland corner stores and berated the Muslim owners for selling alcohol to the black community, because alcohol is forbidden by Islam. Bey IV conceded he was "inexperienced in the business world," and had "received advice and consultation from those who had proven to me they did not have my best interests at heart."

In 2006, Bey IV was charged with assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly trying to use his BMW to run down several bouncers after being thrown out of a San Francisco strip club. He also faced felony charges in Solano County for allegedly fraudulently using false identification to buy a car.

Editors note- There is a Hadith which tells of someone asking the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) “Who do you help most, the one who is doing right or the one who is doing wrong?” The Prophet (PBUH) said: “You help them both equally.” He was asked, “How do you help the one who is doing right?” He said: “You guide his hands.” He was then asked, “How do you help the one who is doing wrong?” He said: “You cut off his hands.”© 08/2007

Letters to the Editor

Send all letters and/or Op-Ed pieces to “The Poet’s Bench”, P.O. Box 421324, San Francisco, CA 94142. We can be reached by phone at 415. 655.9031 Or on the net at [email protected].     

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - An Opinion

(In Memory of My friend, Chauncey Bailey)

By Dr. M (aka Marvin X)

How does it feel to get caught between the devil and the deep blue sea? How does it feel when a friend is murdered and the suspected murderers are someone you know as well, ever since they were

children. It is a feeling of immense sadness, grief and disappointment. It is a feeling of guilt even, for we wonder why we didn't mediate the situation, force the opposing parties to sit down to reason together before things got out of hand, before a

brother had to join the ancestors, as in the case of our friend and colleague, fellow writer and journalist, Chauncey Bailey. Yes, Chauncey was seeking the truth to tell us all, but it is possible he was working on the wrong story, or maybe the wrong aspect of the story, 

if it is true he was working on a story about the financial situation of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a family business that appears to be in the process of having its doors closed, the result of criminal activity, tax liens and creditors, but more importantly, 

moral issues, beginning with its founder, the late Dr. Yusef Bey, who was a friend that worked with me on

many community projects, someone I miss dearly, though I am thankful I never had to experience his dark side, and I am genuinely sorry for those who did, especially the children. He fathered 43

children and it appears the sins of the father have visited some of them. One son was killed trying to rob dope dealers, another killed when someone car jacked him, and the current CEO, Yusef Bey IV, faces multiple charges, 

although someone else at the bakery has confessed to killing Chauncey because of his past articles and planned story on the financial situation. The suspect was a handyman at the bakery, so we are supposed to believe handymen are capable of plotting assassinations afro solo. 

But as per Chauncey, the financial situation should not have been a priority, rather the essential and critical story should have been abouthow this family, especially its children and mothers, could be healed from its shame and trauma, and the business saved as a community asset. Tell me where one can find a loaf of bread baked by black people in the Bay or across these United Snakes of America. Where can just released inmates from jails and prisons find immediate employment, housing and

food?

 
Where can broken down dope fiends get their lives together and never look back. Where can the
community find the example of a successful black business? I know the media loves sensationalism, but
the positives of YBMB outweigh the negatives, and this is where Chauncey went wrong and it cost him his life, and with the bakery closed, it will affect many other lives, including the community in general so desperate for natural food and examples of do for self enterprises, i.e., independently operated businesses, especially  family run so that children can see a 
future beyond a wage slave job at a white supremacy corporation more interested in outsourcing for cheap labor rather than securing a future for American workers of any ethnicity. 
So we have here a double tragedy that approaches the best Shakespearean drama: what happens when the king dies or struggle for succession rights (rites), and what happens when the court jester or truth seeker seeks too much truth, especially from those who are supposed to be champions of truth, but have corrupted truth due to flaws in their moral character, resulting in the virus infecting the king's children to the degree that they self destruct, demolishing the kingdom, destroying all the good. But is this the end of the drama or merely a necessary phase, since there are 43 children and perhaps the good children are yet to be seen and heard, especially the women who may now be forced to the front of the line to take authority over certain posts of whatever remains. We love you Chauncey, we love you Dr. Bey—maybe ya'll can work it out in heaven.
     Now this drama has villains more sinister than even the murderers, for as James Baldwin said of those who killed Malcolm X, "The hand that pulled
the trigger didn't buy the bullet." Isn't it strange that with a plethora of unsolved murders in Oakland,
this murder was solved in less than 24
hours--Chauncey was killed around 7:30am, by 5am the next morning, the police had a confession and murder weapon, as though they knew exactly where to go to apprehend the killer. Is it likely they knew beforehand what was planned, especially since they had the suspects under surveillance for over a year.
Couldn't they have prevented Chauncey's
murder--perhaps they too wanted him dead since he was also investigating police corruption. There is no doubt they had undercover agents and/or snitches at the bakery who kept them abreast of planned activities. The killer himself could have been a police agent. These are possibilities any serious thinker should consider.
 Again, I want to say that the community failed the Bey family for decades by not treating them with healing love, especially after they gave so much to
the community. Their isolation only deepened their trauma and of course things go from bad to worse. The children were traumatized but left to drift into madness and psychosocial pathology. When I spoke at the bakery a few months ago, they were happy and elated that adults had come by to visit their meeting, 
                                                                
for nearly all of those present were young people  associated with the bakery. They were even happier to discover the other adults at the meeting were my longtime associates and friends of their father. They let us know how pleased they were that
we took the time to visit with them. We must reach out to the Bey children because they are our own.
Their negative actions have now impacted the community in a big way--for Chauncey was no ordinary Negro but a very special guy doing a very necessary work. And as the community mourns his passing and heals, let us not forget the children at the bakery who need much healing as well--and certainly they contributed much good to this community and therefore deserve our unconditional love.
-- Dr.M (aka Marvin X) © 8.4.07 Oaktown
 
Dr. M (aka Marvin X) is author of the just released HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, A PAN AFRICAN 12 STEP MODEL FOR A MENTAL HEALTH PEER GROUP, BLACK BIRD PRESS, 2008, 111 PAGES. Foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare, afterword by Ptah Allah El (Tracey Mitchell), $19.95. Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95967. Available at De Lauer's News, 14th and Broadway, Oaktown.

On the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: 

A Reply to Marvin X – An Opinion

By J. Vern Cromartie

Once again, you have demonstrated great insight about a crucial problem which has plagued Black social movements since the days of Marcus Garvey, namely brothers killing brothers over disagreements.  

History indicates that Noble Drew Ali, a leader of the Moorish

American Temple was killed by brothers; James W. H. Eason, a former leader of the UNIA, was killed by brothers; and Malcolm X, a former leader of the Nationof Islam, was killed by brothers. We also know that the infamous split in the Black Panther Party led to Samuel Napier and Robert Webb being killed by

brothers. 

As you have said, the time has come for brothers with opposing points of view and from opposing parties to sit down to reason together and not let things get out of hand and break down into Black-on-Black violence. 

It is clear that Black men and Black women with social consciousness must practice nonviolence with each other and one another as we interact and address the

issues of the day.  As Black men and Black women, we must learn to agree to disagree on some issues and not want to kill each other and one another over a disagreement.  

To do otherwise is to continue to perpetuate the slave mentality which reduced proud African people into self-hating caricatures who believed the folk saying that, "A N--- ain't s---."  Clearly, we must learn from the mistakes of the past and build a new future for

our people that will allow the descendants of Chauncey

Bailey and the descendants of Yusef Bey to be able to

have a viable future inside the belly of Amerikkka.

                                                     © J.V. Cromartie 08/2007