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OAKLAND, Calif. – The murder trial of Yusef Bey IV and Antoine Mackey for the killing of my colleague, journalist Chauncey Bailey, began Monday with the prosecutor laying out a seemingly airtight case against the defendants.
The 25-year-old Bey, leader of the shuttered Your Black Muslim Bakery, is accused of masterminding the hit that left Bailey lying dead on an Oakland street from shotgun wounds.
Weeks before his cold-blooded and cowardly murder, I saw Chauncey at a forum for ethnic media to discuss an article, written by a young Asian man, entitled: “Why I Hate Black People.”
In his remarks, Chauncey pointed out, “No one hates black people more than black people.” He was referencing the 100-plus murders in Oakland that year and the fact that the overwhelming majority of victims and perpetrators were African Americans.
In the bygone days, you used to be able to muster up righteous anger at allegations of police brutality as a black man in America. Now all you would be doing is ignoring stone-cold reality. There were six police-involved shootings that resulted in four deaths in 2010 in Oakland. The city had more than 90 murders last year. So who should I be more worried about, the police or people who look just like me?
I’m still not over the shock and outrage I felt at Chauncey’s murder. I am humbly sobered by his prophetic testimony.
Bey IV was facing multiple felony charges in various Bay Area counties before he allegedly talked Devaughndre Broussard, the confessed triggerman, into gunning down Chauncey Bailey. If he and Mackey, the alleged get-away driver, are convicted of Chauncey’s murder, Oakland will still be left with questions even though the case will be closed.
The biggest question in my mind among the many left on the table is this: When will a critical mass of African-American people – especially young men – learn to value life enough that they won’t be so quick to take one?
Bey IV -- if he is the killer, the Oakland Police Department, the Alameda County District Attorney andthe media think he is – personifies the lost mob boss mentality of the 20- something generation of black men in impoverished neighborhoods across the country. The gang and drug turf-fueled predator image that emerged during the crack years, from the early ‘80s to the mid ‘90s, has given way to personal violence, the senseless kind of fratricidal carnage that has driven a quarter of black people out of this one-time chocolate city by the Bay in the last 10 years. And there is no end in sight.
© The Bay Citizen, 2012
Endia Gross
Let me say this, people who are capable of killing or destroying other Blacks are African-Americans, i.e., products of America. These murders and destruction are usually based on illegal profit for these kinds of people or getting away with some other wrongful acts. I think we lost and let down many young men who are now violent, I got no love for you, African-Americans. It's easy to condemn them like the White American man who has gotten away with so much having to do with the creation of these young men do. Did Chauncey Bailey try to reach these young men as a member of the media? Do you? Like the Last Poets did, I wonder if there are any Black people left in America. The African-Americans are so worried about what the White man thinks of us and can be bought so there is no real love for the people who look like them. Love of money there is plenty of that....Will the real Black people please stand up????