Liquor Store Attacks Go Deeper than Booze

Police officials and storeowners in Oakland breathed a huge sigh of relief at the arrest of suspects in the trashing of local store. But the arrests didn't totally answer the question of why a splinter group of black Muslims were angered enough to wreak havoc on an Arab-owned mom-and-pop store in a poor black neighborhood.

According to reports, the men were outraged that the store's Muslim owner sold alcohol to poor blacks. That's the easy answer. Their wanton destruction tells much about the depth of black economic disempowerment and the mistrust and hostility many blacks feel toward those they deem "foreigners" coming in and controlling the economy of their community.

Mom-and-pop liquor and convenience stores have always been ready-made targets of black anger. The Oakland store trashing simply was a repeat of that tragic history.

The urban riots that tore through poor black communities in the 1960s were sparked by police abuse. But rioters quickly took out their wrath on mom-and-pop grocery and liquor stores. Many of them were Jewish or non-black owned.

Rioters looted and torched the stores. Many of the storeowners, desperate to save their businesses, hastily hand-scrawled, "We colored-owned too" on their doors and windows.

In some cases it worked, in others it didn't, and the stores were burned to the ground. Black residents accused storeowners of selling shoddy goods at outrageous prices, of discourteous treatment and of refusing to hire local blacks.

Black businesspersons claimed that they were denied business loans, and that banks and insurance companies routinely redlined poor black neighborhoods. This made it impossible for blacks to open retail businesses in their communities.

Major retailers were scared stiff of the violence, and crime, and refused to invest a nickel in these neighborhoods. That left them even poorer and more underserved. Koreans, Arabs, Chinese, Vietnamese, Latinos and other newly arrived immigrants stepped into the business void. They pooled their money, relied heavily on family members to work in the stores, and were willing to put in long hours to make the business work.

That further deepened the resentment of many blacks. That fury exploded in 1992 following the acquittal of the four LAPD officers who beat black motorist Rodney King. The small mom-and-pop liquor stores, this time mostly Korean-owned, were the targets of black rioters. Black residents voiced the same complaints of high prices, bad merchandise, rude treatment and that the storeowners deliberately plied black communities with liquor and tobacco.

Surveys showed that neighborhoods in predominantly black South Los Angeles were inundated with a glut of liquor stores. Surveys in other cities, including Oakland, showed the same pattern of liquor store proliferation.

Some charged that city and state officials looked the other way as small merchants profiteered off alcohol sales in poor black neighborhoods.

In the wake of the riots, community activist groups in Los Angeles and other cities marched, picketed and challenged the liquor licenses of storeowners. They forced city and state officials to toughen restrictions on the sale and transfer of the licenses, and to pass more stringent ordinances on liquor sales. That however, did not boost black ownership of these stores, nor lessen ethnic tensions. The majority of the stores in these areas are still owned by non-blacks, and in many cases the owners are newly arrived immigrants.

In Detroit, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Cleveland, New York and Los Angeles, many storeowners are Arab or from the Middle East. Following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the number of hate crimes against Muslims soared. Blacks were not immune from engaging in Muslim-baiting and stereotyping.

In some surveys, a majority of blacks agreed that racial profiling was not a bad thing as long as those profiled were Arabs or Asians, and not blacks. The terror jitters further fueled resentment toward Arab and Asian storeowners. Some blacks screamed loudly that foreigners, meaning Arabs or those of Middle Eastern ancestry were taking over their community. The owners again were slammed for making a fast buck off poor people, while liquoring up poor blacks. Some stores were vandalized and robbed. A few storeowners reported physical attacks.

Though many black leaders and residents are angered at the lack of black-owned businesses in their neighborhoods, may be wary and fearful of Muslims and are deeply concerned about the sale of alcohol in their community, they still denounced the attack against the Oakland store.

Nation of Islam spokesperson Tony Muhammad vigorously condemned the attack, and stressed that the vandals did not belong to the Nation of Islam. This is a good thing. Trashing stores in the name of Allah is the absolute wrong way to improve the quality of life in poor black neighborhoods.