Chauncey Bailey's Detroit memorial service and funeral Mass

... is 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament on Woodward. It's open to the public. I don't know if Cardinal Maida will celebrate the Mass, but either way, it's worth attending. (For more on Bailey, see these posts.)

One more Chauncey Bailey post

On Slate, Hitchens weighs in on Your Black Muslim Bakery:

Now, again, I am just asking, but what if this racket had been named the White Christian or Aryan Nations Cookie Parlor? (Motto and mission statement: "Don't F*** With Us.") I think that Oakland's mayor, Ron Dellums—who I was startled to find was still alive—would have joined a picket line around the store (as would I). The same would doubtless have been true of Rep. Barbara Lee, in whose district the YBMB was situated. But instead, in its role as a "community business," the YBMB enjoyed warm support and endorsement from both the mayor and the congresswoman. And the guns for past and future slayings were inside the store.

I think he skates a little too close to equating YBMB and the Nation of Islam with Islam proper. And it's a little hysterical to suggest that this sort of thing is about to start happening in cities across America. Still, he does make some good points. There's something very wrong with the fact that YBMB operated openly and with the support of the Oakland establishment.

More on Chauncey Bailey

His killer was a member (a "good soldier," he says) of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a black Muslim splinter group with a violent streak. It's the worst-case scenario: He was murdered because he'd written critically about the group, and at least one member wanted to silence him.

Here's some background on the group, and a scathing essay on its founder, Yusuf Bey, printed shortly after he died in 2003. (In a weird twist, it turns out Bailey wrote Bey's obit for the Oakland Tribune, and this essay accuses Bailey of going soft in that story.)

According to this story, this is the first time a journalist has been assassinated in the United States since 1993.

A sad day for journalists

Chauncey Bailey, the editor of the Oakland Post in California and a former reporter and columnist for The Detroit News, was apparently assassinated this morning. I hope this story gets the attention it deserves.