Jinn n’ (No Freshly Squeezed) Juice Interracial Tensions and Muslim Image-Making in the “Hood”

Abstract

Liquor stores, or more colloquially “corner stores,” in Detroit, Chicago, New
York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Washington, and other major metropolitan
cities located in economically under-served, urban, majority-black neighborhoods
have been purchased by Arab American and Arab immigrants over the
last two decades. In order to understand the relationship of place to religion
and race, I intend to examine the dynamics of the encounter between African-
American Muslims and Arab and Arab-American Muslims (mostly Yemeni)
at various liquor stores in Oakland, where, according to the US Census
(2000), African Americans compose 64 percent of the population.
Complicated by an ethno-religious component, Yemeni Muslim liquor
store ownership concentrated in Oakland’s highest density, crime-ridden,
black-dominant, and economically poorest neighborhoods, although aided
by literature, requires a new theoretical arsenal for approaching the conflict.
Little scholarly attention has been paid to the demographic shift in ownership
and the resulting relations between the two groups. This essay is by no
means an attempt to provide a comprehensive portrait or a theoretical foundation.
Better described as a pilot study, my participant observations during ...