CHAZ Reparations: Speaker Tells White People to Pony Up Cash for Black People

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, a resident of Seattle’s anarchist-collective Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) — or is it the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP)? — who looks to be Native American challenged every white person in the area to give ten U.S. dollars to a black person there.

“Okay, I want you to find, by the time you leave this autonomous zone, I want you to give ten dollars to one African-American person from this autonomous zone,” the man said. “The white people, I see you. I see every single one of you, and I remember your faces. You find that African-American person and you give them ten dollars.”

All white people are required to give $10 to one black person in the CHAZ autonomous zone. pic.twitter.com/LRETSvOzci

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 13, 2020

It seems this man suggested the $10 as a pledge of future reparations to be paid from white Americans to black Americans, based on the color of their skin.

A garden plot sign also insists the garden is “for black, indigenous, and their plant allies for gardening.”

Can confirm this sign in the CHAZ is real. It says this plot is for black, indigenous, and their plant allies for gardening. pic.twitter.com/hKtUXajJlX

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 13, 2020

A poll last October found that less than 30 percent of Americans supported reparations for descendants of black enslaved Americans.

If white people mistakenly feel responsible for the poverty of their black neighbors, by all means, they should give voluntary reparations in the manner this CHAZzie recommended. Just don’t make such efforts compulsory.

Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.