Photo edit of Candi CdeBaca. Credit: Alexander J. Williams III/Pop Acta.
Photo edit of Candi CdeBaca. Credit: Alexander J. Williams III/Pop Acta.

Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca’s Controversial Reparations Proposal

Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca, who is running for re-election on June 6, has suggested taxing “White-led businesses” and redistributing the wealth to minorities and minority-owned businesses as reparations for the harm of capitalism. While CdeBaca argues that capitalism was built on stolen land, labor, and resources, her proposal to tax only white-owned businesses and redistribute the funds to black and brown-owned businesses has generated an intense backlash who see this as just a “progressive” take on typical racism.

In her suggestion, CdeBaca said:

“Capitalism was built on stolen land, stolen labor and stolen resources. And a check today could not undo the cumulative impact of generations of that stolen wealth in all of those categories.”

“Instead of a BID collecting extra taxation from the Black and Brown businesses that are struggling, you could be collecting those extra taxes from White-led businesses all over the city and redistributing them to Black and Brown owned businesses who are not part of it or who are simply just Black- or Brown-owned. And that’s one way to give back in the business fashion.”

CdeBaca Methods for Ending Racism

CdeBaca proposed changing a business improvement district to collect taxes from white-owned businesses in Denver and distribute the funds to black and brown-owned businesses. She believes that other reparations initiatives, like Denver’s Daily Basic Income program, do not fully address the root causes of racism. According to CdeBaca, the goal of reparations should be to repair the harm caused by the entire economy, saying:

“Not all Black people in this city are struggling to survive, but every black person in this city should benefit from reparations or any program that is aiming to do reparatory work.”

“When we look at the BID, we were often supporting Black business owners who were willing to exploit other Black business owners. And that needs to be called out, and we need to also make sure we don’t stand behind that and be complicit.”

“I will not be silenced by the far-right playbook. A nuanced discussion about reparations is necessary, but that opportunity has been taken from us by the right-wing outrage machine. This kind of discussion is not going to happen in this media landscape.”

Tiff Between Candidates Over Five Points BID

One of CdeBaca’s opponents at the forum defended the Five Points BID as actually helping current black business owners, setting off a tiff between the two candidates. He argued that there were black folks who were part of the BID and were receiving reparations dollars from white corporate businesses to bring to the Five Points Corridor. However, CdeBaca maintained that the BID often supported black business owners who were willing to exploit other black business owners, and that needed to be called out.

CdeBaca’s Comments Draw Criticism

After CdeBaca’s comments were posted on social media, the councilwoman’s office defended her position in a written statement, accusing critics of attempting to harass, intimidate, and silence progressives and marginalized communities.

Critics have slammed CdeBaca’s plan as divisive and unjust, claiming that singling out white-owned businesses for additional taxation based solely on race is discriminatory and goes against capitalist principles. They argue that it unfairly punishes white individuals for their skin color without acknowledging how they may be contributing positively to their communities.

 



Comments

  1. Being a politician does not require actual intelligence. This young woman is yet another example of stupidity

    1. She seems to be a fairly “educated” COMMUNIST what with her opposition to capitalism. It has been capitalism that has helped far more people out of poverty and despair than any other economic/political system in history. That specifically includes communism, a system of oppression, slavery, poverty, and death.

  2. Just another big mouthed racist…we paid reparations in full during the Civil war with the thousands of lives lost to abolish slavery, and if that’s not good enough, then nothing will satisfy a person like her

  3. CdeBaca needs to be removed IMMEDIATELY.
    This country needs to join hands and heal.
    Trash like this continue to DIVIDE

  4. Do progressives even know what racism is, or is it they are just taught white people and capitalism is bad? People, we have to take our education system back. It’s been hijacked by Marxist and propagandist for too long and wokeness and racism is the result. Our children are our future and if they think like this woman, we are all doomed.

    1. Thank you for noting this is Marxist ideology meant to destroy what’s left of a constitutional Republic under free market-capitalism.

  5. How did these communist slime balls get into positions of power and what should be done to exterminate them?

    1. This happened after all the Californian’s moved to CO a couple decades ago. I lived there when they moved there and started making it into a copy of their California utopia. I saw the writing on the wall and left as soon as I could. Ignorance can be educated and crazy can be medicated, but you can’t fix stupid. Buddy Brown.

      1. I believe this began with the Progressive Movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s with such leaders as the virulent racist socialist Pres. Wilson. It then accelerated under the communist ridden administration of FDR. Then things got bad with Clinton, and really dire with the racist socialist Obama. Now we have the Biden/Obama/Rice administration fighting a last ditch effort to destroy what’s left of constitutional Republic. I think they’re winning.

        Also, you make a very important point. Leftists from failing States like CA have fled from the messes they’ve created to other States only to bring their failed agendas with them and destroy those States.

        PS; my father-in-law was Navy. An Army brat and AF crewman.

  6. Communism/Socialisr has been built on the murder of millions. People are fighting to ENTER this nation, not leave it. This woman is dimwitted & depraved.

  7. Amazing! A liberal idiot-please pardon the redundancy-who’s actually stupider than Alexandria Obviously Communist! That’s something that I would have sworn was an absolute impossibility!

  8. Nobody living today had anything to do with to slavery. Maybe y’all were asleep when they teaching World and America History because y’all missed the boat about slavery. Maybe y’all should have read those history books. Remember that the WINNER of any war writer’s history slavery go back thousands of years blacks and whites and others were in slaved and the misconception you bleeding heart liberals don’t understand is the Civil War or what else ( the war between the states) wasn’t about slavery? That did come into play two years into the war. The Southern states wanted to be able to Succeed the union for self rule! 95% of those states were controlled democratic slave states.

  9. One more ridiculous demand that for White folks give their money to the so-called poor folks because we know that America is a systematically racist Nation. What a load of manure.

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