Denver Councilwoman Proposes Taxing ‘White-Led Businesses’ as Reparations to Support Minority Enterprises

A Denver city council representative seeking re-election proposed taxing “White-led businesses” and redistributing the wealth to minorities as reparations for the harm of capitalism.

“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,” Denver councilwoman Candi CdeBaca said during a political forum Friday.

CdeBaca said there were existing structures “that could be flipped” to compensate for land, labor and resources allegedly lost due to racism.

The forum was hosted by The Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance — an organization of Black clergy dedicated to civil rights and social justice — and included several candidates seeking to represent a district that includes part of the historic downtown Denver area.

CdeBaca proposed changing an existing business improvement district (BID) in the economically depressed Five Points neighborhood within her district to collect taxes only from White-owned businesses in the city and redistribute the funds to businesses owned by Black and Brown individuals.

“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.”

Other reparations proposals, like Denver’s Daily Basic Income program, do not go far enough to address the structure of racism, according to CdeBaca. One proposal, which focuses on giving daily basic income and mainly reaches homeless people, for instance, doesn’t go far enough.

“Reparations’ goal should not be survival, it should be repairing the harm, which is this entire economy,” CdeBaca said.

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