Meet Roxanne White, of the Yakima Nez Perce people.
Here she is speaking in front of the abandoned CHAZ precinct.
I thought it was weird that they'd invite a speaker from the other side of the Cascades since the CHAZ is apparently endorsed by (all of the?) Coast Salish peoples, so I looked into her.
From the sound of
this article, she witnessed her cousin shoot her aunt dead when she was just a little girl. After attending the Standing Rock protests in 2016, she adopted the rhetoric of
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
I don't know a lot about it, but the NIMMIWG published a huge report on violence in indigenous populations. My Canadian informants also tell me that it articulates a disparity between police resources used to investigate cases of missing and murdered women in indigenous populations compared to the rest of the population. It's easy to see why someone Roxanne inspired by the inquiry.
The inquiry's report
- identifies a concrete problem
- offers a clear plans of action for legislators and normal people
- has inspired actual action from the government
- has never inspired the looting of so much as a single Walmart
- has never inspired any other form of insurgent LARPing.
Now she's out there playing New Chaz on the Block with Raz the Chosen. WHY?
CHAZ
- identifies a vague problem
- offers ideas for plans that other people should come up with
- has inspired apathy from the police, mayor, and incidental inhabitants
- has emerged from a rash of vandalism, looting, and police violence
- is an insurgent LARP.
If her experience was even marginally like the experiences in the NIMMIWG report, it's natural for her to distrust police. But to support this glorified "NO COPS ALLOWED" clubhouse?
I can "imagine a world with no police," and it's a nightmare. How can someone who has experienced violence even secondarily deny the utility of police full-stop?