INTERVIEW WITH THE PROTESTOR WHO NAMED "THE CHOP"

A day-one protestor on the CHOP's spontaneous origins and evolution till the end.

Happy 4th (do we even say that anymore?). There is a lot going on in Seattle today. Last night, a white Jaguar sped into a group of protestors who were blocking the I-5 highway, critically injuring two women. The protestors were doing their nightly march from the area formerly known as CHOP to Seattle’s West Precinct; this march is led by black femmes. Earlier this afternoon, a group of Trump supporters calling themselves “Patriots” also marched through the former CHOP area, which has been reclaimed by police and scrubbed clean. There have been rumors swirling for weeks that far-right groups would invade the CHOP on July 4th, but less than 50 people showed up, and they told Converge Media that they would higher numbers if their Facebook event page hadn’t been taken down (lol). After getting denied entry by police, they ended up leaving the area. Big womp.

Yesterday, I finally sat down and shared my first-hand experience at the shooting last week, as well as being on the front lines during the final week of the CHOP in an essay called THE CHOP’S LAST STAND. (Please read it, I’m proud of this one.) During my chaotic first night at the CHOP, I also met a protestor named Colby, who’d been camping out since the first day they took over the zone, and was chilling in front of the police precinct barefoot while taking dabs with his friends. (You can see why we became friends.)

Colby struck me as deeply intelligent in a quiet, gentle way—our first conversation was about the history and challenges faced by his indigenous Tsimshian tribe in Alaska, as well as market forces behind the cheap prices of dabs in the Pacific Northwest. Later, Colby revealed that he came up with the name the “CHOP” during a meeting where protestors felt they had to rebrand it away from its original name, CHAZ. I knew it would be fascinating to hear his first-hand account of how the protest had evolved since day one, so on the final day of the CHOP—hours before the cops came to shut everything down—I grabbed him and we sat down in front of the abandoned police precinct for an interview—you can see Colby’s indigenous graffiti art on the wall behind him.

Here is our complete, unedited conversation—the first video interview on Rave New World’s new YouTube channel (Follow and subscribe, obvs!) . I’ve never done a DIY video interview like this before, so sorry for any fuckups, and lmk your feedback.

If you like this interview, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, sub $ from this email will go towards BUYING COLBY SOME DABS when I see him next :)