We Charge Genocide TV: BIPOC vs the United States Government for the continuing crime of genocide. Begun in 2020 WCGTV, is a transmedia condemnation and provocation, that calls aloud for an end to the terrible injustices that constitute a daily and ever-increasing violation of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This is a record of the crimes against us, our survival and continued resistance.
In 1951 artist Paul Robeson and activist William L. Patterson delivered to the United Nations a petition titled “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People.” The petition, created with the Civil Rights Congress, with a preface from Ossie Davis, demonstrated that the government of the United States was in violation of the U.N. Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention defined “genocide” as “acts committed to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, or religious group” which included “killing members of the group,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and/or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide were adopted in 1948. We Charge Genocide (1951) charged that under the legal rubric laid out by the United Nations, the United States, which failed to enforce its own Constitution, must be punished under international law for its genocidal acts against African Americans. 2019 marked the 400th anniversary of Africans being stolen from Africa and brought to Jamestown, Virginia to be sold into a life of slavery. Two hundred fifty years of slavery, ninety years of Jim Crow, sixty years of separate but equal, thirty-five years of racist housing policy, and fifty years and counting of mass incarceration, Historically Black people have always been vulnerable in America. There is an old saying in the Black community, “when White folks catch a cold, Black people catch pneumonia”. This could not be more true today with this current pandemic, exponentially for all marginalized communities. We are prioritizing community members that are most vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19 (i.e., QTBIPOC- Queer, Trans, Indigenous, Black and People of Color; unhoused; disabled; undocumented; low-income; etc.)
WeChargeGenocide.TV is an interactive database, community record, and organizational tool for us to share work, lead discussions, inspire actions, host collaboration, and accurately reflect the current and historical conditions of Black, Indigenous and People of Color. WCGTV using the arts as a tool to make the case for the crimes of The US against BIPOC, actively confronting the direct and indirect effects of genocide in our communities, providing a platform with an invitation for healing and action.
Visit the website to see content or click below to read more about actions and programs. HTTP://WeChargeGenocide.TV
