We charge genocide: a historic moment

Editor’s Note: In November, the People’s Tribune’s Adam Gottlieb interviewed 19-year-old Ethan Viets-Vanlear, one of eight young delegates of “We Charge Genocide,” (WCG) a grassroots effort in Chicago to empower the voices of young people targeted by police violence. That day, the delegates flew to Geneva, Switzerland, to present a Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT).
Adam Gottlieb: What were your personal reasons for getting involved with WCG?
Ethan Viets-Vanlear: After the murder of my friend Dominique Franklin by the Chicago Police Department I was really disempowered. I didn’t feel like there was enough organizing around it. I wanted to go run to the police station, I was so angry. So then when this organization popped up, and all this stuff with Mike Brown started happening, and the energy really got under it, I joined We Charge Genocide, and joined the delegation when they asked me to. For Dominique, really, and the continued violence against young people in the city.
AG: What are the goals of this delegation?
EV: First of all, we want the U.N. to call what the Chicago Police Department has been doing torture, to classify it as torture. We also want a state program to go investigate the CPD because right now they just are not being held accountable. We also want reparations for the families that have been affected by police violence. And we have more demands in our Shadow Report. But the U.N. has no real control over what the U.S. does. We’re not really expecting too much from the U.S. government, or from the state. But . . . the organizing we can do around us traveling to Geneva, and continuing this energy that has been built around us going out there is really where I see it.
AG: Why does WCG focus so much on youth voices?
EV: Our report and WCG focus on representing young people who have been affected by police violence. We didn’t want to continue with the paternalistic model of organizing that is so pervasive in non-profits in this country of adults speaking on behalf of young people, or hosting young people’s stories . . . being the catalyst to young people’s stories getting attention, but really giving us young people the right to speak our own truth and tell our own story. Some people have been like, “Oh, it’s so exciting that you young people are doing this.” But really, no one but young people has led any social movement in this country. It’s always the young people who are the driving force, the heartbeat of the movement. So, while it gets displayed as surprising . . . it’s not farfetched or out of the ordinary, really, when you’re looking back at the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or the Black Panther Party, or all these organizations that really led movements.
Follow We Charge Genocide. Read the Shadow Report to the U.N., donate, and get involved through their website: wechargegenocide.org.