Date
What does this trajectory mean for the future of a predominantly Black city which has led the country in misidentification cases by law enforcement using facial recognition, has had a median household income hovering under $40,000, and has more than 50% of its youth living in poverty?
Dr. Chris Gilliard and Tawana Petty interrogated these questions and more.
DEAR DETROIT
We were supposed to turn our backs on you,
count down to your imminent demise, dangle you by the limbs of misdeeds,
they wanted us to rate you inferior.
Plagued by deteriorating neighborhoods
and a convoluted history,
you were never supposed to bloom from your ashes.
A lot like you have been discarded like debris,
deemed useless to naysayers and convictors,
yet you keep rising,
clinging to vitality,
you refuse to allow statistics
to dictate your destiny,
and the media will channel your journey.
And though some shall remain loyal, others will mock your tribulations.
You were Coleman A. Younged into maturity,
both your gift and your curse.
Imported from adversity,
you've seen better decades,
yet you've thrived during the worst of them.
Your best days have yet to arrive,
and though some won't stick around to witness your climb,
or rejoice in your restoration,
your destination is inevitable.
You've been on the bottom
much longer than most,
and the bridges you will journey
won't be easy to coast,
but you will make it,
and bring warriors with you,
armed with devotion,
they will defend your dignity,
and honor your namesake!
You are Detroit,
the road to progression,
the mirror image of endurance,
and you hold the key,
to taking back our democracy!
Speakers
Dr. Chris Gilliard is a writer, professor, and speaker. His scholarship concentrates on digital privacy, surveillance, and the intersections of race, class, and technology. He is an advocate for critical and equity-focused approaches to tech in education. His writings have been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Ed, and Vice Magazine.
Dr. Gilliard was a research fellow with the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and a 2022-2024 Just Tech fellow at the Social Science Research Council. He is a member of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry Scholars Council, and a member of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project community advisory board.
Tawana Petty, also known by her poetry stage name Honeycomb, is a mother, social justice organizer, poet, author, facilitator and keynote lecturer. Her work focuses on racial justice, equity, privacy, and consent.
She is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, Inc., an artist incubator, which leverages poetry, policy literacy and advocacy, anti-racism facilitation, political education and community-centered initiatives in pursuit of data and digital justice and racial and environmental justice.
Petty serves on the steering committee for CS (computer science) for Detroit. She is an alumni fellow of the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS, the Detroit Equity Action Lab, Art Matters Foundation, Just Tech with the Social Science Research Council, and is a National LIO Yearlong alumni of the Rockwood Leadership Institute. In 2024, Petty was named on Business Insider's AI Power List for Policy and Ethics.