Tawana “Honeycomb” Petty is a Detroit-born mother and community organizer best known for her work in surveillance reform, youth advocacy, data justice, and cultural practice.

Deeply creative, she utilizes her writing, poetry, civic leadership skills, and organizing to challenge mainstream narratives around surveillance, data extraction, digital equity, and expression.

Two of her biggest accomplishments include:
· Actively challenging Detroit’s “Project Green Light” surveillance program, exposing how facial recognition and video surveillance disproportionately impact Black communities more than any other
· The Our Data Bodies project, which supports communities in resisting harmful data collection practices.

Petty is a trusted leader in her community who has served as National Organizing Director for Data for Black Lives, Director of Policy & Advocacy for the Algorithmic Justice League, and as Data Justice Director for the Detroit Community Technology Project.

As far as honors, Tawana Petty is a Detroit Equity Action Lab alumnus, a former Digital Civil Society Lab fellow at Stanford PACS, and a current Just Tech Fellow with the Social Science Research Council, as of 2023-2025.

On a national level, she has received the AI Policy Leader in Civil Society award, Wayne State University’s Peacemaker Award, and has been named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics.

She also holds a current position on the steering committee of CS for Detroit and is a convening member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition.

In addition to her extensive advocacy work, Petty is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, an eclectic artist incubator in Detroit that is centered around black women and offers everything from poetry workshops to anti-racism facilitation, artist retreats, and literary programming.

She also co-founded a Detroit literary quarterly called Riverwise Magazine, which focuses on local voices, particularly in data, surveillance, and technology.

In short, Tawana Petty is not the type of advocate who blindly accepts the ongoing narrative that surveillance is safety.

Instead, she uses the tools available to her, along with her unique creative expression, to push the idea that Black people should be seen for who they truly are—not policed under the assumption that they’re someone they’re not.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: October 4, 2025