About Me
Selected Bio
Tawana Petty is a mother, poet, author, and facilitator. She is a long-time social justice organizer whose work focuses on racial justice, equity issues, data privacy, and consent. Petty has used her talents and gifts for community building to dispel the criminalizing narrative of her city, Detroit, which has convinced many of the need for mass surveillance technologies as mechanisms for public safety. She is the founding director of Petty Propolis, a Black women-led artist incubator and social justice organization that teaches writing and antiracism workshops, hosts artist retreats, and organizes an artist festival in historic Idlewild, Michigan.
Petty is an alumni fellow of the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS, the Detroit Equity Action Lab, and Art Matters. She has also been a convening member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition since 2016. Petty has been honored with several awards. She was honored with a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition and with Wayne State University’s Center for Peace and Conflict Studies Peacemaker Award in 2018. In 2021, she was named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics, and in 2023, Petty was honored with the AI Policy Leader in Civil Society Award by the Center for AI and Digital Policy, as an Ava Jo Silent Shero by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, and with the Detroit People’s Platform’s Racial Justice Leadership Award. Petty was also named as one of seven Just Tech Fellows by the Social Science Research Council for 2023-2025.
Services
Facilitation, Workshops, Public Speaking, Consultation
I am focused on cultivating visionary resistance through poetry and literary workshops, anti-racism facilitation, and social justice initiatives.
Available for Bookings
Please contact my booking manager at bookings@alliedmedia.org to coordinate efforts.