technology in movements
April 5, 2026
In this episode of Radicals for Good, we discuss utilizing technology in movement spaces and what digital justice could look like in Detroit with Tawana Petty, a mother, digital justice organizer, poet, and author.
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Who’s in this episode?
Tawana Petty
Founder, Executive Director of Petty Propolis
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. In 2024, Petty was named on Business Insider's AI Power List for Policy and Ethics.
Shayla Zimmerman
Host, Producer
Shay is a Detroit-based community organizer, storyteller, and activist whose work centers community power, collective care, and everyday acts of resistance. From leading regional climate resilience and water justice initiatives to building grassroots emergency response efforts on Detroit’s East Side, she uses her platform to amplify grassroots voices.
sources
https://geezmagazine.org/magazine/article/waawiyatanong-land-acknowledgement
https://www.bridgedetroit.com/detroiters-get-oversight-of-surveillance-technology-but-is-it-enough/
https://www.bridgedetroit.com/michigan-central-is-collecting-a-lot-of-data-can-we-trust-it/
https://open.substack.com/pub/tawanapetty/p/defending-detroit?r=7g7rur&utm_medium=ios
https://tawanapetty.org/selected-media/f/defending-black-lives-means-banning-facial-recognition
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/11/tsa-airport-security-facial-recognition/
https://voicesfromthegrassroots.org/lewis-patrick-monica/
https://www.detroitk12.org/about-dpscd/initiatives/one-to-one-student-technology-iniiative
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/detroitcitymichigan/PST045224
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/14dd97b35cbb4a4298786c75855f8080
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/09/detroit-bridges-internet-access-digital-divide/
https://connectyourcommunity.org/cleveland-and-detroit-lead-worst-connected-large-cities-of-2023/
https://poverty.umich.edu/projects/detroit-partnership-on-economic-mobility/
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