Public Hack Reflection

 “[White critics ‘s] opinion means nothing to me. Who are they to me? What is their sound…their mouths to our words, our emotions, expressions, or experiences? We don’t need validation. I actually want their hands off our work. Our work is a different universe, a requiring of a different set of senses. That which they do not fully understand, is meant for them not to understand, as it is not theirs” – Nayyira Waheed

“I actually want their hands off of our work.” I can still remember the collective gasp of shock, discomfort, and questioning that washed over our group as we read this line from a Waheed interview. At this point in the project, we had gotten so tangled in theory, academic research, motivation, and logistics that we had lost sight of the big picture, and this single sentence sobered all of us up to the massive roadblock that had been in our faces all along. We had been looking around it and pushing our way past it as if it didn’t exist, but at that moment we realized what we had to confront. It wasn’t a logistic problem, or a problem of deadlines, feasibility, scope, refinement, consolidation, or construction – although all of those were hurdles we faced at some point – it was the question, “Are we even in a position to be using these texts, allowing the privileged majority and those outside the intended audience to put their hands on these almost sacred black texts?” Are some texts not meant to be hacked? What are we hoping to gain from this hack, and what outcomes could end up being problematic, controversial, or even appropriative – undermining the very purpose of our project?

It was moments like these that our project was strengthened, our message was focused, our distractions were cleared, and our group came together. Everything that appeared at first to be a setback turned into a learning experience and chance for both our project and ourselves to grow and become stronger. In the case of this Waheed statement, it forced us to realize the true focus of the project for the first time: “[to] reverse the public-private space binary and thus bring the private race discussion to a public space [because] it is critical that texts reflecting experiences of individuals who hold minority identities [be] infused into spaces that traditionally reflect narratives of those who hold dominant identities.” We wanted to open up these texts: not in order to give the privileged a chance to relate to, take control of, feel a sense of inclusion in, or even understand the texts, but to allow confrontations and conversations with a wholly inaccessible text to occur, so that the reader may recognize that black spaces don’t have to be avoided but can’t be understood or made comfortable. We encouraged interaction, for it was a chance for the privileged to express their inner grapplings outwardly in ways that went beyond the academic writing and conversations forced in the classroom (conversations that can be so restricting and noxious to raw, sensitive, or controversial topics). And for those whom the poetry was actually made for, we encouraged interaction with a text in a public space that is actually made for them — something they are usually not confronted with — through a reversal of the white space/black space binary. This is what we hoped to achieve from hacking, and this realization only came about after we were confronted by Waheed’s statement.

Similarly, every time we faced a logistical impediment – from conversations about entry into the IRB track and possible trigger warnings and cultural appropriation, to the complex web of navigating the physical landscape of where we were actually allowed to place the text boards and how we were allowed to conduct the hack — we grew from the experience by having to ask ourselves the difficult questions we may have otherwise avoided. And every time, the message and focus were strengthened and we as a group came together stronger and more dedicated than before. What started as a simple idea for a public hack as an empathy tool turned into a complex conversation about race and privilege that we not only sparked on campus, but also within ourselves. The most valuable part of the project for me personally were these conversations and confrontations I had within myself throughout the process, that allowed me for the first time to really fight to understand my privilege, white space, and the racism of our society.

Overall, I can’t be more proud of how this project turned out and the success of the public hack. The feedback and contributions were more expansive and creative than I ever imagined, and although I went through a lot of struggle, frustration, and time constructing the website from scratch I can’t be more pleased with its aesthetics and functionality. I like that our project made people uncomfortable (but in good ways, as they pointed out), and I hope they grew from the experience as much as it seems they did. I wonder how different communities would respond to this hacking project, and how different spaces (outside of a small, private, liberal arts college in Davidson, NC) would facilitate different discussions. I would love to see this conducted on a larger scale at some point, and can’t imagine the feedback we’d receive. But for now, I’m happy with our public hack, and I’m proud of the work my group did, the ways we grew individually and as a collective whole, and the thought, care, and passion we put into every step of the process.

Work Cited

Guest Contributor. “Nayyirah Waheed.” Ezibota. August 11, 2015. https://ezibota.com/nayyirah-waheed/.