This FBI program "had successfully carried out a complex network of operations aimed to discredit, dismantle, and destroy Black radical activists, organizations, and movements".
[8] Also, "there were pages detailing Barnette’s movements, his work with fellow activists Angela Davis, John and Ericka Huggins; there were notes from former FBI agent James W. McCord, Jr., who was later arrested for his own role in the Watergate scandal; there was testimony from neighbors, coworkers, who roundly praised his character; there was family history: the birthdates of his siblings, the place where his mother was born.
As jarringly intimate as the files sometimes felt, the gulf between the FBI’s portrayal of Barnette’s life and the reality and fullness of it was staggering.
Barnette exhibited, "meticulous graphite drawings of words, including names: “Uncle Rodney’s daughter,” “Luverne and Sadie’s granddaughter,” “Youngest niece of: Margaret, Vivian, Luverne, Stanley, Carl, Aubrey, Alvin, Lesley, Irwin and John.” The results, a family genealogy assembled by first-names only, feels both rigorous and casual, and potentially open-ended.
The artist's marks on the files, "[resemble] an act of vandalism—an invaded home, reshuffled and spattered and spilled-on papers—as much as it does a daughter’s loving, slightly coy stamp on the typewritten documentation of her father’s life.
Barnette's solo show Compland at Fort Gansevoort in New York City in 2017, included a group of five framed COINTELPRO documents, selections from her ongoing project My Father’s FBI File, 2016-, vinyl lettering, and photocollages.
The title of the exhibition, Compland, invoked "a fictive space sublating Compton and Oakland, California, '90s hip-hop, and '60s Black Power.
The color pink also presents again and again, from baby to bubble-gum to hot fuchsia, in the pulsating chevrons of Barnette’s tessellated photo-wallpaper that showed a child sitting in a wicker “Huey Newton” chair; in the bags of Hello Kitty cotton candy strewn around the gallery; and in an acrylic glitter bar – part object, part sculpture – installed on the third floor.
As reported on in Hyperallergic, "such child-like embellishments are whimsical touches that draw the viewer in, but these add-ons are only playing dress-up on much wilder realities.
"[18][19] Through this exhibition "the work proposes changing the conditions of the world, turning the past of racial profiling into a loyal tribute to her dad.