What’s a conversation with someone without seeing their face? It’s a wholesome conversation that has no judgment. As human beings, communication is essential to our lives, but oftentimes it comes with the listener either being empathetic or critical about what is being said. We tend to judge what is being said by the speaker, from many aspects about them such as their race, age, how they look, and their education. However, does it happen if we can’t see their face?

In Public Secret, one of the main things that readers may have noticed is the lack of images throughout the literature. The closest thing we get to interact with the inmates is through their voices where they tell us their testimonies. As we scroll through and click on an inmate’s name, we can hear of her stories at once and all at once we can get to know her and her story. 

By not seeing A.C’s face, the readers are not quick to judge her story. We won’t give her weird looks because of her uniform, her attitude or even her hand gestures. Just from listening to her talk about her addiction to drugs and her story about from getting adopted to getting kidnapped, the reader’s heart ached from listening to her talk about it. The trembling in her voice and her scared tone is all we need to imagine what it was like in her shoes.