Black America has heard this promise before.
From interstate highways to social media, technological advancements often arrive on the doorsteps of Black communities wrapped in the language of opportunity: job creation, neighborhood investment and a rising tide that will lift all boats. But too often, those communities end up paying the environmental, economic, and social costs while others reap the rewards.
That history lingered over a recent livestreamed debate, jointly sponsored by Word In Black and The Washington Informer. A panel of experts wrestled with a provocative question that could shape the next generation of economic and political power: Should Black America embrace artificial intelligence, resist it — or fight to control it?
“AI is everywhere around us and it’s penetrating every industry, impacting everything that we do,” said co-moderator Shernay Williams, Word In Black’s events manager. Its uses, she said, range from simple, everyday administrative tasks to serving as the technological cornerstone of entrepreneurship.
Yet the real concerns over whether to engage with AI tools or resist them hinge on access, literacy, and who controls the technology. Research shows Black American literature, labor, and data are being used to train AI systems without compensation or consent.
Polls reflect Black America’s complicated relationship with AI technology.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, about half of Black Americans use AI either daily or several times a week, roughly the same percentage of U.S. adults overall (by contrast, 70% of Asian Americans regularly use AI.) But only 15% of Black respondents believe AI will have a positive impact on society and just 2 in 10 believe the technology is a good thing for them personally.
Before the debate began, organizers polled the audience and found 6 in 10 are uncertain about A.I. and what it means for the future. In comparison, roughly a third said they were pro-AI, with just 9% staunchly opposed. A majority favored fighting for Black inclusion in the AI space, while 41% believe the technology must be subject to robust oversight and strong regulation.
Co-moderator Ra-Jah Kelly, digital strategist at The Washington Informer, noted that the news organization has spent two years exploring how AI will reshape communities.
“So much of the conversation that we’re hearing is speculative,” he said “It’s really on us, particularly those in the media, to get to the bottom of what’s happening.”
Engage or Resist
The Word In Black/The Washington Informer debate pitted Stefan Youngblood, who as founder and CEO of the Black AI Think Tank, proposes engaging with the technology, against two AI opponents: environmental activist Rev. Michael Malcolm, executive director of the nonprofit Alabama interfaith Power and Light, and Taylor Frazier McCollum, a community organizer from Prince George’s County, Maryland, an affluent, majority-Black suburb of Washington, D.C.
Jameila “Meme” Styles, a data analyst, founder and president of the nonprofit MEASURE, took the centrist position: that AI is flawed, but can be improved and controlled with proper oversight.
McCollum argued that AI and the infrastructure supporting it are becoming the latest mechanism through which Black communities absorb environmental, economic, and social harms while others capture the benefits. Meaningful ownership and accountability, she said, must come before acceptance.
Since the first slave ship landed on U.S. shores, “we’ve been fighting and going through it with racism,” she argued. AI is no different, she said, in that the industry seemingly insists on building data centers in Black communities, even though they’ve been identified as health and environmental hazards that drain local resources.
“This is just another example of how they’re trying to use this technology against us,” said McCollum, who launched a petition to stop a hyperscale data center from being built in the Prince George’s county town of Landover. “Childhood asthma rates, COPD, pulmonary disorders — all of that is going up in these communities that are having data centers built in them.”
Jobs and Business
Malcolm connected AI infrastructure to the finances and health of Black communities, especially as households are seeing data centers push up electric bills and strain water resources. In Bessemer, Alabama, he said, a planned, hyperscale data center facility called Project Marvel would drain the equivalent of a full week of rainfall in just 74 days.
“That’s the water you drink,” he said.
The minister also linked AI to criminal justice: “When AI is being used to racially profile people, that leads to higher incarceration rates for African Americans.”
It’s even harder to embrace the technology given AI is being used by law enforcement and its reputation for displacing workers — a big issue given Black Americans’ last-hired, first-fired vulnerability.
“Almost fifty percent of the women who were working no longer have jobs,” he said. “Over 300,000 Black women have lost their jobs. Our most educated class is our Black women, but they’re the most unemployed. Make it make sense.”
But Youngblood countered that if Black America sits out the AI revolution it risks being left behind. He argued that the technology is creating new opportunities for Black workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
When he launched an AI beginner’s group on social media, Youngblood said, its membership quickly grew to 12,000 members —predominantly Black women.
“They’re doing amazing things,” he said. “Very few people in my circles — these unbelievable Black women — are [working] in data centers. They’re actually learning incredible new skills and leading [in] this space.”
As the AI centrist, Styles pointed out that it can be harmful or beneficial for the Black community, depending on whether the technology can be leveraged and controlled. But it’s clear, she said, that AI can’t be ignored.
“This is an engine, a system that is here to stay, and it is going to move,” she said, adding that Black people must “harness that power in a way that is at least helpful to us,” a task that requires imagination.
”What does it look like to build our own language models, employ our own people, keep those dollars in our own community?” Styles said.
There was consensus on one point: the data centers that power artificial intelligence produce pollution that’s harming the Black community.
“Childhood asthma rates, COPD, pulmonary disorders — all of that is going up in these communities that are having data centers built in them,” McCullom said. Landover, Maryland, she said, “already has a lot of issues. We don’t even have the data center yet, and we’re already getting an F” in environmental quality.
Malcolm pointed out the contradiction of Black people embracing the technology polluting their neighborhood: “Embracing poison isn’t going to make you heal.”
Black communities “are experiencing the air pollution, the land loss, the higher utilities, the limited protections,” he said. “Why are we embracing this? Why aren’t we resisting this?”
Styles agreed, pointing to “a concentration of data centers being built in predominantly Black and brown communities. She would give “a resounding ‘no’” if asked whether data centers are good for Black America.
Though Youngblood agreed about the harm data centers are doing to Black communities, he held his ground about the technology. Data centers, he said, “is not all of AI. What are you going to do with all the rest of the AI that you’re using right now?”
Culture and Trust
Styles closed by noting AI “is incredibly extractive” when it comes to Black culture. “It learns from our books, our music, our language, our pictures, our stories, our history. And if AI is learning from Black culture, then who gets to benefit from that value?”
She noted that the panelists themselves were feeding the machine in real time.
“We should never allow AI to extract the value from Black culture without accountability,” Styles said. “There should never be innovation without accountability.”
“Black communities — our community — do not owe AI our trust,” she said. ”But it does need to be earned. This is not just a tool. This is a system of power. Will we harness it or not is my question.”
