Latest / Computer Says Maybe / The Colossus Crossroads: Fighting for the Future of Memphis w/ KeShaun Pearson
Transcript
- KeShaun: [00:00:00] Elon wants to bring a project here- This is not good ... he's gonna, he, this is, this is bad. Yeah. He's gonna break the law. Yeah. Right? Since XAI has been here and increased our nitrogen oxide levels by 79%, we're burying our family. We have a higher than the national average cancer level in 38109. We are a asthma capital. We are a target, right? We are what a sacrifice zone looks like. They don't come to invest. They come to extract. Alix: I'm Alix Dunn, and the clip you just heard and the interview you're about to hear is about what happens when tech companies decide that entire communities are worth sacrificing in the name of ill-defined progress In this episode, I sit down with KeShaun Pearson to discuss the impacts of Elon Musk's xAI facility, Colossus, in Memphis, now leased, by Anthropic as its primary compute for Claude The facility sits in South [00:01:00] Memphis, and I grew up in Memphis, so this hits home. KeShaun and his neighbors are fighting an uphill battle against billionaires who are deciding the consequences for a community whether or not they want them And while this is just one story in one city, it really is a microcosm of these broader fights against big tech companies making decisions for local communities What I appreciate about KeShaun is his, very specific, exciting vision for what meaningful co-governance would look like He has the vision and he, alongside his brother Justin and his fellow community, they believe that this vision is something they can fight for and win. KeShaun: I'm KeShaun Pearson. I am the leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution, a climate and environmental justice organization fighting here in Memphis, Tennessee. Alix: So I'd love to start with just, like, I wanted to ask you loads more questions about, like, how you grew up. KeShaun: When I was growing up, Memphis felt like a safe home, felt like a community [00:02:00] no, with no constraints, right? That I felt like everybody I was around, um, actually cared for me, and the church that we went to, uh, it was so embracing, Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. And o- one of the best examples I would say is, today is in Boxtown, right? And so in Boxtown, on Boxtown Road, I can walk down the street, um, and Miss Sarah will be like, if it's a hot day, she gonna say, "Do you want a water?" If it's a cold day, she gonna say, you know, "Do you want some hot chocolate?" And it's that type of care and consideration. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and all you gotta do is be walking down the street. Alix: How did MCAP start? Oh, yes. Memphis Community Against Pollution, yeah. KeShaun: So MCAP started October 17th, 2020. That day is etched into my brains and my heart and my soul because it was the day that our community came together in a parking lot in Dr. T.O. Fuller Park. Uh, [00:03:00] and that's extremely significant because Dr. T.O. Fuller Park was previously, uh, labeled Negro State Park because it was the only state park, uh, that allowed Black folks to enter the park, and it was renamed for Dr. T.O. Fuller Park, who was a activist, a educator, um, and a minister. And so in that same park, people came together to fight against a Byhalia Connection Pipeline, crude oil pipeline project that was environmentally racist And sought to put our community at risk and the drinking water for this entire region at risk. And so we came together, uh, and joined with Senator, uh, State, uh, Representative Barbara Cooper, District 86, uh, which my brother is, uh, the state representative for District 86 today, [00:04:00] um, thankfully, and we both walked her to her car that day. Uh, but she was there, and I wanna say she was, uh, near 90 years old, if not past 90. And she convened this meeting in this park, because she would've been around before the name change, right? And she knew the significance and convened this meeting. And in that park, there was a beautiful testimony by my mom, uh, Dr. Kimberly Orange Pearson, and she questioned the, the thinking about who can be sacrificed and why the same communities are sacrificed. She challenged that status quo of the same communities that have the com- pollution should continue to have the pollution, and demanded that they leave. And my brother, uh, Justin [00:05:00] J. Pearson, he followed up, uh, after her, and it was incredible. And that, and then following that, we met with some folks in the parking lot and said, "We gotta do something. We have to do something." And so we created Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. Took us a lot of ni- time to figure out what the name was gonna be, but- Naming is Alix: very important. KeShaun: But... Right. Right. It was a couple names floated around, and then, uh, landed on Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. Mm-hmm. Uh, which was MCAP. And from there, we got to work. Um, and we were working even before we had the name, knocking on doors, telling people- Mm ... what was going on. And that was one of the first times I got so activated and civically engaged, because we also had to, uh, talk to our, uh, county government, our city government, about different decisions they were making about land sales, um, and, you know, just asking them to also support our pushback [00:06:00] against the pipeline. There is only so long that you'll be able to continue- Mm-hmm ... to oppress a people. And we decided in that moment, uh, that we were fighting back, and we weren't just gonna continue to allow the same extractive ecosystem to crush us for its benefit, and we were successful in defeating them. Nine months, about Round about, um, and so on July 2nd, 2021, the pipeline was canceled. Sh- One of the shortest fi- pipeline fight that we know of in history. Black-led, and we had learned so much information from our Native American families and brothers and sisters because they had been fighting for so long that we were able to glean so much knowledge and use that in our fight. And so we were [00:07:00] assisted by them. The NAACP released a document called, uh, Fossil Fuel Foolery that just basically gave the playbook for the oil, uh, big oil and big gas. And so we took all this information, and we built these strategies, and we fought back c- incessantly. And, and we won. And in that fight, though, we also learned that we have a higher than the national average cancer level in 30109, four time, 4.1 times the national average. We are a asthma capital and have been for dec- for nearly a decade, uh, according to the Foundation for Allergy and Asthma. And so it's... It was a success, and we stopped the pipeline, but it also showed us all these different fissures in our health- Mm-hmm ... in our environmental, um, [00:08:00] structures. And so then in 2021, we started Memphis Community Against Pollution, so still MCAP. Mm-hmm. Um, and our focus was addressing all of the pollution, specifically in southwest Memphis because we have 17 toxic release facilities. We have a concentration of particulate matter, which is basically the fine particles that come out of these, uh, toxic release inventory facilities that is harmful for you to breathe in. We have over 90% of the concentration of particulate matter in our county is in this one zip code. And so you can see clearly we are a target, right? We are what a sacrifice zone looks like. This is what it means to be in a place that has been deemed less valuable, right? That where the people have been deemed, quote-unquote, "untouchables," [00:09:00] right? These are the folks who live below the poverty line, who don't have, uh, the highest level of education. But why is that, right? I always think about, you know, how did we get there? And the how did we get there was a lot of disinvestment, and it was redlining. So these communities follow that same railway that separates downtown from South Memphis, right? It follows the same patterns that Black families were relegated to where they could live and create, you know, their families that was outside of where white families were. And so we are still living in the fallout of the Industrial Revolution while we're on the precipice of the AI era. If we don't do something drastically different, we are not [00:10:00] only gonna perpetuate the same harms, we are gonna entrench generations into something devastatingly more difficult. And that is what continues to push me, continues to drive me, is because I know that my family, we lost both of our grandmothers in their early 60s due to cancer. We've lost multiple uncles and aunts due to health complications and comorbidities. Just recently lost my Uncle Chester and lost Granny in Boxtown. She's ev- she was everybody's granny, and she was elderly. She had health complications, but she was all right, right? But in the last two years since XAI has been here and increased our nitrogen oxide levels, the peak nitrogen oxide levels by 79%, we're burying our family. And [00:11:00] those losses I do not want to persist. I wanna live in a place where we can rest assured that our quality of life and our longevity are not in jeopardy because of all of the industry around us, that their profits aren't being placed above our livelihoods and our health. Alix: I think that's a very reasonable thing to want. You know? Um, and I feel like this transition from a fixed fight on a pipeline- Mm-hmm ... to a structural, um, systemic set of questions about oppression in society, economic, um, uh, exploitation, um, and how some people are expected to be sacrificed while other people reap the benefits of the kind of infrastructure of the future, um, is just a really big, [00:12:00] um... It's a big fight, and there's so many different pieces- Yeah ... and parts of it. And I'm wondering a little bit, like, how... I wanna get to XAI 'cause obviously that gives you another tangible- Yeah ... thing to fight. Mm-hmm. But when you think about, when you think about the long arc of this, when you think about, like, on a 50-year timeline, if this all goes, like, just beautifully- Mm-hmm um, what do you wanna see? Like, what do you actually wanna see in the place of these oppressive systems? KeShaun: I wanna see healthy progressive systems, right? I think I would, uh, really destri- describe the systems as being helpful to humanity. What we are experiencing now are, is inhumane, right? Systems that continue to steal time from people, continue to steal years off of their lives, continue to cause chronic levels of stress in their bodies, uh, whether it's through pollution or otherwise. We [00:13:00] need systems that operate in the opposite but equally or more powerful, uh, way. And so what I- it would look like for me is that folks would be able to know their air was clean, their water, uh, was clean and healthy. They would know that there are no lead pipes in the sewer lines or in their homes. They would know that their air quality is continuously being monitored for efficiencies, right? They would know that their power is being generated using a green energy source. It is an, a knowing and a safety around having your basic needs met, and that looks like housing that is affordable. It looks like transportation that works for everybody to [00:14:00] get you back and forth. It looks like investment in the infrastructure pieces that we know give people not just a sense of equity, but true experience of equity that translates into longer lifespans, that translates into less stress, that translate into less health complications. And so where are the investments, uh, in those things? And so in that, in that future version, hear- healthcare and, and taking care of, of our elders and our children and ourselves is easy, is simple. You press a button, right? You go to, you go to a facility and it takes, you know, eight minutes, uh, to get- ... to get from the parking lot into the office. Um, and so it is a world where humans and what it [00:15:00] takes to live is provided with a lot less friction and provided more freely in order to create a more stable and safe experience. And so it ha- if Memphis was doing that, I could see communities like Southwest Memphis that has been divested in Receiving a increased amount of resources, of focus, literal, genuine focus of, of different focus groups who are working to improve the roads, the transportation routes, improve the housing, right? Who are reshaping this place, dedicated to that reshaping, the investment is happening, the building happening, um, and the resources just being provided to the people who need them. Mm-hmm. Right? And that's what a, a just transition looks like, where they [00:16:00] are not just offered what they need, but they're also given the things that necessitate being human, right? Everybody... You have to have community, you have to have entertainment. There are so many different levers that also have to be satisfied in order to have a holistic human experience. Alix: xAI and sort of Musk come into town, um- Musky. Musky, yeah. Um, 'cause I feel like most people when they heard, okay, xAI is coming to Memphis- Speaker 6: Mm. Alix: When they think about Memphis, if you don't know Memphis- Mm ... you're thinking, I don't know, like, I don't think that many people had, um, something in their minds, uh, that was specific about why this city in particular might- Right ... react in a particular way or be a choice for someone like- Right ... him. And I, um, I think I might have told you this, but my sister-in-law, um, when she heard that xAI was coming, um, to town, she was, like, really excited- Mm because she was like, "Oh, it's the next FedEx." It's [00:17:00] like the next big employer that's gonna have good paying jobs- Mm ... and it's gonna be, um, it's a technology company, so, like, that's the future and there's gonna be money there, and, like, it means that it's gonna- the university's gonna start to thrive. And it's just like- Mm there was all these images in her mind- Yeah ... that is kind of the old school understanding of, like, what industry coming to town might mean. Mean. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then six months later she was like, "This is terrible. I don't want this." Like, the... And, and very quickly, like, I think figured out that this is not a good deal. Mm-hmm. Um, when you... When did you first find out about this, and, like, how did it play out in your mind? Were... Did you have... Were there moments where you, like, were excited that maybe there was economic opportunity here? KeShaun: I was actually in a, in a conversation with Mayor Paul Young. Um, the mayor says, "I gotta tell you something, and I, I don't know if we're gonna agree on it or not. We might not agree on it." And I'm just like, "We just had a whole conversation on... about all the stuff we agree on." And [00:18:00] he told... He said, you know, "Elon Musk is bringing a company to Memphis." That is when alarms went off for me, and it went off for me particularly because I had done a lot of research. And as somewhat of a subject matter expert around environmental justice, we're always paying attention to what's happening all across the country- Mm-hmm as it pertains to environmental injustice, and- W- a couple of things happened. In California, Elon Musk had been cited by the federal government for violating certain laws, uh, and then the same thing in Boca Chica, Texas. And in Boca Chica, Texas, it had gotten to the place where a lot of the community members were pushing back too. This is Alix: the SpaceX launch pads that aren't actually up to snuff and are really bad, am I- Yes ... KeShaun: yeah, yeah. A- and even to the point where, I mean, illegal dumping was happening, right, i- in folks' backyards. And so, you know, I had, you know, read on some of that stuff- Okay ... right? Um, and so w- [00:19:00] immediately I'm like, "Elon Musk bring a project here?" This is- He's gonna- ... not good. He, this is, this is bad. Yeah. He's gonna break the law. Yeah. Right? Some law is gonna be broken. That, that I, I could g- gather from everything that was said before, and I had been watching this evolution of Elon Musk- Mm-hmm ... into a hypercapitalist, right? And just like a lot of folks who were in technology around the same time as me, my degrees are in technology and business. I was at Old Dominion University, uh, get my degrees, and Elon Musk's name, like, kinda first came up on the radar talking about Tesla and stuff like that. And so, you know, my understanding of who he was then and the evolution to who he is now was, was very different. And so I had been watching this hypercapitalist just start- Mm-hmm to b- break all these [00:20:00] laws. Um, and so that alarm went off for me, and I'm just like, "It's about how you do business. It's not about your person. I don't know him as a person, right? But what I do know is you break all types of environmental laws, and that's not helpful for us." Yeah. My second question was, "Where is it gonna be?" Right? ' Alix: Cause you knew what the answer was probably gonna be. KeShaun: And so he says- Yeah ... "South Memphis." Alix: Yeah. KeShaun: And at that point, now I'm, I'm like- Speaker 6: Mm-hmm ... " KeShaun: We definitely not gonna agree. We, there's nothing we gonna agree on about this." And when it was announced, though, it was like, "Oh, he's there. Like, they're there. Like, this has happened." Not that like, "Oh, this is, he's coming." No, no, no, they're there. And so I got together, um, after the meeting and got with our environmental justice coalition, uh, Protect Our Aquifer, Latricia Adams of Young, [00:21:00] Innocent, and Green and Sarah Houston with Protect Our Aquifer, and we put out a, together a statement talking about all of the concerns that we know were to come. Mm. Because data centers and a lot of the, the data around them had just started to, to really come out- Yeah ... and be a lot more public. And When you look at how much water they were using, how much energy that they needed, and this was in 2024, right? Thinking about a hyperscaler of this magnitude was just unconscionable, and this was w- at 100,000 GPUs. This guy's trying to go up to 10 million now with this facility, um, in th- in this organization. And so, you know, when he said it was Elon, when he said it was South Memphis, corporations only come to South Memphis to extract, period. They don't come to invest, they come to extract. And so it was at that moment I knew for a fact that we were looking at something that was gonna be extremely [00:22:00] dangerous for us, for our community, and for our future. Like your sister-in-law, folks had, uh, the, the wrong understanding, for one, about what would actually happen, and the folks who really had the deep understanding about what would happen did not consider the community and the, the true impact of what the project would bring. They only considered what they could possibly benefit from property taxes. Mayor Paul Young says over and over and over again, uh, "We're gonna try to-- We're gonna turn this into a good thing for the city." I ain't seen nothing good yet, right? Yeah. A company coming here polluting our environment, destroying our ecology, destroying human lives with pollution in excess of levels we have never seen is not good for Memphis. Alix: And he's got his fingers crossed behind his back, and any deal he makes, there's just no loyalty, there's [00:23:00] no commitment to place. It's this... Yeah, he wants to go to Mars. Yeah. He doesn't care about here. He doesn't care about the people here. KeShaun: And it, and it's, it's... A lot of, of what I also see is that it's even ego-driven, right? When I read the book, um, Empire of AI, and by Karen Hao, and I got to meet her. And in the book, she describes how Elon Musk was vying for the CEO position- The CEO position of OpenAI. Yeah ... at OpenAI. He didn't get that, and so created xAI, right? And so we're experiencing this because he didn't get CEO. Yeah. Right? And so, like, what is the true motivation around, uh, this development in earnest? That has to be put into question. Yeah. But these questions also had to be asked before you sign an agreement to allow this company and this guy to plant his flag [00:24:00] here. Alix: Yeah. There's a, um, a Joanne Kinyua who runs the Data Labelers Union- Yes in Kenya, who's fantastic. Yes. Um, she talks about, um, or she shares this like, I don't know if it's like... It's not a... It's like a saying, a Kenyan saying, that when two elephants fight, it's the grass that gets hurt. KeShaun: Ooh-wee. Alix: And I feel like there's like a little bit of that here- Mm ... where it's like he's operating at this scale, and people in Memphis are like an insignificant blade of grass to him, and like it's a bigger battle, and like he... I don't think that he has much regard for any harm he causes around KeShaun: him. He has, he has none. Yeah. None. There's no regard for the people of Memphis. You wanna know how I know? Because he's never had a meeting with any of the people of Memphis. They are operating like a cancer that c- it continuously spreads and evolves into something more dangerous and more, and causing more pollution and more pain. And so when does it stop? [00:25:00] Right? When does, when do they stop building? When do they stop? And so not only did you invite in a energy vampire, but a parasite. Right? This is a virus that is continuing to grow. They just announced they want to build another f- building about for $600 million on Tulane Road, right, near the Colossus II facility, that they, uh, they just purchased another facility, um, in Southaven. Just got 41 methane gas turbines permitted for the Colossus II. Alix: What would your neighborhood growing up look like if there was a healthy relationship between, you know, you s- you said that basically businesses only go to South Memphis to extract. If you were to flip that, like what would it, what would it look like if there was, um, when a new business was coming into town, you were like, "Fantastic-" Mm-hmm "because that's more opportunity, and that's gonna lead [00:26:00] to, you know, X and Y"? Like, what would that even look like? KeShaun: Wow, that's actually, um, that's a great future casting prompt, I would say. More jobs that were competitive in pay, um, and allowed for folks to feel dignified. A government that also echoed that same thing, right? And doing so in action. And so whether it's partnerships or whether it's community engagement, like corporations, government, they are in community and working with community. It looks like collaboration, where we are... There's a co-governance, right, where community's making decisions about what they wanna see Government is also helping to bridge those gaps [00:27:00] with corporations, right? And I truly do believe in ethical development. There's a way to do this correctly. There's a way to do this with integrity and with honoring the dignity of the people in this place. Memphis has a long history of resilience and grind and grit. Alix: And excellence. KeShaun: And, and- Like, the Alix: entrepreneurship here, like I, I was saying before- Yes. Yeah ... like, I just feel like there's so much energy here- Yes ... and so much drive and ambition, and I feel like it has nowhere to go right now. KeShaun: Right. It... I feel like there isn't a foundation, and folks are building out of pure resilience and ambition. Mm-hmm. And a complete excellence, right? But where is the infrastructure that really serves as a foundation for that, uh, so you're building on top of something, right? That i- even if you fail, it's okay. [00:28:00] Mm-hmm. Right? And when you're able to be intellectually curious or curious in entrepreneurship, that allows you to explore and do so many things, which is why the Y Combinator is so successful. People are able to try and fail and try again. And the lack of that and the rigidness of having to be perfect in everything you try is hindering. So far, companies are continuing to make billions of dollars, while our city's budget isn't even $1 billion. The entire City of Memphis budget isn't even $1 billion, yet corporations here make billions of dollars in profit a year. Alix: I mean, Musk makes a billion dollars in, like, an afternoon. KeShaun: Literally. Yeah. And so when, when we [00:29:00] see this huge wage and wealth inequality, how, how are our governments fighting for us? Yeah. Right? How are our elected and appointed leaders balancing the scales for us? And this AI future, right, where AI is, is, uh, somewhat a part of it, we have to be at the forefront of designing and being the architects of what our community experience and our governance experience is gonna be. And I think the role with the Community Benefits Ordinance and the Community Advisory Board allows us to start along the path of that frontier. Um, and so I'm, I'm honored to be a part of it, and I look forward to, to all we're gonna be able to create and, and how we'll be able to lead in that space I'm excited it's you. 'Cause I feel like anyone else, I'd be like, "I don't know about this." But I feel like, I mean, I, [00:30:00] I think you seeing this as an opportunity to make something that's good out of a thing that is not necessarily designed for success. Like, it's designed to be, to buy time. That's right. It's designed to, like, distract a little bit politically. It's designed as a talking point probably for, um, people that just want you to go away. Literally. Yeah. And I keep coming back. I keep popping up. Um, and, and I feel really blessed to have the opportunity and for the fact that my community knows they can trust me, uh, to make decisions and also trust me to, to kind of lead in this new frontier. We have to do better. We have to do different, period. Yeah. And since our founding of MCAP, that's what it's been. No more of the same. Status quo ends. Yeah. We have to move [00:31:00] differently. We have to continue to expect different, and we have to demand it. And I'm, as you can tell, I'm willing to work for Alix: it. Yeah. I know that. Alix: A big thank you to KeShaun, not just for coming on and talking to us, but also for showing up so consistently in this way for his community Every time I hear KeShaun speak, I get more hopeful that when communities come together with these kinds of visions, that they can fight back against basically anything Thanks to the podcast team, Sarah Myles, Georgia Iacovou, Van Newman, Kushal Dev, Zoe Trout, Marion Wellington, for all their work in making this podcast and every podcast happen.