From the Frontlines: How to Fight Data C...

In this episode, the latest in our From the Frontlines series, we're joined by Anthony Rogers-Wright for a conversation on data centers (and how to fight successfully them). Anthony Rogers-Wright is an environmental/urban planner, researcher, policy analyst, political strategist, consultant and organizer. 

The conversation begins with an overview of Anthony's recent piece in Black Agenda Report, "The Commodification of Social Justice (or, Saving the Data Center Subject from the Elite Capture of the Climate Change Industry. We briefly discuss the main arguments in the piece, that 1) we cannot let the fight against data centers be co-opted by the nonprofit industrial complex and 2) that the fight against data centers presents a fruitful opportunity for broad, cross-cultural organizing if done correctly. 

We discuss the impossible economics of data center buildout and Anthony describes what he believes is the real impetus behind them: surveillance and control. Anthony talks about the class, environmental, and racial impacts of data centers and AI technology more broadly before transitioning our conversation into exploring the resistance to data centers and the attempts by nonprofits and the Democratic Party to co-opt this resistance.

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Further resources:

• Listen to our From the Frontlines sereis
• "The Commodification of Social Justice (or, Saving the Data Center Subject from the Elite Capture of the Climate Change Industry," Anthony Rogers-Wright
• The R(AI)cial of Big Tech and Data Center Buildout, Anthony Rogers-Wright
• Unlocking Insights: Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact On The Black Community, Sherdell Baker
• Ghost in the Machine, PBS Documentary by Valerie Veatch
• Cooperation Jackson
• Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Related episodes:

• Worker Cooperatives Part 2: Islands Within a Sea of Capitalism (Documentary)
• A History of California, Capitalism, and the World w/ Malcolm Harris
• Capitalist Realism with Carlee
• The Democratic Party w/ Cecilia Guerrero
• From the Frontlines: Tenant Organizing w/ Josh Poe and Tara Raghuveer

Intermission music:  "Lullaby to My Tender Comrades" by Amy Blanding

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