AI innovation causes inequity concerns for Illinois' Black residents

Affordable access to education is critical for ensuring Black workers can participate in the AI-driven workforce. While the full scope of AI-related job displacement remains unclear, the environmental and health effects of data centers are already evident.

---

Photo: Emiliano Vittoriosi/Unsplash

---

by Judith Ruiz-Branch
Public News Service

As the nation prepares to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., concerns about the growth of artificial intelligence and its impact on communities of color is increasing.

Experts say AI will disproportionately affect Black workers through displacement and the environmental burden of data centers, which are more likely to be located in marginalized communities.

Keisha Bross, director of the NAACP's Center for Opportunity, Race and Justice, said Black workers are overrepresented in entry-level jobs, as well as manufacturing and logistics work.

"The best thing that these companies can do is really provide educational tools and resources because we don't want people displaced from the workforce," she said. "We want people to be back in the workforce but also earning a wage that's livable."

Bross underscored that it's still unclear exactly where and how AI will displace workers. However, the impact of data centers is more clear; they've already been linked to health impacts for people in communities near them. Illinois is a top destination for data centers, estimated to have nearly 200 across the state.

Bross said Black communities already face higher unemployment rates. Black unemployment was at 7.5% in December, compared with about 4.5% for the overall population. To ensure Black workers have a place in the new AI economy, she said, workers need affordable access to education.

"We have to embrace technology and we have embrace artificial intelligence, but we also have to have oversight," she said, "and we have to have governance in order to make sure that it's not discriminatory, and that we're not implementing technologies that are going to hurt populations of people."

Bross said the Trump administration's fight against diversity, equity and inclusion has hurt people of color, but added that it's important for companies to commit to diverse hiring practices because representation matters and a diverse workforce will make their companies more successful in the long run.

---

More that might interest you

The rise of U.S. authoritarianism a midwest professor issues warning about popular tactics

Konstantin Zhukov says that an FBI raid of a journalist’s home last week is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing escalation since President Donald Trump took office.

---

by Judith Ruiz-Branch
Public News Service

A Midwest professor is sounding the alarm on what he called the Trump administration’s authoritarian tactics to quell the press, free speech and other constitutional rights, stressing everyone should be paying attention.

Konstantin Zhukov, assistant professor of economics at Indiana University-Kokomo, argued the FBI raid of a journalist’s home last week is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing escalation since President Donald Trump took office a year ago. He emphasized as someone originally from Russia, he recognized it as a familiar autocratic move.

"It's the story that you usually hear in Russia," Zhukov explained. "It's a common instrument that the Russian authorities use in order to scare the journalists, to signal to them that they shouldn't do their work essentially, that they shouldn't keep the government accountable."

Zhukov pointed to recent volatile policing and immigration protest dynamics in states like Illinois and Minnesota as another big concern. Last week, Chicago officials joined an Illinois lawsuit challenging allegedly unlawful and unconstitutional immigration enforcement. The Trump administration called the lawsuit “baseless” and defends its immigration actions as enforcing federal law.

Zhukov links current trends to broader free speech risks, asserting after the murder of Charlie Kirk last year, an administration-issued memorandum sets a dangerous precedent by enabling a broad classification of domestic terrorism. He argued it could potentially include anyone who disagrees with the administration’s agenda.

While he believes American institutions are strong enough to withstand the current administration, Zhukov stressed how much they are being weakened and how future administrations could undermine them more severely.

"The precedent that I think it sets is that the administration will just keep pushing the boundaries of what is accepted of the executive power to do," Zhukov projected.

Zhukov recommended countermeasures like voting in the midterm elections and continuing to speak out peacefully to normalize dissent and widen public discourse. He emphasized recognizing autocratic tactics is essential to combating them.

"What is happening right now is very dangerous and it's a classic playbook of the autocrats," Zhukov underscored. "The more people understand that these are the steps toward autocracy, the better."

---

More that might interest you