“What about the air?”

Taylor Frazier McCollum left her job at a beauty salon in Landover, Maryland after seeing a video about a data center. She organized with her clients and neighbors to win a data center moratorium in her town. Taylor’s story of using the relationship building and organizational skills of her trade to keep her town safe reveals the power each of us has to step up and take on big tech. 

Message us on Instagram @thehumpod to get connected to organizers in your state or country. 

Learn more about Taylor and her team’s work by following them on Instagram @tayloredfm and @nolandoverdata.

Read Saul’s recent Op Ed on data center resistance with Astra Taylor in the Guardian. And listen to Chenjerai Kumanyika’s interview with Saul and Astra on Unruly Subjects. 

Coverage of The Hum in El Diario, Spain’s biggest newspaper and a story about data center fights in Harper’s Magazine.

The Hum is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, Rohome Productions. You're listening to The Home, a new podcast where we are sharing stories from folks across the U.S. who are fighting the tech billionaires ramming AI and data centers onto every acre of land they find. I'm Saul Levin, your host. Last week, I had a tremendous conversation with former Google employee Kate Brennan, who now works for a think tank called AI Now. We spoke about the toolkit she's building to help people fight off AI data centers, her love of technology, and the fight for people, not oligarchs, to control tech. Definitely check it out if you haven't had the chance. This week, I am joined by Taylor Frazier McCollum, a cosmetologist in Prince George's County, Maryland, the most populous African American majority county in the United States. Taylor's story of courage is the story of so many. She breaks down her first exposure to data center harms online in her journey from the salon to public meetings, where she helped lead the successful fight for a moratorium that has now been extended twice. Taylor, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Thank you, and thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Let's start with you. I mean, what do you do every day, and how did you get into this fight over the Landover Data Center in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So by trade, I'm a second generation licensed cosmetologist. My mom was a cosmetologist, so she owned a beauty school in Landover, and actually was that was where I went to beauty school. So once I graduated, I tried to get into my college degree field, which is actually audio engineering. But the DC Metro region doesn't have too many non-union engineering jobs. And then if they do, they start at either low-pay or internships. And I needed money at the time of graduation because I had to pay my student loans. So my mom was like, just go to beauty school, you'll be fine, you'll always find a job, and then you can work on engineering and audio stuff on the side. So audio kind of went away, and cosmetology became my main focus. And until I realized that they were building a data center in Landover, I was working for a company doing body waxing and just doing that full time. So I was kind of just in and out of the studio day to day, interacting with clients and guests. And then once I created the petition, I started to do more research on data centers. So my day began to look like late nights and early mornings of Googling and searching online to find out what was going to happen if the data center did come and what was going on with communities that were already fighting back against data centers. And then I started the petition in June as just an individual by myself. And then in August, we created a reel with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. After that reel went on Instagram, it kind of took off and went viral. It now has over 300,000 views, over 11,000 likes. And I spend my days spreading community awareness about the data center in Landover and then testifying, of course, before the county council. But that's pretty much what I do now. I spend my time on community meetings and activities just to bring awareness to the data center fight because it's very important to me that Landover does not get a data center.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

That's amazing. So you were in Landover doing body waxing and other beauty work with clients, and then you heard about this data center and you said, Let me spend my days fighting this too, because I'm so concerned. What made you so concerned about the data center coming to Landover?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

I had just watched a little like docuseries from More Perfect Union on a community in Georgia that was dealing with a metadata center that was putting sediment in their water, that was creating noise and light pollution for their household to be able to sleep or rest. They really couldn't get any rest because there was so much light coming through their windows, even with blackout curtains, you still had the light shining through. So I was like, I know the people in the Maple Ridge community, which is directly across the street from the proposed Landover Mall site, and I know the people in Landover in Prince Georges County would be affected. So I was like, we have to stop this at all costs. So I just was like, I'm gonna go hard for it. And then in October on Halloween, I had to make a decision of continuing working full-time as a cosmetologist for someone else, or transitioning into a full-time community advocate role. And I decided to pick community advocacy because the business I was working for wasn't paying me that much. I mean, they were cutting pay year over year. So I was like, I can focus on that or I can try to save my community, and I would much rather save my community even if it doesn't come with a high financial benefit.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

It's very inspiring. I mean, I I have a cousin who's a cosmetologist, and I think some people don't even realize how much the skills with customer service and working with different kinds of people overlap. But how has that played into you being a community advocate and switching? I mean, how much overlap is there?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

There's a lot of overlap. Like many of my clientele, they saw me online and then they wanted to sign a position. They were like, we didn't even know you started this, you know. Like, we're happy to join. And then being able to interact with the public is very important in both fields. Um, if you can't interact with the public or kind of adapt to people's personalities and, you know, um the way that they have dialogue and communication and the way they understand things, then you don't connect with people as well. So I think that my ability to connect with people comes from that sense of being a cosmetologist where I have to connect with strangers on a day-to-day basis. So now I'm able to translate that into connecting with my community to spread awareness.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

This is it's amazing. I'm so inspired by by hearing this story and how you're translating skills to help out your neighbors and and show up for people. So this data center is coming to Landover. It's coming to Prince George's County, which again is the largest majority African-American county in the United States of America. Why do you think the data center is coming to Landover in particular and to this county?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Initially, I thought it was just environmental racism, and that was it. That was the cut and dry. You know, but now that I'm digging deeper into it, I'm finding that it's more a socioeconomic issue. And even though we're a wealthy county in Parch George, the part of the county that they want to target it for may not be the wealthiest portion of the county. So I think that like as you look at expansion in parts of Montgomery County, they're trying to put one at the old Dickerson coal plant in Maryland. And then in Frederick, they're putting one, they're trying to put them in Charles County. So now it's not just about the racism of it, it's about the money of the situation. Like, how much can your county bring in from bringing these data centers in and how greedy they're going to be? So I'm finding that it's really at the heart of like where communities are more challenged financially when they have deficits with their budget. That's a big thing in Prince Ridge County that they've been pushing, is why we need a data center somewhere, even if not at Landover, is because we are facing like $160 to $75 million deficit. And if we don't do other things to decrease that deficit, then the data center does look appealing, but we have other options. And that's kind of been what has been fueling us in the Landover fight is just getting those options to the right people so they can put them in place and not have to just grab at straws or try to put a data center there just because we need the money.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Could you share about a story of a resident or a neighbor of yours or a client who you talk to about the data center and how people react? I mean, what do people say when you say, hey, I'm concerned about this data center?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, so the first thing they usually ask if they're completely like unaware of the situation is what is the data center? Right. That's the first thing that a majority of people on the street and in my salon that that I'm seeing are concerned about is just what it is. And then I have to explain to them, you know, it's typically can be done in different scales. We have small, medium, and hyperscale data centers. We um are fighting against the hyperscale kind that's like a big warehouse with a bunch of servers in it that heats up and requires a lot of water to keep the servers cool. So just explaining to them like the ins and outs of what data centers do, and then after that, they're like, okay, then what is the problem with a big warehouse that has a bunch of computers in it? Because it doesn't sound that harmful. So then I start to explain how the computers have to be cooled on a regular basis, and that water has to be put somewhere and it usually goes back into our streams and rivers in our communities, and then it has to stay on 24-7. So there's a high energy demand, and we're already importing 40% of our electricity in Maryland. So our grid can't handle these big hyperscale data centers that are trying to come online. And then I explain why your energy costs are going up in Maryland because we're on the PJM grid and we're seeing data centers pop up everywhere from Ohio all the way down to North Carolina. So every time there's one added on that PJM grid, it's going to increase our electric bills to pay for the energy that has to flow to it. So that's what the biggest concern is just the energy bills, because a lot of people are struggling currently. So even if they don't care about the environment, which is kind of sad in my opinion, but you know, everybody has their priorities. Um, so even if they're not that concerned about the environment, they're really concerned about their electricity costs and being able to heat and cool their own homes for the sake of a data center being open close to where they live.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

So when you explain about what a data center is and why you're fighting it, you mostly find that people are like, oh yeah, this doesn't sound good at all. Is that basically right?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yes, the majority of people that I talk to, actually I would say all but a few, have been against data centers as well, once they have an understanding. And then I encourage them to do their own research. You know, don't just take my word for it, go online, take a look at it. You can see that even though Virginia may have been gaining money in the beginning, they're now losing billions to tax incentives and things that are giving away money to the companies. So it's not as fruitful of operation as it's being made to seem. And then the people that I talk to that have been pro data centers have actually been more like union workers or people who are going to benefit from the data center opening specifically financially from the construction phase. It's no one that's going to be working there for the long term of the facility being open because we know that those jobs typically are either remote or it's a very small staff of highly skilled engineers to run the data center and then maybe a few security personnel, so and groundsmen. So we know that there's not that much staff that is retained once the data center is open. So the main people that are pro-data centers are people that are thinking that it's going to bring in all these jobs, but I try to remind them that those are just construction jobs and they're temporary. And once that temporary gain is gone, we're going to have long-term impacts in our community. And I don't think that that's fair to give a long-term impact for short-term financial benefit.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

That's that's really helpful to understand. So, as I understand it, there was a visioning session in Landover that was organized and it devolved into a protest because residents were really concerned about what the where the conversation went. Could you tell me about what that was and what happened?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yes. So the Prince George's County Council convened a qualified data center task force to basically put out a report on whether or not we should have data centers in Prince Georgis County, the effects of data centers, what type of data centers they would want in the county, and the zoning regulations they would need to bring that to our county. So throughout the summer, they have been having meetings. And then on October 25th, it was the final meeting at the Prince George County Sports and Learning Complex. And we did a lot of outreach as far as the Party for Socialism and Liberation and other community organizations to get people to come to that meeting. And we were able to get almost 500 people there, which was the highest attendance of any of the meetings they had over the year. And with those 500 people, we were basically asking for a chance to speak. And the councilwomen and that were present, or the council people that were present, they weren't allowing us an opportunity to speak. So we went through about, I want to say an hour and like 45 minutes or so. It was like time was dwindling down. Maybe we only had like 30 to 45 minutes of the meeting time left, and people just started to bang on the tables, let us speak, let us speak. And eventually they did let us speak. They gave us an opportunity to go onto the microphone to voice our concerns, our challenges with the process, our challenges with the qualified data center task force. And it was just a really beautiful display of power because we were not violent. We just really wanted to demand to speak. We were angry, we were upset about the process and it not being transparent. So I think that this shows that people really do have power when we come together. Because the council people, they are afraid to lose their position. And if I drop an email to 22,000 people saying, hey, this council person doesn't support our movement against data centers, that means don't vote for them. Then, you know, the people are gonna go that direction because they understand the weight and severity of the situation. So I think it was really a powerful moment in our movement and it helped to shift things greatly.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

So tell me more about that. I mean, that's amazing. People just started banging on the tables. I mean, could you describe a little more like exactly what happened in this uh meeting about data centers?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yes. So with the meeting itself, um, they basically had sticky notes that we could write on to put on different poster boards that they had around the room asking us like what we would want in the shape and design of a data center. There were questions like um, if a data center is coming to your community, what is your biggest concern? And like just little ways to get us to interact with these people that were creating the task force report, which is a company called Gensler. So they had staff or volunteers there that were going around the room and kind of moderating each table, letting them know, like, hey, this is what your task is at this table, and then to write down your questions or concerns or your comments, and then put the sticky notes on the different portions of these poster boards. So in that time frame, there were we were trying to get the council people to allow us to speak as far as when I say we, um, some members of the party for socialism liberation and other organizers that are part of a grassroots movement for no landover data center. When we were doing that, one of the members went over to a table and was kind of talking to them, like, hey, they should let us speak, right? So then like they were like, okay, well, yeah, what can we do? So then we're like, well, maybe we can just like start saying, let us speak, let us speak. And then that's when everybody just started to like follow and chant along. So it started with one table. It's always that first table that has to take the leap, and then it spread through the whole room. And it was just, it was so amazing to see because it worked. You know, if we had just sat there and went about the process without demanding anything, we would we would probably be not in a moratorium any longer. We would probably already have a data center, but we made it clear that we were here and we wanted to be heard.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Wow. And so once you all took over the meeting or demanded a speaking spot, what did you say? I mean, what did you all want to share with the neighbors in the room and in the development company?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah, so for me personally, when I got up there, I spoke about heritage tourism, which our county, Prince George's, has been designated a countywide Anacostia Trail Heritage Area. So basically, we get special grant funding abilities and other opportunities to enhance our history and our tourism. So I want us to focus on bringing revenue to the county through that means because I think that we're so close to Washington, D.C., we miss out on a lot of revenue and money because people don't know the history. One of the candidates for the county council at large that I'm working with, I don't, um, I haven't researched this statement, but he's saying that we have more colonial homes than Colonial Williamsburg. So it's like if we were to advertise that, then maybe we can make a tourist spot out of where there's a lot of colonial homes in Prince George's County instead of letting this money kind of slip through our fingers. Um, I think that we need to focus on building mixed-use housing and developments that are gonna bring lower income housing to the community because we do have a lot of developments, which I've been told that when we're talking about low income, we're being compared to places like Montgomery County and Howard County and um DC. So the I think it's AMI, uh the gross income that you're allowed to have, is different when you're looking at those bigger places or places that have higher incomes when we want to deal with low-income housing. So I think that it's important for us to focus on shifting where we are getting our revenue from because we are a heavily taxed community. We have some of the highest property taxes in the state of Maryland, and that's because we don't bring in a lot of commercial revenue. I think we have 30% commercial and 70% residential when it comes to like the tax base. So it's really about shifting that dynamic without passing the burden onto residents. And I think that that was something that I really wanted to highlight when I spoke. And then other residents, when they spoke, they spoke about the cost versus benefits analysis of the situation. Like, yes, this money may come in, but what are the things that's gonna do to harm the community? And that's where a lot of people harped us just on the harms, like, I don't want to pay higher electric bills, I don't want to have poison water, I don't want to live next to, you know, turbines with um particular matter in the air. So it was a lot of different um conversations, but most people were very upset and angry. There was only one gentleman that got up that tried to be pro-data center, but his his argument was kind of like false because he was basically saying like the jobs. And we're all like, okay, yes, the jobs, but what about the air? We're all gonna be breathing this air in. So if they build it, I don't want to have lung cancer or you know, um COPD developed because I've been living so in close proximity to this data center. And he, you know, he just kind of was like, well, that'll be a future problem, basically. And it's like, but we have to worry about the future problems because we'll be here in the future if we are, you know, if we're successful and happy and live a long life, you know, we want to live a life that's one that's enjoyable and not one that's filled with health problems.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

It's an amazing story. So I want to tell you, my beloved godmother has been a special education teacher in Prince George's County public schools for more than 25 years. And I was thinking about her when I heard about this story. I was curious to hear from you about students and teachers and what school involvement has been like, if any, in the fight against the Landover Data Center.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yes, we have had a lot of teachers come out to our community meetings and speak on behalf of themselves. You know, we're trying to get some of the teacher unions involved because we have a community sign-on letter that we're sending to the county council shortly. So we're trying to get more involvement with students and teachers, but we we have had students come out to our meetings. We even had students from outside of the county come from Montgomery Blair High School in neighboring Montgomery County. They came to one of our community meetings. So um we actually are working towards getting more student involvement because we know shortly that these students will be 18, they'll be able to vote, and we need as much people on our side when it comes time for elections to vote in the right people. So um we haven't had too much extensive involvement with the schools. We've been doing our meetings at like libraries and firehouses currently, but we are trying to bring more students in. We did have a meeting at University of Maryland, so not high school students, but college students. We got them involved. So they came out to our community meeting after that UMD meeting and helped us do outreach. So it was really a good thing to see like so many faces from literally like two days before at UMD, we had a meeting to discuss like how the data center would affect students and how the campus is operating and where money is being spent from their tuition dollars and where that money goes. Um, we discussed all of that kind of like at the data center meeting, and then like two days later they showed up to help us pass out flyers in the community. So we have been getting that student involvement from more like college students, I would say, than like local high school or um lower grade students.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

What would you want people to know about how they can get involved and and what's gonna happen next in this fight?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yes, so we are trying to get people to come out to the county council meetings on a regular basis. It's usually at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, but what's going on is that a small group of pro data center people have started to show up at those meetings on a regular basis and they give you a chance before the meeting starts to give a general comment. So they've been giving general comments saying that they're supportive of data centers, they want to see them in the county. So we really need people at those meetings to oppose data centers and data center expansion. So if you have an opportunity to come out on a Tuesday morning and testify before the council, that would be great because it's good for them to see my face, but it's even better for them to see new faces and see other people that say they don't want it in our community as well. And that's kind of one thing that we really are trying to buckle down on now is getting people into those meetings, and we'll be having regular community meetings going forward, so be on the lookout for those. If you haven't signed a petition yet, please still sign the petition. We need more signatures, and then that gets you into our email list once you've signed a petition on change.org. The easiest way to find it on change.org or even on um Google is just to search Stop Landover Mall data center. So, yeah, just trying to get people involved with coming to our community meetings because that's the big way to stay in the loop and to help us to spread the awareness because we are planning on doing like a rally um in sometime in the next few months. So we'll want people to come out to that and give us support. So those are the ways that you can help out.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And if you're not in the landover area, sorry, I wanted to say this. Please. And you're fighting a data center in your community. My biggest, biggest piece of advice is just try to find a local influencer on Instagram or TikTok who maybe has like, even if it's just a thousand to five thousand followers, whatever it is that they have, if it's more than what you have, and collaborate with them because once you get people seeing the issue online, their awareness goes up, then they can participate and they can help stop it. So that's what I feel like was really pivotal was once we got that message out and it spread online like wildfire, it was able to help us stop the data center and get the moratorium. So we haven't officially stopped Landover yet, but the moratorium is a pause on all data centers, so I think that's a step in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

I gotta ask you a little bit more about that. When did the moratorium get put into place and and how long does it last for?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Um, I believe the moratorium was right after the October 25th meeting or right around that time. Like, I don't think we had the moratorium in place at the time of the October 25th meeting, and then it went in place right after, but it is now it has been extended, I think, twice so far. So it ends on April 30th at this moment, the county executive's moratorium. And we have good entail that they'll extend it for another 45 days, but we haven't heard official word just yet. So I'm very hopeful about that.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Thank you so much. Taylor Frazier McCollum is a cosmetologist and a mom-turned community advocate fighting the Landover Data Center in Prince George's County, Maryland. Thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Thank you so much. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

That was my conversation with Maryland activist Taylor McCollum. The fight in Landover continues. The primary election is June 23rd for county and state offices in Maryland. No Landover Data Centers has been sharing candidate stances on data centers on their Instagram at NoLandoverData. The latest moratorium expires on June 30th if no action is taken. You've been listening to The Hum. We are publishing new episodes weekly, so if you like what you heard, please download and subscribe to the show and text the link to your cousin. Message us on Instagram at The HumPod to get connected to organizers in your state or country. The Hum is produced in partnership with Rohome Productions. Rohome's creative director is Alex Lewis. Their executive producer is John Myers. Our producer is Emily Rizzo. The Hum's video producer is Adotre Human and we partner with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research. I'm Sum Levin, your host and banjo backdrop. Thanks for listening and see you next Tuesday.