I have buried too many people from one ZIP code.

In 38109, Southwest Memphis, my father died, along with countless family members from cancer and heart disease…more than one…in the same neighborhood. 38109 has more than 17 polluting industries including a whole Valero Refinery in the Riverside Community of South Memphis next MLK Park…the same neighborhood where my parents met and fell in love. When xAI dropped its data center into Boxtown and fired up methane gas turbines without so much as a permit, it didn’t just make me sad, it pissed me off beyond words. The sentiment is akin to what the Great One, Malcolm X said, “Usually, when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” Another polluting industry in an already existing over-polluted, over-policed, and under-resourced BLACK community. But Memphis had time…we did not give a damn about pushing back against a billionaire (now grotesquely a trillionaire). Our local leaders, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce–they all fumbled around and found out. Black communities are not the least paths of resistance. In the words of fellow South Memphian Young Dolph, “Don’t play wit’ me…” (you can finish the rest–IYKYK).

When I tell you Nashville is at a crossroads with BL2026-1391, understand that I am not speaking as an outsider reading a bill. I am not some “national expert” who has been reading about other people’s work and self-proclaiming themselves as an “expert”. I am speaking as somebody who watched what happens when a city lets a billion-dollar company move faster than its own conscience without a moral compass in sight.

These companies come in on straight B.S. talking about jobs, progress and the future, and by the time the community catches its breath, these monster developments are already running and the only thing left to negotiate is how much money the city gets in exchange for the pollution. In Memphis, the community benefits only showed up after the harm was already done. We were handed a seat at the table after the meal was already eaten.

Nashville still has its seat. But will Metro Council choose the bag or the people?

And I will say plainly, because it is true, that the Metro Council has done something Memphis never got. Organizations like Stand Up Nashville, everyday hardworking Nashvillians, and the courageous sponsors fought for a pretty solid bill. But I am not going to pretend that the bill is perfect, especially when the majority of the Nashville community doesn’t what these energy and water guzzlers period.

As a former K-12 educator in East Nashville (pre-gentrification), I have to look out for my babies. The current bill as written allows a data center to sit one hundred feet from a daycare. That is absolutely unacceptable. The bill writes out a list of the places it means to protect, and a zoo made that list. The hospital did not. The nursing home did not. The library did not. I have spent my entire adult life serving children and families for all over the world, and I cannot make peace with a rule that guards the animals at the zoo more carefully than it guards a room full of babies. And in a county that just earned a failing grade for its air, this bill asks nobody to even measure what these facilities put into it. You cannot fix what you refuse to look at.

I am demanding that Metro Council finish strong and don’t flake at the last reading. The vote is July 21, 2026. I will be watching…Memphis will be watching…literally the entire country will be watching what Nashville does.

Memphis did not get this chance in time. Nashville still has it. Don’t waste it.