Daphene R. McFerren and Elena Delavega

Guest columnists

Civil and human rights may meet at the crossroads when the impact of automation on the nation’s workforce, and especially minorities, disrupts centuries of how we understand our relationship to work.

The mantra that we are entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” will be challenged in the absence of work. Because of historical discrimination and lack of access to quality educational opportunities, minorities will bear the brunt of the automation.

However, no group is immune. The urgency of addressing the automation tsunami and its impact on racial, economic, and other disparities is upon us.



We are in a technological revolution that is moving at a speed we have never seen before. Robots, artificial intelligence, and automation are changing society in ways unprecedented in world history. Even occupations that require extensive education, training, and complex problem solving are not exempt from its effects.

Automation is likely to result, either temporarily or permanently, in the loss of jobs across sectors.

Experts have posited that over the next two decades, automation could eliminate as much as 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. In Tennessee, it is projected that 50 percent of the state’s workforce, or 1.4 million jobs, will be eliminated because they either become obsolete or are replaced by automation.

This has profound implications for the nation’s workforce and it has particularly worrisome implications for African Americans and other minorities.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Memphis is a minority-majority city with African Americans making up 63.6 percent, Hispanics 6.8 percent, and whites 29.6 percent.

A significant proportion of the African-American workforce in Memphis is employed in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (23.7 percent), food service preparation (7.2 percent), cleaning (4 percent) and other jobs that are the most vulnerable to automation.

The percent of African Americans doing such jobs (34.5 percent) is higher than the percent of African Americans in such occupations nationwide (27.3 percent).

Additionally, in Tennessee, 21.9 percent of Hispanic workers hold service jobs, and almost 12 percent of these workers are employed in the transportation and warehouse industries, which place them at high risk for automation.

Unlike other cities with more diversified economies, the workforce in Memphis may face more imminent disruption due to automation.

Memphis is one of the largest distribution centers in the world, employing over 60,000 (more than 40,000 of them African American) people in distribution, warehouse, freight and other jobs that are vital to providing employment, and a tax base for the city and Shelby County.

It bears repeating that two-thirds of those jobs are held by African Americans who may be the most adversely affected by automation of all population groups.

The federal and state officials must provide leadership in responding to workforce disruptions caused by automation.

Alternative forms of taxation on robots, rather than people, and social safety nets, including universal health care, guaranteed minimum income, long-term care, and other social protections will be needed to prevent massive economic disruption resulting in increased poverty.

Despite urgently needed collaborative efforts at the national and state levels, we urge Memphis government, business, and community leaders to create a master plan to address the impact of automation.

Its implementation must create an educationally and technically prepared workforce that is likely to complement, rather than be displaced, by automation.

Because automation could facilitate employment opportunities, or, alternatively, increase unemployment, racial, economic and other disparities, Memphis may have the most to win, or lose, by the success of such a plan.

Daphene R. McFerren, executive director, and Elena Delavega, associate director, are with the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis. Excerpted from the Hooks Institute’s 2018 Policy Papers. Visit memphis.edu/benhooks for the full text of "The Robots Are Ready? Are We?"