Welcome to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation, the newsletter of me, Kristen Jeffers. A Black, queer, feminist, disabled, urbanist elder millennial (born 1985) from Greensboro, North Carolina USA, who lives in Southwest Washington, DC.
This newsletter is my personal letter opening you up to how I crusade for a better living environment and my love for fiber craft. This week, I’m proud to present the return of my podcasting career, Defying Gentrification. And yes, I had some time to do some crafting this week, but we’ll get to that at the end of this email.
The first time I ever created an audio project, was with my parent’s sliver cassette tape recorder and a blank cassette tape.
Theirs looked enough like the Talkboy recorder from Home Alone that even though I didn’t have one of my own, I relished being able to use theirs when they weren’t using it to tape me at elementary school concerts and their sermons at church.
I was a huge fan of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Lynne Thigpen’s Chief character. I took all that to create a character I called the Snooper.
I basically sang a couple of songs and solved a couple of mysteries with my stuffed animals in a nasally voice. As a child (and sometimes when I feel down), I hated my nose, but it came in handy with my Snooper character, since I needed to sniff out crime.
Yes, this was also the era of Urkel and that’s also what it sounded like.
Fast forward and I’ve managed to casually find my way to WKNC-FM 88.1 through the legacy of an uncle who was one of the first Black DJs on the station and an ex who loved smooth jazz just as much as me. The fact that I’m in the WKNC history books is just icing on the cake, especially as I watch my Wolfpack basketball teams take on the Final Four for the first time ever together and the first time in at least 25-41 years.
Photo of me by Andy Musselman for the Technician
The full Technician article from October of 2007.
And of course, many of you remember and loved The Black Urbanist Radio Show and Third Wave Urbanism. Me too, but technology and conflicts were a barrier.
But now I bring you Defying Gentrification. Technology has caught up with me, and I realized you still deserved and wanted to hear my voice despite a couple of glitches in these first two episodes:
Episode 1 — WTF is Gentrification?
On this inaugural episode of the Defying Gentrification podcast, take you to school in our homeroom to learn exactly what is gentrification, and why should it be defied and eradicated.
But first, on our street corner, the hot topic is how not to leave Baltimoreans of color behind in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy, as well as honor their competence in leadership during disaster situations.
Read the street corner hot topic article from Capital B.
Read the Curbed article referenced in our homeroom section.
Episode 2 — Who Gets to Defy Gentrification
In this episode, Kristen takes us to school and breaks down who gets to defy gentrification. Spoiler alert, It is those who have been colonized, which generally are indigenous populations of color.
Also, on the Street Corner, the hot topic is both the Kansas City and Washington DC stadium/arena deals and how they are different.
Read the Kansas City Defender article on the stadium vote.
Read the KCUR article and see the poster.
Also, this is a great time to remind you that you can support the podcast financially in the following ways:
Purchase from my Bookshop.org store.
Join the Defying Gentrification Fellowship powered by Podia
Read my articles on crafting and working together across borders on Resident Urbanist. These are free opportunities as our publication is ad-supported.
Do you want to be a guest on Defying Gentrification? Fill out this form and it will get you scheduled on my recording calendar. I’ll then send the details you need to get set up to record.
Be a guest on Defying Gentrification
Advertisers, likewise, you can sign up and submit your basic ad (starting at $75/week)
Advertise on Defying Gentrification
Finally, the Defying Gentrification Fellowship doors open this Monday and paid subscribers on this platform and Patreon will get those materials here. You can also join on its main platform at Podia, where podcast archives will also live. I’ll also be including a special Monday note for folks, along with this Friday podcast launch note.
And one more thing. In honor of that cute photo of me above and the Men’s and Women’s Final Four, here’s a playlist of my favorite songs of my undergraduate years (2004-2007), which I’m continuing to update throughout the weekend.
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/kristens-undergraduate-legacy-2004-2007/pl.u-oN4YI0ElqEA
Until Monday,
Kristen