Think about that feeling you get in a pillow or blanket fort. Now think about where that fiber comes from and how you can purchase it to make into said fort. Are there spaces like that in your community and if so, do they fill like a blanket fort?

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E. Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally.

I teased y’all last week with a reflection of why I spent so much time in Borders on weeknights ( while also spending time in Waldenbooks, Toys R Us and the shopping mall in general on the weekends).

Another place I spent weekends growing up, was at the fabric store, or in my mom’s sewing room watching her sew or assisting her on occasion with pinning fabric, cutting fabric, or taking the scraps and making something of my own.

Unlike books though, just like stores like PieceGoods and other national and regional fabric chains became scarce, so did this hobby in my life, especially since it’s harder than it used to be to find fabric and yarn stores in central business districts accessible by transit.

That’s why I make such a big deal even on my craft website and social media about when I can get to yarn and fabric right off a Metro stop. Why I started doing stuff with Spoonflower, then kind of fell off when I was trying to be hardcore about biking and walking anywhere.

Can’t walk or bike to the fabric store if it’s just not there or the road’s too dangerous to navigate.

But one day in March of 2019, crocheting came to me, delivered in the middle of a stack of books at the Capitol View DC Public Library branch, then located in a temporary trailer just a few blocks from its permanent location which was being renovated, itself a few blocks from both the Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue Metro station stops and several bus lines. I walked out of my home at the time, three blocks from the Georgia Avenue/Petworth Metro station, got off at Benning Road, nervously navigated the quiet, but unfamiliar streets, and plopped my bag of yarn down next to the nice Black women elders who helped me create what would become the Kristfinity Scarf.

It was great to finally have a place to go to master the craft that I’d dabble with around the holidays. However, at the time, I was only partially out to a few friends and supportive people. I didn’t take well to sitting in a sewing or crafting group where people who bemoan how the world has changed partially because gay (and gay meaning the entire spectrum of gender and sexual identities that aren’t straight and cis) are ruining the world, just like clothing coming from China is.

Irony here is that many crafting supplies are just as many imports as others. Especially at that craft store that flat-out doesn’t want me to exist. I don’t even need to speak of it here, but we all know which one that is, and sadly, it’s been lauded as a good thing to have in our predominately Black suburban community, while in turn being yet another yarn store in this community that’s barely transit-accessible.

Despite this “achievement”, I don’t think the big box stores think non-white, non-cis, non-straight folks really like them enough to patronize them in the ways they want. Nor do I think any of them do a great job with outreach, even during Pride and Black History Month. Yes, I think some of that outreach itself is because of what we’ve been through in the last three years, and before then, they would hire folks like my mom, but they wouldn’t necessarily make sure we had what we needed. It was folks like my mom who did that in spite of what corporate wanted them to do.

And independent stores, including farm and fair-based vendors, are hit or miss and have their own issues with racism, classism, and accessibility. So when I can find an indie that’s transit-connected, multi-generational, multi-cultural, and queer-friendly, I hold them tight and don’t let them go.

However, I have to thank Les for going all the various places to get yarn with me and squishing yarn while we hoped that the pandemic would end for real. She’s forever encouraging me to continue to pursue this craft, even with the oddities of where I would need to go to do so and the people who pushed back against my existence in these spaces.

A skein of yarn she picked up one day at the Beltway Plaza Mall JoAnn in the summer of 2020 ended up turning into a pair of socks for her but was going to be a vest for me. After realizing I’d made so many stitches with it, I was ready to graduate from making the Kristfinity scarf ten times in a row from various forms of bulky acrylic on sale at one of the four Michaels I could easily get to, between carpooling with Les to Alexandria and taking the Red Line to Silver Spring or to Friendship Heights.

She’s been by my side, in clothing I’ve made for her, at major yarn festivals, and popping up in random yarn shops when we travel.

And there are so many great folks in yarn craft, who also share my identity intersections, which makes it well worth continuing to harness the joy that comes from making something in a world that wants to make you invisible. I’m going to highlight three of them in the Before You Go section, who are raising money to expand their business footprints in brick-and-mortar locations and raise awareness of queer and trans causes, so they can continue to serve fellow Black and other folks of color along with other queer and trans folks.

Next week, don’t read the newsletter hungry. We’re going to talk more about my comfort level in grocery stores and food service places.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point. In this section over the next few weeks of these themed newsletters, I’ll be reminding you why I’m ranking spaces in the first place and how that’s building up into launching phase one of the usable Black Queer Feminist Urbanist dashboard.

I came up with craft stores and spaces being third by listing ten places on a vertical scale of 1–10 with 1 being the safest for me and ten being the least.

I’m still working on how I want to collect this kind of information from you, and how it would work in an interactive dashboard, but for now, just email me your top ten. Let me know if you’d want me to share it in a future edition of this space!

And for reference, Here’s the vertical version of my Personal Space Comfort Index from most to least comfortable, with this week’s space in bold and next week’s space in italics:

Nature Trail/River Kayaking

Bookstores and Libraries

Craft circles, stores, and festivals

Places that sell and serve food (restaurants/grocery stores/bars)

Private residences

Public transportation

Schools and workplaces

Healthcare facilities

Hair Salons

Churches* (I’ll explain this asterisk in a few weeks when I break down why I feel least comfortable in a church but not necessarily in spiritual spaces).

By the Way

Here’s where I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

It hurts me that so much of the world doesn’t want me and other queer and trans folks to exist. It wasn’t always like this in Africa (possible paywall) and in the next section, one of my book recommendations talks about this.

***

It also wasn’t always like this in North Carolina. I know my home state, despite all the shenanigans around voting to ban same-sex marriage, can be a very positive and loving place to be, with all four seasons, delectable food, and yes, a lot of folks who are very good with textiles despite being underpaid to work with them for many years. The work of EqualityNC, Carolina Forward, and specifically Guilford for All gives me hope about folks on the ground wanting something very different.

But, our foundations have been shaky for over a decade, starting with most of the state voting on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage and I expected this nightmare to come two years from now, with our state patting itself on the back for electing a Black man, despite him seeming to hate pretty much everyone else but conservative White folks and guns. And even some of the groups listed above, have been taken advantage of, by folks who operate in our tradition of “Carolina nice”.

But, times have changed and no matter where we live, it’s not ok for some of us to be free and others to not be free. Some of y’all who will be celebrating resurrection this weekend need to remember that it means the end of death AND that death that you celebrate would have been unnecessary if humanity in all its forms had been honored and lifted up, versus hate and fear. Seriously, we need more examination of our differences, not less.

***

But, I’m very excited that Metro comes to the southern Green Line stations more often. Urbanists do live east of the Anacostia and in South Prince George’s County. I really shouldn’t have to say this explicitly, but even I had to learn this lesson and now that I have, I’m going to say it, as we say it in Black communities “with my chest”, and also with my full identity unobscured.

Urbanists live in a lot of places internationally they can actually afford, with food and neighbors that embrace them 100%. In fact, a lot of those urbanists survive shitty transit service because that’s all they have, but some of y’all sit here getting concerned that people would dare live next to a four-lane highway or buy a car despite the bus service ending at 6 pm and never running on Sunday.

Please, please, please remember that 80% of the people you serve, who live somewhere are the 20% that come to meetings complaining about missing middle or the property-owning people of color who are buying into the “American Dream”. However, a lot of that 80% is just tired from doing the jobs they have to do, making sure their children have it all, and even better, from proving they have the right to exist in their identities.

And for the record, this bracket is already skewed because WalkScore is skewed. And we don’t talk enough about how a lot of neighborhoods, namely Black and Brown ones, get built or have developed without adequate infrastructure.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

My book, podcast and music recommendations of the week.

I promised a book recommendation on African queer and transness and here it is, Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities, originally published in the mid-1990s, but currently available open-source in an edition revised in 2021. Les refers to this book a lot when people claim that Africa only has queer and trans people because of Western influence and I’m glad we have it available with so much onslaught against both Black and queer/trans identities globally.

Plus if you’re curious about becoming a crafter and engaging in craftivism, I have a whole bookshelf just for the craft books that help me master the craft and integrate my identities in the craft.

While I’m stitching and writing, I’ve been listening to several things. First, upon hearing that the Atlanta-based cultural phenomenon Freanik may get a Hulu documentary, I had skepticism. Then again, we’ve had two documentaries on Woodstock ’99, but in that case, folks were happy to turn up footage even if it was super incriminating. In the meantime, we have this oral history and this podcast that broke down how this all happened in the first place.

And the sounds of Incognito, along with one of its most notable lead singers, Maysa, have been part of my life now for over 30 years. A Baltimore native and resident, along with Morgan State University alumna, Maysa just released her 14th solo album, but first on her own label and the first couple tracks along with several others speak of remaining positive and keeping our dreams alive, similar to a lot of the songs she has sung over the years with Incognito. If you want to hear a core bit of that, their 1994 album Positivity is the absolute best place to start, and then roll back to her first album with the group, 1992’s Tribes, Vibes, and Scribes.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others along with nudges to donate to crowdfunding and social justice campaigns but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

This is where I wanted to lift up the fundraising campaigns of LolaBean Yarn Co. and Dye Hard Yarns

I’m also adding in another crowdfunding campaign of another urbanism editor and their family and the spring fundraiser of Knit the Rainbow, a group that works to ensure that knitwear is donated to LGBTQIA+ youth, and raises awareness of queer/trans folks in the yarn and fiber space.

For those of you who can and I know it’s tough out here for a lot of us, but an extra $20-$50 in these accounts is takeout money, gas/transit money, a doctor’s appointment, whatever they want, which is more than they had before. I’m going to encourage you to glance at local GoFundMes/Venmo/CashApp and donate what you can stand to not have come back to you, to lift the spirits of someone that is having a really hard time paying bills, maintaining healthcare, and building up their livelihood in addition to everything else going on.

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future, but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon. Use this link to purchase from my Bookshop, especially if it’s coming up as an error for you. I’m still trying to figure out why that is and how I can fix it in the future.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me or buy me a Ko-fi. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering.

***

And if you need one more reminder to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com.

Until next time,

Kristen

When I couldn’t physically go somewhere, the inside of a book could take me there. And thankfully I had the kinds of mentors that made sure I always had one.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E. Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally.

The ritual was simple. My mom needed to work on Tuesday and Thursday nights to get on her feet when she and my dad decided to be co-parents of me rather than spouses in 1995.

Mom spent those work nights at the PieceGoods Fabric that made up one of the big sides of the sandwich that was the Leon’s Hair Salon in the middle and the Winn-Dixie supermarket on the other in the southwestern out parcel of the Four Seasons Town Centre. (Yes, the Canadian spelling, but we were very much still in North Carolina).

I’ll talk more about my life inside of the PieceGoods on the times I would come there with her (generally on her Saturday or Sunday afternoon shift on the weekends that weren’t those I spent with my Dad), next week, because places like that are my 3rd most comfortable physical space.

But today, we talk about the glory that was the coming of Borders Books and Music to Greensboro. It was just in time for those Daddy-Daughter bonding nights, and it was right down the street from the mall, that out parcel, and even both sets of homes, but still required a short drive because we are in Greensboro’s first wave of car-dependent suburbia (or second, depending on who you talk to).

I wrote about this particular corridor about a decade ago, because it’s just that formative, and what life I didn’t spend downtown, I spent on this strip and the two-five other suburbanizing US highway corridors in Greensboro.

In fact, the Borders came because a pine forest left in place for several years to sell mobile homes became a strip plus parking of four massive box stores. None of the original stores (Borders, jewelry, shoe, and office supply) are there and Borders became Walmart Neighborhood Market after the chain went bankrupt.

But, from 1996–2011, Borders was where I went when Barnes and Noble were too stuffy, and I wanted the better children’s section with the amphitheater seats. As I got older, I was at Borders for all the Black fiction. but elsewhere when I was trying to date in semi-secret, but gush over books.

Plus, as much as I adore the Greensboro Public Library and many of its branches and longtime staff, it didn’t have all the on-demand options back then. Plus, the branch wasn’t across the street from where my mom moved us to in 1995 the way it’s been since.

I also had my UNCG student card (and later my friend of the library card). We were also years away from the Hunt Library robot on NC State’s campus (and it came four years after my own graduation, without the same option for alumni to purchase borrowing privileges).

And now, of course, I live in DC with access to several libraries and library systems and small, some unionized, bookstore chains catering to all kinds of niches.

However, it was the bookstore pictured in my opening image that has my heart at the moment. It’s the Books-A-Million in Waldorf, Maryland. In about 25–30 minutes, I can walk into a near replica of my childhood Borders, but instead of being shuttered, it’s been reborn under another bookstore’s banner and continues to add books and other nerdery to the big box shopping center where it sits, much like my old strip in South Greensboro.

And my inner child is happy because she is cocooned and then I can go back to the wonderful life those hours of imagination created as an adult.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point. In this section over the next few weeks of these themed newsletters, I’ll be reminding you why I’m ranking spaces in the first place and how that’s building up into launching phase one of the usable Black Queer Feminist Urbanist dashboard.

I came up with bookstores and libraries being second by listing ten places on a vertical scale of 1–10 with 1 being the safest for me and ten being the least.

I’m still working on how I want to collect this kind of information from you, and how it would work in an interactive dashboard, but for now, just email me your top ten. Let me know if you’d want me to share it in a future edition of this space!

And for reference, Here’s the vertical version of my Personal Space Comfort Index from most to least comfortable, with this week’s space in bold and next week’s space in italics:

Nature Trail/River Kayaking

Bookstores and Libraries

Craft circles, stores, and festivals

Places that sell and serve food (restaurants/grocery stores/bars)

Private residences

Public transportation

Schools and workplaces

Healthcare facilities

Hair Salons

Churches* (I’ll explain this asterisk in a few weeks when I break down why I feel least comfortable in a church but not necessarily in spiritual spaces).

By the Way

Here’s where I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Today is the Trans Day of Visibility and I’m really excited to have had a hand in editing this cross-post article on gender-expansiveness on transit spaces globally for GGWash. I’m going to be editing for them for a little while longer while I continue to build up this platform and I’m grateful that in this iteration of the site, we are supportive and committed to equity not just in topics, but in those who byline with us. Likewise, while others talked about the big indictment, I’m happy to hear that a federal Trans Bill of Rights was introduced in the US House and that so many folks are fighting back against all the laws and procedures being introduced threatening our safety as trans, genderqueer and nonbinary people. Hang in there folks and celebrate yourselves today!

So right as I was putting the finishing touches on this letter, I saw the plans for this new public library in Howard County, Maryland, which will be the new central branch and I’m bookmarking it on my libraries to camp out in when it’s finished. Also, have to go see this Black feminists in DC exhibition at the main DC Public Library branch.

And finally, I’m running a bit behind on publishing this week because I went down to Norfolk to support Les for her very first keynote speech, at the community college branch she graduated from in 2008. I’m very proud of her and everything she’s done with endoQueer and within our urbanism industry.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

So, since we are talking a little bit about bookstores that really influenced me and my formative years, I’m going to dedicate this section to where you can find some of the books that I loved in those key moments between 1986–2004 that I would have been considered a young reader.

First, you can still buy Little Golden Books. The first book I memorized was one and it started this whole self-reading journey when I was four and a half. And yes, the title is a reference to Reading Rainbow, which was a staple in my household, and considering the household I grew up in, the reason I know LeVar Burton for the three most popular things he was known for in the late 80s, and early 90s. Yes, I’ve also listened to his book-reading podcast.

And there’s been so much written about the queer undertones of The Baby-sitter’s Club book series and the most recent TV adaptation, but somehow, deep in the closet, I never realized a queer elder was speaking to me.

And while I don’t like the meanings and insinuations behind Beauty and the Beast, I still really want Belle’s village library from the original Disney animated film from 1991. I also was so excited to find one of the most vividly illustrated and world-creating children’s books I also received the Christmas I received this VHS, the Sign of the Seahorse, which is still in print and available to order.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

Free training on data analysis and storytelling for organizations working in urban equitable development

The Equitable Development Data Insight Training Initiative (EDDIT) teaches organizations, non-profits, and local governments in the U.S. and Canada how to use their data and resources to document, reflect, evaluate, and communicate the impacts of their work to stakeholders and communities.

Our skilled data analysis and storytelling experts help organizations reach new audiences using data and resources they already own. We work closely with your organization to create 20–30 hours of personalized modules designed to meet your data and narrative needs. Organizations located in small to mid-sized cities (with populations less than 500,000) are eligible for our Initiative.

We are looking for a wide range of equitable development projects, from a local community garden to a city-wide public transportation plan. If you know an organization who could benefit from free training in data analysis and storytelling, we encourage you to share this Initiative. Let’s build equitable cities together. There is no cost to apply.

Find out more on our website.

The Equitable Development Data Insight Training Initiative (EDDIT) is a collaboration between UC Berkeley Centre for Community Innovation and University of Toronto School of Cities, funded by a $2.2 million (USD) grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

***

Postdoctoral Scholar Fellow — Homelessness Hub

Location: University of California, San Diego

Homelessness Hub, a research entity in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow working in the area of homelessness and/or housing precarity.

The official postdoctoral scholar fellowship appointment will be through the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The postdoctoral scholar will work under the supervision of the Homelessness Hub leadership team: Dr. Jennifer Nations, Dr. Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell, and Dr. Leslie Lewis.

Homelessness Hub is focused on research, education, and communications on housing and homelessness-related topics for San Diego and neighboring regions. Equity and justice are integral to our work and we center the experiences of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. We are actively expanding our research agenda and will do so by leveraging new and existing collaborations.

A highly qualified postdoctoral scholar is sought to contribute to all aspects of

Homelessness Hub’s research process. Position duties include but are not limited to: developing research design and methods; data collection and analysis; writing manuscripts and grant proposals; and mentoring and supervising students and research assistants.

Program: https://homelessnesshub.ucsd.edu

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Salary range: A reasonable salary range estimate for this position is $64,522-$72,000.

APPLY LINK: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03524

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future, but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me or buy me a Ko-fi. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering.

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com.

Until next time,

Kristen

The Earth is always there to hold us, mold us, and heal us. Can we let it do its thing, instead of trying to manipulate it, causing its destruction? 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E. Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally or really wanted to highlight; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

I spent the first 9 years of my life with my own backyard. And it was a paradise, especially in the springtime. 

Four trees bearing our state’s official flowers, the Dogwood, lined up along an intriguing slope up to our neighbors behind us. While it wasn’t a great hill for sledding, especially since I could count the number of snows in the yard on my hands, it was still a great place for picnics on the hill with my parents, swinging as high as I could go on my Sears swing set, and my forays into being a junior gardener, thanks to accompanying my mom to all the area nurseries, namely Greensboro’s New Garden, which at the time had a junior garden club. 

I need to stop here and talk about how the natural world tried to betray me before we turn it back around and talk about moments like what opens this week’s newsletter, where I’m hanging out with a beloved local cherry blossom tree.

For a hot minute as a child, I would run around saying I was allergic to the sun, especially as it had started its steady climb of getting hotter and hotter in the early 1990s and I hated it. 

I no longer say that as I learned that folks who are actually allergic to the sun have much different challenges. The original child I saw like this had to wear a HazMat suit when he was on Oprah in the 1990s because sunlight and even studio lights were too bright and hot to not burn their skin. I couldn’t find a direct link to that episode, but I found these links to children who have much different options, namely, a summer camp where they can all play outside together after dark.

However, me and the dogwoods had too much fun one day and my parents noticed that I was swelling in my face. By the time they called my pediatrician and got me to our local Eckerd Drug (RIP), for some extra strength Benadryl, everything looked extra smushed and blurry. I remember taking said Benadryl and waking up the next morning ok. However, at least I had my own swing set, tree set, pediatrician, and parents with pediatric health insurance on me. Even my situation could have been worse had that not been the case.  But I still stayed inside more often than not for the next few years.

I’m not going to link to every single resource and history link about how Black folks have had to battle Jim Crow in its various permutations to have access to outdoor space. Same with all the support groups that are growing to help Black folks get back outside in nature.

I will say that the reason nature is number one for me for comfort now is square because of what we’ve been going through these last few years. Once we got the go-ahead that we could start going outside again, with a mask on, if we weren’t  “essential”, Les suggested we go to the National Harbor entrance to the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail.

It was so humid that June day, but it was like a switch went off for me. One, all I needed was a light cloth mask. Two, it connects all three jurisdictions (DC legally extends down the Potomac in the water to the original boundary stone in Jones Point Park) on foot. We’d hiked the whole Wilson Bridge portion of the trail before on a warm January day in early 2020, but this became a lifeline for us and still is. (In fact, we are overdue for a hike). 

Since then, we’ve kayaked and walked other adjacent trails and I really realized that no one out here, especially here in the DC area, cares about what my body looks like, sounds like, feels like, and if I really “belong” here. 

I got a taste of how awesome just biking (and Segwaying at least once or twice)   the National Mall as a 14-mile trail loop was when I worked as a bike tour guide on the National Mall in 2019 as I went through another transitional year running this platform.

But I was technically at work and I couldn’t tell those tourists all of the Black histories I wanted to at all of the monuments and on Capitol Hill (besides admitting that the statue at the top of the Capitol Building is a beloved Confederate symbol). And while I was tipped very generously, it wasn’t enough to risk my life and lungs through the spring of 2020 if we were deemed essential workers, because we were working outdoors, with no need to socially distance.

However, the trails now are hobbies and refuges and I’m overdue to spend time on one! And this is how natural spaces, including river kayaking and the beachfront, are my most comfortable space. Next week, my second most comfortable space — bookstores and libraries!

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  In this section over the next few weeks of these themed newsletters, I’ll be reminding you why I’m ranking spaces in the first place and how that’s building up into launching phase one of the usable Black Queer Feminist Urbanist dashboard. 

I came up with nature trails and river activities being first by listing ten places on a vertical scale of 1-10 with 1 being the safest for me and ten being the least.

I’m still working on how I want to collect this kind of information from you, and how it would work in an interactive dashboard, but for now, just email me your top ten. Let me know if you’d want me to share it in a future edition of this space!

And for reference, Here’s the vertical version of my Personal Space Comfort Index  from most to least comfortable, with this week’s space in bold and next week’s space in italics:

Nature Trail/River Kayaking

Bookstores and Libraries

Craft circles, stores, and festivals

Places that sell and serve food (restaurants/grocery stores/bars)

Private residences

Public transportation

Schools and workplaces

Healthcare facilities

Hair Salons

Churches* (I’ll explain this asterisk in a few weeks when I break down why I feel least comfortable in a church but not necessarily in spiritual spaces). 

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them. 

For starters this week, this article on how Black folks were steered, then  somewhat left-behind in the suburbs in the 1970 and 1980s  was chilling.  It’s by the late activist Yulanda Ward, who was believed to be assassinated because of her housing activism as a DC resident in 1980. What gave me the chills was that what she was saying, isn’t that much different than what I and other Black housing bloggers, planners, elected officials, and activists say on a regular basis. 

Also, maybe she wasn’t assassinated and her own community failed her.  In saying that I’m making the presumption that the thieves that killed her while robbing her were cis Black men and it may have been motivated by sexism for her daring to speak over powerful Black male activists. We still have that antagonism by cis Black men and some cis Black women towards those with marginalized gender expressions in our community and sometimes ourselves in the mirror when we don’t “measure up”. 

This is now the time when we must consider how we will govern ourselves in the “promised lands”, otherwise, the cycle of us being displaced will continue and we won’t have any tools to help ourselves and our accomplices against those new battles.

***

Then, I’ve been battling a more personal battle with accepting my body has changed. While I’ve been able to protect myself from COVID-19 thus far, I have not been able to prevent other health challenges, which have produced some weight gain.  

The onslaught of diet culture, getting back to “normal” after lockdown, and having to say goodbye to some of my favorite garments has been hard. Giving myself the space to create the clothes I needed and wanted, along with learning to love myself as I am,  is why I rebooted Kristpattern. 

The other was that in the middle of 2020, I would have never imagined that so many of you still want to read and even financially support this newsletter and that I could find a way back to the in-person podium, the virtual podiums would continue to come and that I would be able to work with some previous clients in an impactful and affirming way. I needed some way to pay the bills, but now it’s become an expensive, but affirming hobby that’s granted me an amazing community of people that know me not for this page, but know me because I’m the fun crocheter who makes things in bright colors and cool yarns that actually fit!

I still thought I was the only urban planner turned sustainable and inclusive fashion maker, though, through my travels down inclusive mid-to-plus sized fashion, I found Sotela, a made-to-order, size-inclusive, labor-inclusive, person of color-run clothing house. 

I have yet to order any of these clothes, but I do like this idea of flexibility in sizing, as this is the real issue I have with my size, I hate the idea of having to throw out my clothes every year because my body just does what it’s going to do. I’ll let y’all know how this brand goes. Also, please shout out your sustainable and inclusive fashion favorites.  And yes, in two weeks I’ll be going back into why craft spaces are my number three most comfortable space!

***

One day though, I’ll have this experience, that managed to slip through the paywall long enough for me to PDF for you, of being a Black person assigned female at birth, challenging those assignments, and finding a sense of place in my body, at the sea, bathing all of it in peace.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

My local library, in this case, the DC Public Library, despite my access to several of our region’s libraries, had an e-book copy of Meet Me by the Fountain by Alexandria Lange. So far, I’m in the first chapter or so, where it breaks down how Victor Gruen came to create Northland Mall in Southfield, Michigan. Fun fact, my aunt has lived near there for over 40 years on the Detroit proper side and when the mall finally closed in 2015, she AirDropped me several pictures from its last days. To be expected, GNC and Foot Locker were hanging on tight. (There’s some dead mall humor here about how these stores are the last to go).

And, I’m just as happy to see so many young  R&B singers come out of the DMV region and get national airplay. Once upon a time,  if you were an artist in the  Mid-Atlantic region, you pretty much packed up your bags, unless you were ok doing piano residencies Roberta Flack style or singing in your hometown gospel quartet and moved to New York, LA or Nashville, depending on your preferred music style. 

Now, not only can artists launch from wherever home is; some of these artists, like PG County, Maryland native Alex Vaughan featured in the main link above and Fayetteville, NC native J. Cole, are making labels and festivals and open mics so we can travel as much as we want to, while still making good music. Which reminds me, that guitar of mine in the closet at my current apartment in Oxon Hill and my Casio keyboard at my mom’s house in Greensboro are getting too dusty…

Oh, and yes, this week’s title is a gender-neutralized ode to this song, which I might have to use those dusty instruments to cover in honor of my dad, who really liked this song and wanted me to learn all the words to it, and to honor and lift up all my fellow trans and nonbinary spirits of the world, who need reassurance that their bodies are just as natural as anyone else’s bodies. 

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

Mpact: Transit + Community conference (formerly called Rail~Volution) is inviting you to submit a proposal to speak at the 2023 conference coming to Phoenix, AZ, in November. If you work on transit, connected mobility options, supportive land use & development, share your experience via a proposal. Full information here: https://www.mpactmobility.org/conference/speakers/. 

The deadline to submit is March 31, 2023. 

The conference is known as a place to learn new tools and forge cross-sector connections. It focuses on the whole community built around transit and multimodal investments, from the modes themselves to housing, business, and economic development, including the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity, and overall quality of life. 

To submit a proposal, review the Call for Speakers Information packet, download the worksheet to draft your submission, then submit using an online form. (All the links are on this page: mpactmobility.org/speakers.) Your proposal is an indication that you are willing and able to be in Phoenix for the conference. Speakers can attend for free for the day they are speaking (the session schedule will be available in July) or will need to pay the full rate to attend the entire conference. Scholarships are available to people affiliated with community organizations and non-profits. 

The 2023 conference comes at a time when transit and development models are in flux and (in the US) federal infrastructure funding is rolling out. How are your projects or initiatives changing to respond to challenging times? How are you doing things differently to achieve better outcomes for your community? What are specific approaches to reversing disparities? To innovative financing? To more sustainable energy choices? To engaging community members in decision-making? To succeed in mitigating heat, fires, and flood or taking a systemic approach to climate change? 

The Call for Speakers for Mpact Transit + Community 2023 is your chance to join the conversation and shape the vision for how our communities move and thrive.

***

Postdoctoral Scholar Fellow – Homelessness Hub

Location: University of California, San Diego

Homelessness Hub, a research entity in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow working in the area of homelessness and/or housing precarity.

The official postdoctoral scholar fellowship appointment will be through the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The postdoctoral scholar will work under the supervision of the Homelessness Hub leadership team: Dr. Jennifer Nations, Dr. Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell and Dr. Leslie Lewis.

Homelessness Hub is focused on research, education, and communications on housing and homelessness-related topics for San Diego and neighboring regions. Equity and justice are integral to our work and we center the experiences of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. We are actively expanding our research agenda and will do so by leveraging new and existing collaborations.

A highly qualified postdoctoral scholar is sought to contribute to all aspects of

Homelessness Hub’s research process. Position duties include but are not limited to: developing research design and methods; data collection and analysis; writing manuscripts and grant proposals; and mentoring and supervising students and research assistants.

Program: https://homelessnesshub.ucsd.edu

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Salary range: A reasonable salary range estimate for this position is $64,522-$72,000.

APPLY LINK: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03524

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me or buy me a Ko-fi. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering. 

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Without humanity, everything we build is just statues and structures and experiments. Empty, hostile, and haunting. When we think about how people use what we make, and honor their diversity and ensure their inherent humanity, we always win.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

So, I’m trying to not open these emails with a sermon, but right now, I have to highlight that we are in a very real crisis of unsafe spaces. Note that I don’t say uncomfortable spaces, because there’s a difference. 

Not parsing out that difference is costing us lives. 

In my definition, unsafe space is someone threatening verbal or weaponized violence against you for covering your face or not looking, sounding, or even feeling the way you’re “supposed” to feel for them. Unsafe space is also space that is physically inaccessible. 

An uncomfortable space is when someone’s behavior or look isn’t pleasurable or appealing to you, but they aren’t endangering your life or well-being for being in the space. Also, their being in the space isn’t keeping you from coming in and thriving, either on your own or with assistance.

These distinctions get muddy when we have faith traditions that teach that being allowed to be in the presence of the Divine means looking or acting or being a certain way. Never mind humans, even if you believe we just evolved without any overarching actor, just are. No qualifications or questions. However, in our souls, we’ve decided that sometimes some people don’t belong or aren’t good enough.

Sometimes the person we decided wasn’t good enough is us.

And in a world where we’ve created tools that can make dirt and powder weapons of mass destruction, where we use our bare hands to snuff out the breath or beat down the brains of those we don’t like, the lines are further blurred between uncomfortable and unsafe spaces.

But we owe it to ourselves, as cliche as all of this sounds, to be in the right relationship with humans. 

And if you ever wonder, especially if you’re new around here why I spend so much time talking about who actually uses those 15-minute cities, those shiny new office cubicles with HEPA filters and the outdoor seating cafes, and yes, the bus, it’s because they’re all for naught if they’re empty.

Because you want your building to be more than a tall, expensive statue of windows.

You want your transit system to be more than a life-sized, gas or electric-powered Hot Wheels toy set on a fixed track.

Because we are all worthy and none of our labor is in vain.

(Also, I want to shout out my therapist for nudging me to start thinking about what’s uncomfortable vs. what’s unsafe. I want to put in a note here to encourage you to find a therapist that knows that much of what we consider mental health is just health and who can help you handle systemic oppression while also learning how to break it down).

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to pause with the specific principles and talk a little more about this Black Queer Feminist Index I’m shaping.

So last week, we ran into a bit of a technical difficulty with my Personal Space Comfort Index.  

However, this week, rather than panicking when my measure didn’t work right and dumping it (see, I’m just as guilty as others of discarding data and measures, not because they don’t work, but because they don’t seem to work), I am sharing as much of the index as I can, because next week, based on what we’ve been talking about in our opening reflections, I want to dig into why these spaces are uncomfortable for me. And, I want to find a survey software to help me make this easy for you to do so that I can collect and compare data.

In the meantime, you can just do your own 1-10 list on a piece of paper or list from the most comfortable, to least comfortable, spaces that you are most comfortable in. Another advantage of doing this is that you can write out the names of the spaces in the way you know them, not just in the way that others code them for analysis.  If you’d like me to compare and contrast, feel free to email me at kristen@theblackurbnanist.com if this is not already in your inbox. If it is in your email, reply back or leave it in the comments on my website or Substack. 

Now, without further ado, the list. Here’s the vertical version of my Personal Space Comfort Index  from most to least comfortable:

Nature Trail/River Kayaking

Bookstores and Libraries

Craft circles, stores, and festivals

Places that sell and serve food (restaurants/grocery stores/bars)

Private residences

Public transportation

Schools and workplaces

Healthcare facilities

Hair Salons

Churches* (I’ll explain this asterisk in a few weeks when I break down why I feel least comfortable in a church but not necessarily in spiritual spaces). 

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them. 

So yes, you might have seen that one of Lyft’s pages honored me and 9 of my colleagues as one of their top-ten people to follow in transportation and they drew me and four others on the list. I’ll echo here what I said on my personal Facebook when I posted it there earlier today: 

In the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018 I was driving Lyft to help build up my budding transportation, design, and media business, and now I’m one of their top-ten leaders.

While a lot of these rankings can be political and yes, even petty, I do honor that I’m not doing the work in a vacuum or in vain.

Also, we all need to be lifting each other up when we can. It’s why appreciate so much the opportunity earlier this month to be on KBOO Community Radio’s monthly The Bike Show, currently co-hosted by my dear friend in the urbanism space,  Nedra Deadwyler.  I haven’t shared it before now because I felt super rambly and we had technical difficulties. But again, what I think is rambles, many of you get insight and light, especially those of you with whom we share marginalized intersections. I hope this interview and the Lyft article above empower you. Not just in your work, but you as a human. 

And since we are talking data, I absolutely support disaggregation of ethnicities within assumed ethnicities like Asian and African-American. We have a similar thread, but we are not all the same and it matters when people are baselining average salaries and presumed well-being on a number that’s skewed by those doing the best in our community. 

Finally, I’m also still thinking of this after watching this documentary by Tracee Wilkins of NBC Washington about how Charles County has become the new destination county for Black folks of means in the DC area. In addition to everything that’s been said by myself and other writers that I highlighted some of last week, I really worry that our classism is going to do us in. It’s also why I’m somewhat hesitant to disaggregate some data points, but I know that we need both measures to ensure the actual liberation of all oppressed people.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

It’s that time of year that I look to blast soft, airy, spring-like jazz and R&B music. In 2020 and again in 2023 with his new record, Braxton Cook’s jazz has floated to the top of my list. Additionally, Maxwell’s Embrya is back in my rotation, as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. But, I finished today’s newsletter with both of Kelela’s full-lengths back-to-back.

And I pulled Moya Bailey’s breakdown of how she crafted the concept of misogynoir off my physical shelf. It’s already in the canon, because, reasons, but as we continue through this month, I want to really soak in and understand this concept as a creator of media.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

Mpact: Transit + Community conference (formerly called Rail~Volution) is inviting you to submit a proposal to speak at the 2023 conference coming to Phoenix, AZ, in November. If you work on transit, connected mobility options, supportive land use & development, share your experience via a proposal. Full information here: https://www.mpactmobility.org/conference/speakers/. 

The deadline to submit is March 31, 2023. 

The conference is known as a place to learn new tools and forge cross-sector connections. It focuses on the whole community built around transit and multimodal investments, from the modes themselves to housing, business, and economic development, including the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity, and overall quality of life. 

To submit a proposal, review the Call for Speakers Information packet, download the worksheet to draft your submission, then submit using an online form. (All the links are on this page: mpactmobility.org/speakers.) Your proposal is an indication that you are willing and able to be in Phoenix for the conference. Speakers can attend for free for the day they are speaking (session schedule will be available in July) or will need to pay the full rate to attend the entire conference. Scholarships are available to people affiliated with community organizations and non-profits. 

The 2023 conference comes at a time when transit and development models are in flux and (in the US) federal infrastructure funding is rolling out. How are your projects or initiatives changing to respond to challenging times? How are you doing things differently to achieve better outcomes for your community? What are specific approaches to reversing disparities? To innovative financing? To more sustainable energy choices? To engaging community members in decision-making? To success in mitigating heat, fires, and flood or taking a systemic approach to 

climate change? 

The Call for Speakers for Mpact Transit + Community 2023 is your chance to join the conversation and shape the vision for how our communities move and thrive.

***

Free training on data analysis and storytelling for organizations working in urban equitable development

The Equitable Development Data Insight Training Initiative (EDDIT) teaches organizations, non-profits, and local governments in the U.S. and Canada how to use their data and resources to document, reflect, evaluate, and communicate the impacts of their work to stakeholders and communities.  

Our skilled data analysis and storytelling experts help organizations reach new audiences using data and resources they already own. We work closely with your organization to create 20-30 hours of personalized modules designed to meet your data and narrative needs. Organizations located in small to mid-sized cities (with populations less than 500,000) are eligible for our Initiative.

We are looking for a wide range of equitable development projects, from a local community garden to a city-wide public transportation plan. If you know an organization who could benefit from free training in data analysis and storytelling, we encourage you to share this Initiative. Let’s build equitable cities together. There is no cost to apply. 

Find out more on our website.

The Equitable Development Data Insight Training Initiative (EDDIT) is a collaboration between UC Berkeley Centre for Community Innovation and University of Toronto School of Cities, funded by a $2.2 million (USD) grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

***

Postdoctoral Scholar Fellow – Homelessness Hub

Location: University of California, San Diego

Homelessness Hub, a research entity in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow working in the area of homelessness and/or housing precarity.

The official postdoctoral scholar fellowship appointment will be through the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The postdoctoral scholar will work under the supervision of the Homelessness Hub leadership team: Dr. Jennifer Nations, Dr. Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell and Dr. Leslie Lewis.

Homelessness Hub is focused on research, education, and communications on housing andhomelessness-related topics for San Diego and neighboring regions. Equity and justice areintegral to our work and we center the experiences of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. We are actively expanding our research agenda and will do so by leveraging new and existing collaborations.

A highly qualified postdoctoral scholar is sought to contribute to all aspects of Homelessness Hub’s research process. Position duties include but are not limited to: developing research design and methods; data collection and analysis; writing manuscripts and grant proposals; and mentoring and supervising students and research assistants.

Program: https://homelessnesshub.ucsd.edu

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Salary range: A reasonable salary range estimate for this position is $64,522-$72,000.

APPLY LINK: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03524

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering. 

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Yes, you can go off vibes and create a space. However, we can’t expect all of our vibes to always vibe together and that’s where the data comes in to meet us.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

The grocery store used to scare me. 

And no, I’m not talking about three years ago when we first went into COVID-19 lockdown, but when I was younger, I thought all these people were staring at me and how weird I was.

As much as I love the mall now, I felt the same way up in there too.

However, and this should have been a clue, I never felt nervous at the fabric store. Well, other than when it came time to cut fabric or use the actual sewing machine. But my body was never an issue and after all, this was a space celebrating creativity, especially for femme-presenting folks. (This was the 1990s, we were just starting to do better about this in the South, only to reverse course in so many ways).

And at Borders in the mid-1990s, there was always another quirky nerdy, even Black, child sitting around and reading just like me every Tuesday and Thursday night that my dad would take me, so I wouldn’t have to spend all my time at the fabric store where my mom worked 

Once I realized my hair wasn’t going to fall out, and I had a stylist that wanted my hair to grow and thrive,  I started to relax at my hair salon.

It was ok to step in a little mud and frizz out my hair on the nature trails because I was gradually being reminded that I too belong in natural spaces. After all, we all came from the Earth!

Coming out fully gave me a larger voice in matters and spaces of gender and sexuality.

Likewise with spiritual spaces, but depending on the denomination and their commitment to justice and liberation, that can still be a fraught environment.

Work and school can also be hit or miss.

And as much as I know many of you trust my judgment and would make a space better anyway, just because I told you I needed you too, sometimes, we need the kinds of measurements that we can easily distill and use to convince others to make our spaces welcoming.

It’s also how we de-marginalize ourselves so that instead of being history and history alone, we have a role in the present times, exactly where we need to be and nowhere else.

So, are you ready to measure better with me? Let’s go and scroll.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to pause with the specific principles and talk a little more about this Black Queer Feminist Index I’m shaping.

So, I opened up the newsletter with that thought because the big drop this week is my new measure. Introducing the Personal Space Comfort Index.  How does it work?

I created 10 space types and I ranked them from one-ten based on one being the least comfortable and 10 being the most comfortable. Sadly, the table is only rendering in some platforms, but not others and I found this out just before I pushed send on Friday afternoon (today).

Be patient with me, we will have an index because we absolutely need a measurement.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them. 

First,  I really appreciate reading how other urbanists, architects, and planners of color are reckoning with how this work has oppressed us, yet taking it back in ways that can heal us.  This architecture firm is one of many and I appreciate their candid thoughts on why it’s harder for us to start and sustain design firms as Black folks.

It’s especially relevant to think about how much control in what we are building as last Sunday I called home to my mom and she told me that Smith Homes, the housing project I spent my first nine years living with my mom and dad adjacent to, and several years visiting my dad in, until his untimely death almost a decade ago, is now being torn down. 

And not just bulldozed for replacement housing, of which I’m not sure the terms, but used as a training facility by the Greensboro Police and Fire departments. This was reported on back in November and December, but I was super busy and I didn’t make it to North Carolina in person then after all as I had hoped. 

Between this and the well-meaning, but off-base execution of the temporary tiny homes and safe sleeping lot for cars, I feel like my childhood home continues to slip away. No amount of Boomeranging will bring my dad and the lives and community back that seem to require one to have a certain salary or affiliation, even in my mid-sized hometown in the South. Plus, what will come of the community efforts to end violence and provide resources in these areas as the replacement housing is at least five years away, and there’s no guarantee that even if everyone is eligible to come back, they will. 

And this news comes to me as we continue to process the aftermath of yet another fire at the apartment complex in Silver Spring, Maryland now known as Arrive Silver Spring.  My friend and GGWash colleague Dan Reed spent several key childhood years in this building under another name and has broken down how this building came to be and every single vein of problems it has, past and present. They also manage to slide in their personal story in the most perfect way as they always do when they write about their life vis-a-vis urbanism.  

However, Dan’s story was one of my proudest edits thus far as one of GGWash’s contributing editors,  This story, from writer Olubusayo Shabi, is the other. She broke down the promised land myth people put on the Black communities of the DC metro area (which we affectionately call the DMV) and I’m so happy to have ushered in her first professional byline! There will be more! 

Finally, this may have not left Black feminist and queer/trans-Twitter, but yes Alice Walker has clearly and definitely joined the TERF squad. Unpacking everything around this is a whole other newsletter, but I wanted y’all to know that I saw it and it underscores why we have to make this month about gender marginalization and liberation and not just “womanhood”.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

It’s something about Omar’s The Anthology that can always bring me comfort. Last March Omar’s song Winner popped up in one of my Get Up! Mixes on Apple Music and I ended up going down the entire rabbit hole of the album as it streams on Apple Music (which leaves out a few songs, for reasons I’m assuming are related to samples and contracts). I’ve not been an Omar fan as long as some, I came into the fold with his 2013 record, The Man. However, listening to this retrospective record, in part or whole can completely shift my mood. It got me through anticipation around my surgery last year and as I await if I have to go onto another round, I am happy to soundtrack it with our very early cherry blossoms this year.

Meanwhile, we talked a lot about Greensboro and DC in the last section and I’m digging into I Am Debra Lee, to learn more about one of my elders who made the NC to DC leap, with a whole lot of other places in the middle. And yes, it’s also a media memoir. I also have Jemele Hill’s memoir in the queue and it was an honor to read Dorothy Gillam’s memoirand meet her in person. Living Black woman/ femme-presenting media legends give me life as I both continue to write for you and nurture other writers! Especially as it continues to be hard out here for many of us to do our work and speak up.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

Mpact: Transit + Community conference (formerly called Rail~Volution) is inviting you to submit a proposal to speak at the 2023 conference coming to Phoenix, AZ, in November. If you work on transit, connected mobility options, supportive land use & development, share your experience via a proposal. Full information here: https://www.mpactmobility.org/conference/speakers/. 

The deadline to submit is March 31, 2023. 

The conference is known as a place to learn new tools and forge cross-sector connections. It focuses on the whole community built around transit and multimodal investments, from the modes themselves to housing, business and economic development, including the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity and overall quality of life. 

To submit a proposal, review the Call for Speakers Information packet, download the worksheet to draft your submission, then submit using an online form. (All the links are on this page: mpactmobility.org/speakers.) Your proposal is an indication that you are willing and able to be in Phoenix for the conference. Speakers can attend for free for the day they are speaking (session schedule will be available in July) or will need to pay the full rate to attend the entire conference. Scholarships are available to people affiliated with community organizations and non-profits. 

The 2023 conference comes at a time when transit and development models are in flux and (in the US) federal infrastructure funding is rolling out. How are your projects or initiatives changing to respond to challenging times? How are you doing things differently to achieve better outcomes for your community? What are specific approaches to reversing disparities? To innovative financing? To more sustainable energy choices? To engaging community members in decision-making? To success in mitigating heat, fires and flood or taking a systemic approach to 

climate change? 

The Call for Speakers for Mpact Transit + Community 2023 is your chance to join the conversation and shape the vision for how our communities move and thrive.

***

Postdoctoral Scholar Fellow – Homelessness Hub

Location: University of California, San Diego

Homelessness Hub, a research entity in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow working in the area of homelessness and/or housing precarity.

The official postdoctoral scholar fellowship appointment will be through the UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The postdoctoral scholar will work under the supervision of the Homelessness Hub leadership team: Dr. Jennifer Nations, Dr. Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell and Dr. Leslie Lewis.

Homelessness Hub is focused on research, education, and communications on housing andhomelessness-related topics for San Diego and neighboring regions. Equity and justice areintegral to our work and we center the experiences of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. We are actively expanding our research agenda and will do so by leveraging new and existing collaborations.

A highly qualified postdoctoral scholar is sought to contribute to all aspects of Homelessness Hub’s research process. Position duties include but are not limited to: developing research design and methods; data collection and analysis; writing manuscripts and grant proposals; and mentoring and supervising students and research assistants.

Program: https://homelessnesshub.ucsd.edu

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Salary range: A reasonable salary range estimate for this position is $64,522-$72,000.

APPLY LINK: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03524

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering. 

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Yes, some things need to be measured properly to work. However,  when we measure actual humans in a certain way, it just creates marginalizations rather than liberation.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

For years I thought I was a horrible writer.  Go ahead and laugh at this, but I’m serious. 

This was based on my not doing so well on the statewide writing assessment North Carolina gives to students in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades. I learned through reading this document on the writing assessments as I knew them in school, that my class year of fourth graders was the first class to take the writing test in the fourth grade in the spring of 1996.

I do remember us being pushed hard and being told that it would have a huge impact on our future.  I also remember that this assessment tested how well we could write on a particular document. The document had some scanning bubbles for our demographic information, a page and a half of pre-written lines to limit our writing space and help us stay on prompt,  and the choice of said prompts. The tests were randomized by colors: Christmas red and green, plus grape soda purple which was supposed to keep us from cheating on each other.  

When my test came back, I had a level three. Which wasn’t bad and it lined up with what my natural abilities were at the time, but I felt like I just wasn’t good at persuasive or descriptive or declarative writing.

Despite having won a schoolwide, grade-wide writing award in the spring of 1994 that allowed second-grade me to go to my first invite-only writing conference at UNC-Greensboro. 

I’ll share more of that story in my book, but I won that award because I was good at making picture books I wrote and illustrated by hand.  We didn’t even have this software yet to type directly into the computer and we were many, many years away from iPads that render handwriting and scribbles.  However, with my mom’s help in proofreading and teaching me how to properly use a glue stick to cut out and tape my best illustrations in the book, after plenty of practice, I  had an award-winning book!

Looking back now, I realize that, the standard in the fourth grade was based on speed and tokenization. We were told that children in other countries could write persuasively and perfectly on demand in the fourth grade, why can’t us? And of course,  as I mentioned before, the test had been previously given in the sixth and ninth grades. Why the rush make us as fourth graders consume and process more information?

Never mind that adults get editors all the time. Some even get ghostwriters. And sadly, I wasn’t the only child that struggled with this particular assessment.

I share this now as I launch back into building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Index, in solidarity with similar efforts, some that I’ll link to further down in the email. The index as I continue to refine it will have different measures. These other researchers have different measures.

We are all people and everything about us is a data point. However, we will never all fit into one measurement and that’s more than ok!

Keep this in mind as we continue to honor these “marginalized months” and craft a world where we are honored and celebrated every single day without qualification.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point. This week, I wanted to pause with the specific principles and talk a little more about this Black Queer Feminist Index I’m shaping.

In 2018, I read this article in CityLab ranking cities for Black women. It turned my gears. First, because technically, this online platform predates CityLab (and its predecessor The Atlantic Cities) by about 2-3 years. 

Some of you may remember reading me the first time as a “contributor” to the site. I say “contributor” because this was the time before digital writing fees had caught up to print writing fees, and blogs were just wayward, say ghetto, children of The Press. I was also a 25-year-old millennial who had been told that the press was dead when all they really wanted to do was not figure out how to pay people. I say all this to say, the site never paid me and I have yet to ever have a paid article, drafted on either Atlantic site. Yes, I’ve had opportunities, but they all just seem to fizzle into the night.

So already, I’m concerned when I see this article, not because of its byline, but because of the platform and how the measure only seemed to pick up on education, healthcare, and the ability to get a job and house. Never mind there are so many other elements to living in a racialized Black, feminized body in cities across the globe.

So I added eight more measures and launched my first survey to assess them in 2019.

Then, I realized that the further we got away from that 2018 assessment, and the more y’all would come to my page first as an authority on Black feminisms and queer/trans life in cities, I wanted you to know the width and breadth of everyone doing this work and why.

I also wanted to make sure folks got proper credit. Hence the creation of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Canon.

And, I am passionate about helping folks find the right place for them. A friend in the industry told me earlier this week that I’d been speaking about healing and collective care in urbanism even as far back as our podcast recording in the spring of 2018. The manifestation in this case is coming together.

And so, you’ve been waiting for the results of what we call the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Index. I don’t have results today, and soon I’ll have a new measure that you can take and help me in building this canon of research.

 I am also still committed to sharing other canons of research into Black feminisms and how Black folks, especially Black gender marginalized folks, navigate metro areas.

Next week, in this section, I’ll introduce our new measure. Then in the following weeks, we’ll get back to sharing the different principles of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

I took notes on this article on conservatives who are moving to the American West (paywall) because they think that oligarchy will cause a world war.  While there’s overlap with the concerns on people becoming serfs or re-enslaved, the racism, ableism, and queer/trans antagonism stick out greatly, namely in how some in the article are conflating elite capture of Black Lives  Matter and LGBTQIA+ progress with the actual people and grassroots movements that demand our humanity.  Plus, many of these people running away are capable of fixing the problems they bemoan.

Meanwhile, you don’t have to like us, but, I wish folks wouldn’t impede on our ability to raise money and for cities to provide reparations,  like this Alexandria, VA  grant program that was canceled. (Paywalled, but here’s another and a gifted one describing what’s happened here)

This past week was declared Black Women’s History Month,  by Feminista Jones. I didn’t realize we were on this same wavelength and an official bridge week between Black and Women’s History Month had been created, but we are certainly in solidarity.  

And the same with the Movement for Black Lives declaring this month Black Feminisms Month. Here they break down the reason why we speak of Black feminisms,  as we come to the table together, as individuals in solidarity.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

I finally finished Women Talk Money, the amazing volume on money and wealth with a decolonial, abundance for all lens compiled by Rebbeca Walker, daughter of Alice and feminist and writer in her own right.  It is now in the official Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Canon and I encourage you to pick it up and read it,  along with  We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers and  It’s About  Damn Time,  by one of my closest business mentors,  Arlan Hamilton. Especially after reading that link about the conservative version of the apocalypse,  those of us who have been marginalized economically in one shape or form, need to understand how to manage money without exploiting our Earth and fellow human beings and creatures.

If you’re having trouble with those direct Bookshop links, go to my Books section on my homepage and you can access the store through that link. You’ll then need to scroll across to each book and click on its cover. And yes, as an affiliate, I do benefit financially, but this is one additional way to support this work.

And because it’s finally streaming, I played Logic’s new record as Les and I drove the George Washington Parkway back from a doctor’s appointment in Bethesda and to our regular pickup at Whole Foods in Navy Yard. (I don’t care what anyone says, anything south and west of 695, but east of South  Capitol Street is Navy Yard. Fight me later). I really, really love having area-specific hip-hop for the Mid-Atlantic.  I am very intrigued by Logic’s ability to spit rhymes and reboot the audio skit for the next generation of hip-hop and honestly all music period. Also, that cover image y’all!

Before You Go

This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!

Mpact: Transit + Community conference (formerly called Rail~Volution) is inviting you to submit a proposal to speak at the 2023 conference coming to Phoenix, AZ, in November. If you work on transit, connected mobility options, supportive land use & development, share your experience via a proposal. Full information here: https://www.mpactmobility.org/conference/speakers/. 

The deadline to submit is March 31, 2023. 

The conference is known as a place to learn new tools and forge cross-sector connections. It focuses on the whole community built around transit and multimodal investments, from the modes themselves to housing, business and economic development, including the implications for health, safety, equity, sustainability, access to opportunity and overall quality of life. 

To submit a proposal, review the Call for Speakers Information packet, download the worksheet to draft your submission, then submit using an online form. (All the links are on this page: mpactmobility.org/speakers.) Your proposal is an indication that you are willing and able to be in Phoenix for the conference. Speakers can attend for free for the day they are speaking (session schedule will be available in July) or will need to pay the full rate to attend the entire conference. Scholarships are available to people affiliated with community organizations and non-profits. 

The 2023 conference comes at a time when transit and development models are in flux and (in the US) federal infrastructure funding is rolling out. How are your projects or initiatives changing to respond to challenging times? How are you doing things differently to achieve better outcomes for your community? What are specific approaches to reversing disparities? To innovative financing? To more sustainable energy choices? To engaging community members in decision-making? To success in mitigating heat, fires and flood or taking a systemic approach to climate change? 

The Call for Speakers for Mpact Transit + Community 2023 is your chance to join the conversation and shape the vision for how our communities move and thrive.

***

If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering . 

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

We demonize the feminine and its sibling marginalizations at our peril, especially when much of what’s coded feminine in this iteration of society and urbanism are the things we all have to do and make to even survive as Earthlings.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

I feel that being a Feminist is more fraught than being Black, Queer or Urbanist, especially when you put all four words together.

Yes, Black and queer can get me killed outside of home. Urbanism debates what kind of home that is. Feminist can get me killed for all three even if the first three don’t succeed.

Of course, this assumes that I have a home and an exterior community that embraces me being Black and queer. Yet, there’s this rub, based on my feminine presentation on what I can and can’t do, even though I have a place of belonging, in both Black and queer communities. 

It’s also two rubs, that femininity isn’t mine as a Black woman or femininity is a colonial construct or femininity is weak or stupid or dumb or crazy.

Hello ableism and misogynoir and classism and colorism!

Today, I declare to you that my femininity and feminism is none of these things. 

I also release the expectations of all these isms and titles.

I call for unity, the kind that doesn’t require me to be extra clothed or extra tough walking the streets.

The kind that says my textile talents are a backbone of our village creation, not a burden of my appearance and supposed brain capacity.

The kind that releases the chains of enslavement, because I’m supposed to be extra strong or wise, but only worthy of exploitation!

I’m breaking through that kitchen picture window.

I’m coming off the mannequin podium and from behind the makeup counter

I’m dressed up and made up and I’m taking it to the streets.

And claiming my corner, with the fruits of the field I cultivate at the end of the rail line.

I’m roaring, but I choose to roar. I’m roaring because roaring is my birthright.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight my working feminist definition.

So how do I define feminist in my practice statement?

A person and a movement that honor genders marginalized under patriarchy, traditionally those tagged as feminine or outside traditional gender binaries.

Did you notice I say nothing about who is a woman or not?  Notice that I don’t include hair length and texture, adornments, mannerisms, smells, vocal quality, or really anything bodily.

I take it back to what creates this distinction in the first place and that is patriarchy. Outside of patriarchy, which yes, this is something we have zoomed back pretty far in human history to find, especially if we are thinking about the last  300-500 years of many civilizations, any gender can reproduce and yes, more than one gender can and does exist in  the human species and has for years.

It does not diminish us to function more like our fellow animal creatures. If anything, it may be their advantage that so many are not pressed about gender and yes, some even change their sexual roles, with the aid of other members of the species.

Just like we have to walk away from skin color marginalization, we have to do the same with other body parts and functions. 

We have to stop creating and building environments that are abelist and sexist for all, not just for certain preferred body characteristics. 

And yes, we can still celebrate our diversity and rejoice and share with each other.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Kate Wagner always writes things that make us uncomfortable about our architecture and this piece is probably the best I’ve read of hers, where we get into why we shouldn’t be doing architecture just for the money and in ways that destabilize the globe, both its resources and people.

I’m striving as  I do my work to not encourage folks to collect Black leaders like baseball cards, but integrate and affirm our humanity as Black/African folks. Really appreciate  Karen Attiah’s note this morning on her thoughts on how we approach Black History  Month and how we’ve left so many leaders to die or dwell in squalor.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

I finally streamed the entire SZA album. I will say that this is absolutely a night/low mood album and to prepare your ears accordingly. Plus, Danyel Smith is always a gift in giving us a mood and a means for reading and affirming our Black woman musical geniuses.

However, as I include a gift link to the New York Times,  I do want to announce again here that as of March 12, in solidarity and to push forward the dismantlement of this idea of a “paper of record” that can do no wrong, even when it consistently dehumanizes non-white, queer, trans, and even poor folks, I am letting my New York Times subscription lapse. Here are the tweets from when I made this decision. If I consume the paper in the future, it will be through library access and even then, I will be featuring writers who I know support trans and nonbinary rights, along with Black liberation and disabled pride. 

On the book side, I’ll be reading this essay collection on Edna Lewis, the Black woman who is not lauded enough as the creator of the concept of serving restaurant food directly from the farm to the table and for lifting up the cuisine many of her ancestors created as enslaved people into a highly regarded cuisine.

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

***

Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

I took for granted that I grew up in a place that saw itself as a refuge and that had abundance. Now, I’m seeking to create that everywhere I go, embracing that change is also growth.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.

 Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. 

I’d like to think that the voices we heard last Friday going into Saturday night in our room at the Millenium Hotel across from the World Trade Center complex were people who were there on September 11, 2001, telling us to have the best weekend we could possibly have.

Now I know that when I talk about this woo/ancestors stuff, y’all might run and click that unsubscribe button with the quickness, but hear me out.

Staying in the Financial District already means we are at the site where enslaved Africans were brought in and sold onto the Lenape lands that became known as New York City and its five boroughs.

However, the minute I got back in our car at Union Station on Monday, and a long-awaited check was in the mail, I knew I had to make a significant move. 

***

Transportation and textiles are what made my hometown more than a colonial village designated as the seat of its colonial power. It bounces back from tragedy and it does its best to be a shelter for all those that wash up on its shores. This is despite not having a natural shoreline and being in the center of a state that doesn’t always appreciate how unique it is.

I was drawn to its much bigger cousin because of its multitude of transportation, textiles, and human beings from a very young age. However, when I watched the Manhattan skyline shatter in the course of 90 minutes, I decided that I needed to live somewhere where the skyline just doesn’t. Now, DC was already a second choice living place for me, and it wasn’t without scars that same day, but it just felt safer to be somewhere that never really visibly changed.

Then I visibly changed. Then I started to move. Then I realized that it’s nothing wrong with having a city be a 24-hour ecosystem. There’s no sin in being awake in the middle of the night. There’s no sin in a lot of the things I care about the most.

What I needed so much, and what I’ve been moving about for years to find, is a city of refuge.

A city with unlimited opportunities and spaces for me to grow. A city with raw materials that I could draw from, that would regenerate itself and create wealth for all in its boundaries, while acknowledging that its boundaries can and should grow.

What I know now is that cities don’t have to grow at the expense of others. They can change and that change is a net positive. They can also change negatively, but they can be resolved.

This is what I got from being in New York, especially in the parts of New York I spent last weekend in, last weekend. 

Sometimes when you’re in a place that doesn’t change, it can stifle you. However, everywhere needs to change and now, I have a little bit more motivation to get that change started.

Next week, I’ll talk about pushing back against those that say I’m too (insert sexist or misogynoric statement here) to do the things I want to do in my city of refuge.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight my working urbanist definition.

So I’m changing the order of the principles this week with my reflection, because I wanted to highlight the working definition I use in my more academic examination of what I mean by urbanism, against what the Charter of the New Urbanism defines as urbanism before I talk about how my perceived femininity makes city dwelling less of a refuge and more of a fortress.

So, my definition:

A person and/or a movement that promotes the conglomeration of ideas, services, and objects in centralized locations, governed democratically, given freely and fairly, and connected by public transit and other people-powered transportation networks such as sidewalks and multi-use bicycle and pedestrian paths. Not mutually exclusive to rural expressions, but the natural output of natural and rural environments that have high levels of human interaction.

So as I’ve typed this (and yes, even after I presented this in person just a couple of weeks ago) I realized the definition is missing housing. This is not an on-purpose omission. However, the more I think about it, I feel like housing is a human right and is assumed to be part of this definition. But, one of the other things I’ve learned is that I have to be specific in all my definitions.  So, expect a revised version of this definition the next time you see it.

One that firmly defines what it means for me to feel like I’m at home in a city.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

As sad as I am to hear that an eighth student has died on NC State’s campus this year, the third of suicide, I’m happy to see the Indy Week, an alt-weekly I never missed picking up on Friday afternoons on campus,  publish a reflection on how we as Black folks need space to “fail” and to get the help we need even if we are not children of promise.

And I’m happy to have made my home in a state that demands we teach gender variety and “say gay” at school!

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

Of course, I made sure I streamed Janelle Monae’s first official single in five years. Will we be getting an album set in our present-day dystopia? And Apple dropped this Mariah Carey single right next to it on my personal new releases dashboard. 

Shelfwise, via Scribd, I’ve been reading poet and Vibe Check podcast co-host Saeed Jones’s 2019 memoir. As someone in the same age bracket that also lost a parent in their mid-twenties (and is coming up on the tenth anniversary of losing that parent), all I can say is that I am working to make sure my memoir manifesto has enough happiness in it so that people know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but only if the people in our lives show up for us as consistently as we do for ourselves. 

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

***

Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

***

Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

***

I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Because I defined myself for myself, I’m already living in my Black queer feminist future. However, it still comes with a lot of awe and absolute linkage to my past as a child of those brought to the so-called North Carolinian shores and cultivated through what makes us a city. Oh, and I did ok “outside” this week! 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner,  fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. Ok, now, onward to our reflection this week, which I kinda teased above.

I took a deep breath when I sat on the fancy hotel bed Monday afternoon and cut my strings to my green crocheted dress. 

I always do some kind of drum roll or breathing practice when I cut a garment’s final strings or send a piece out for final edits or push the publish button on a set of Breakfast Links or a really important, but possibly controversial piece or a design frame that’s going to influence how people comprehend a very important set of information.

And add on that, that we are still in a global airborne respiratory pandemic and we are in a gun violence epidemic and people really are being loud and wrong about Black folks and queer/trans folks and even bodies that have uteruses being able to use them how they see fit. We have solutions for all of these things, but none of them are used enough for us to truly feel safe, even in an academic space where discussion is supposed to be safe.

But Monday afternoon on that bed, with the sun streaming in from nearby Central Park, I found peace and convergence. 

I had just read my slides again to make sure they would make sense, especially when people weren’t going to see my mouth. The pictures on the slides, the gestures my hands make, my Southern yet Black language inflections,  the variegated blue and yellow tones in the green dress and the purple designer but more durable shoes, plus my purple strands making their lecture room debut, would have to do.

And they did, they so did. 

If you were in the room on Tuesday afternoon and wondered why I spent so much time talking about humanity when you might have expected me to say build a sidewalk X inches wide, flush to the ground and take down X fences around parks,  or put X more subway stops in Queens,  Brooklyn, and upper Manhattan,  know this.

This being that everything we do for people, plan for people, and design for people, starts with us knowing that the people are people. People with all kinds of shapes, sizes, identities, and inner worlds. 

Don’t ever start your plans for people, without knowing their essence. Otherwise, you’ll keep designing the same way, wondering on your inside why it doesn’t seem to work or someone keeps declaring they feel missing or empty or alone in the room or on the plaza or on that very special shiny train.

And when you get to the point in your career, where you’ve reached a pinnacle or you’ve found the Pinnacle to be too much to bear, you’ll have strength in knowing that you are specially trained in the tools to build your pinnacle, and you can draw from these touchy/feely design principles to shape your place. 

You’ll look up and you’ll be in a community that’s home.

Meanwhile, New York.  You captured my heart again. So much so, that I’m doing a bonus round this weekend for one of the big design conferences. Next week, I’ll have more thoughts about experiencing the city itself, especially in the shadows of 9/11 and COVID.

And of course, thank you to the Black Student Alliance of the Columbia University  Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), especially Jennah Jones and Kian Goldman,  for having and hosting me, my fellow panelists Michael Ford and Dr. Deshonay Dozier for mixing some amazing theory and practice into the room with me and of course my dear Les for these beautiful pictures and tagging along. We will be gearing up on February 23rd at 7:30 pm to do a needed conversation on Black LGBTQIA+ health in the frame of the story of Henrietta Lacks and how her experience and our experience with the same hospital differed. The conversation is free and virtual and you can register here. This will be posted online after the event as well.

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight the three working definitions of Queer that have been influencing this process.

So, this is my working queer definition from the principles.

Queer: A person who has a gender presentation, gender identity, gender journey/relationship, or sexual orientations that differ from traditional Western colonial thoughts on such ideas. Also refers to cultures that develop from this state of being.

Let me say that I don’t mean to center this against the Western definition on purpose. However, so much of what we understand as sexuality and gender has been funneled through a “Western/European” lens and cemented in the practices of conservative faith traditions that insist on just two genders, based on reproductive capabilities and capacities, with an emphasis on patriarchy.

However, this 2014 speech that birthed bell hooks’ infamous remarks on her personal queerness and the trans imagination, already wrapped up a talk and panel encouraging folks to consider how they were enslaved, builds on Audre Lorde’s admonition to define oneself for oneself, while also allowing folks to create their own imaginations.

As we make our definitions, let’s not forget to imagine first, so we can broaden our worlds! Next week, digging more into the feminist definition.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

So, for the record, still testing negative and still testing regularly (tested right before I went to the building on Tuesday and the last two days, with all my traveling). However, we are in a holding pattern where everyone should still be masking, helping with ventilation and access to medicine. 

It’s either stay in the house as a shut-in and be “forgotten” because you’re too disabled or forced to change because that disability is only cool when its time for a photo op, or be out here with no restrictions and acting like that there’s no such thing as illness and if you claim it is, you are not a real human. So yes, I’m in the travel with restrictions, limit access and lower viral load camp.

I’m very concerned that once we no longer have a public emergency declaration, this might send me back into the house. And all the folks shut in will never have a chance to see the light. We may be an ableist society, but that doesn’t mean we need to stay in one.

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On one of my next trips to New York, I hope to become part of the “#TamFam” either in the audience or on the stage with this work. Also pinching myself that I was super close to running into Erika Alexander, who in addition to bringing one of my favorite Black feminist urbanist characters to the screen in the 1990s in Living Single continues to make a way for Black women on and off camera. Here’s Erika on Tamron Hall, where she talks about also being on Columbia University’s campus this week receiving an award.

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And sadly, the quiet part about who is living in center cities and the conflicts created is now out loud in mainstream media, thanks to the Washington Post writing this digital headline: White people have flocked back to city centers — and transformed them (this is paywalled, with no option to gift a link) . 

I will say that as someone who does almost everything these days almost but sleep and get my hair done in Navy Yard (and the same with Les), I’m glad that the changes are concentrated, but if you watch this episode of the wonderful local WETA production of If You Lived Here, you’ll see another example of how its not all sunshine and rainbows with our gentrification. 

I only feel good about this because our financial position has changed. However,  I know the way our finances have changed is not applicable or replicable to anyone but us. I see my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and church families in all the Black folks I see on the edges. Broke living downtown. Doing well in the burbs, but way out and away from where the action is really happening. 

This is where the fire from my work is coming from. DC knows that something is going to have to change. However, will things change where they need to and will we collectively have the courage to make the changes in how we attract, move and house people in this region (and period!)?

***

And that’s a good segue to attaching my complete remarks from Tuesday afternoon. We do not have complete audio, but I’m happy to bring these slides to your school, house of worship, workplace, or fraternal organization. Book one of these sessions and let’s talk more about building an urbanism from a Black queer feminist perspective.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

This year, I’m challenging myself to read more books, versus reading long-form articles and hot takes. I also want to strengthen the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist book canon, by re-reading several of its titles. Realistically, I’ll probably be curating and skimming some of these titles, but I still want to lift them up to you as my readers, in case you’re self-educating, doing teach-ins, or need more materials than your university or school has provided on several of these topics. And sometimes, but not every week, I’ll be sharing some of my musical favorites, as I’ve been resurrecting my musical and DJ roots lately.

I was really pleased to walk into the Tyson’s Corner Center Barnes and Noble last night and find not just an issue of Baltimore magazine, but yet another one dealing with a major social issue that speaks to the marginalization of Black Baltimore, the Highway to Nowhere and said issue being the main focus of the cover. Les and I often peruse the magazines at the Potomac Yard one and I tend to hang out on the crochet, fashion, local use, and sometimes the music and wellness end, especially with so many of the big-name magazines being readily available online. 

I love that Baltimore magazine is not afraid to put social issues up front, highlight innovators and artists challenging systems and structures, plus, they do all the travel and tourist and best doctor/lawyer/real estate agent stuff. I’m sure they had to be nudged at some point to do this, but the point is that they aren’t afraid to make the cover and the front page of the website look the way it does at the moment, rather than try to hide the rough (and sometimes even the diverse) stuff.

More of our local magazines (looking at you Our State and Washingtonian because I care about you the most besides Baltimore), should be more courageous and willing to put these things on the cover, versus sneaking things in the back or waiting until they are more historical than current.

Meanwhile, we were at Tysons so I could join team iPad (and get some steps on my fairly new Apple Watch after seeing how much movement I was able to do in Manhattan), and very excited to try out Apple News and see so many overlapping magazines. I feel like I’m going to power through a lot of ebooks and magazines this way, plus get into doing surface patterns again with Procreate.

This week’s musical selection is my 2013 comprehensive list from Apple Music, which is a list of all the songs I actually bothered to download hard copies and purchase and burn on CDs that calendar year. 2013 was my first business trip to NYC and as I do so again over these next couple of weeks, I wanted us to revisit this volume of songs.

Finally, if you want to hear more of the sound of my voice, check out my recent episodes with the Black Women’s Wellness Agency podcast, where I speak of wellness as someone who is creating a different relationship with the Black feminine and Urban Planning is Not Boring where I tease my upcoming book!

Before You Go

This is our last section, where we normally have advertisements for others, but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. 

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Once again, if you want me to show up as I did above on your panel or for a keynote, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.

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Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week! Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week.

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I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. If you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack, but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind paywall, this is considered a love offering  

***

And if you want to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com. 

Until next time,

Kristen

Black History Month wasn’t always Black History Month. And for me, a proud Black queer feminist urbanist 365 (366 on leap year) days of the Gregorian calendar year, I don’t need that prompt to remember and embody my history. However, I’m happy and ready to plot my Black future and yours too. 

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E.  Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week is the first of our deep dive into the Whys of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism and how you can apply them, no matter your background. Let’s get started with a few words of reflection from me, then my weekly section on my Black queer feminist urbanist principles, “The Principle Corner”, then By the Way where I highlight articles and projects I had a hand in externally.; On the Shelf, On the Playlist where I share book and music recommendations, and finally Before You Go, where I share any ads and announcements if I have them and ways to support this work financially and externally. Ok, now, onward to our reflection this week, which I kinda teased above.

I know I sound like I hate February and Black History Month in the lead. I don’t. What I hate is that feeling I have to do extra things above and beyond what I already do, namely on a weekly basis in this newsletter. 

And I already said last week I’m not here to prove anything to you about my identity. However, I enjoy having the opportunity to school you and share with you elements of my life and culture. I love helping people make connections with who they are and the places they inhabit.

I really enjoyed when I was actively teaching the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School (which if you become a Patreon at any level this month, you’ll have access to all the archives) discovering that folks like Mary Ann Shadd Carey, Ida B Wells-Barnett, and W.E.B. DuBois were some of the first Black urbanists and social scholars. They were asking key questions about where we lived and who we lived for and what could we do with this colonized state we found ourselves under, even if we were emancipated from enslavement.

One of the other things I learned was that this work has value and is necessary for everyone, but for different reasons. Hence why I ran an equity caucus and a white space for the course the first time. I realized that running community groups online wasn’t something you do alone, especially if you want to avoid any kind of mistakes or stressors. However, we need something every day that allows us to reckon with our biases and acknowledge our histories.

It doesn’t need to be in just one month, but I know we love having X Month for causes and conditions, and identities that are often marginalized. However, having these months has often become a painful showcase of people trying to look supportive and say all the right things, while going right back to their old ways the next day.

I’m especially frustrated and disappointed this week that I continue to hear that companies inside of the architecture, planning, real estate, and development industries, along with adjacent advocacy groups, movement spaces, publications, and research centers are not reckoning with what makes it hard for marginalized identities outside of their favored months.

Addressing the disparities of the sector and related activities is a key thing I do both in this newsletter, in my lectures, and in my online and offline workshops. This is nothing new. What is new is that after all of the promises and pledges of Juneteenth and Black History Months 2020, 2021, and 2022, we are already starting off 2023 with skewed expectations.

We’ve become happy just to have a person, maybe two or even a good 25-30%  but never a majority, on staff, especially if that person is naturally inclined to be a community builder. We’ve gotten comfortable with doing our salary adjustments. Many more of us have done our implicit bias assessments and training and we know exactly what our biases are. 

We insist that it’s unfortunate that not every firm (or movement or advocacy group or government entity)  is as equitable or knowledgeable or generous with their time and benefits as we are. However, we are now at the point where we have to address that our systems for creating equity are not failing because we aren’t trying.  The system we’ve set up, not just for equity, but for how we conduct business and we share resources is working as it is supposed to because it was not set up for true liberation and abundant resource sharing.

The challenge I want to leave us with this month and every month we celebrate marginalized identities and conditions and places, is to ask ourselves why we chose to create the systems we have, for the things we love to do and promote. 

Why do we have to work to earn things that the Earth can generate on its own? Why do we have to work or look or sound or feel a certain way just to be deemed worthy as a human?

 If we choose to engage in technological processes, why do we put a premium on access to those processes and learning how to make them?

It’s ok to want to barter for something we created, that’s artistic, that’s unique to us, but why does that trade have to be so degrading and at times unequal based on certain capabilities? Why can’t we just share, knowing that many things that are at the human scale are infinite? And for what is not, we have the tools to make these decisions equitably. Why don’t we use them?

And finally, to create the future, we have to understand why we did these things in the past and we have to reckon with what we are doing in the present that’s doing more harm than good when it comes to our work.

We have to stop demonizing people who have the passion to make places but don’t always have a formal title. We have to stop making it seem like a person has to always work, to be worthy as a human. 

No, everyone can’t be planners, architects, or engineers, even run their own venture or write, like I’m doing. However, every single firm, even if it’s just you or a few other people, need to have a plan internally and externally. That plan needs to cover at the minimum, how you will manage when your work in the past has caused cultural harm, beyond an I’m sorry plaque, especially if you have the means to provide repair services for the harm done. In your present, it means to keep doing the work to understand your worldview, and complete transparency around your hiring and firing decisions, as well as choices to work with particular communities. 

As a powerful entity with control of your workforce, your company and the parts of the contract you’re contracted for, you’re still being inequitable if you fall into doing the following:

— Sending the email stating you’re sorry we can’t hire you, but not offering to give feedback or acknowledging the feedback may warrant or need further mediation. If you’re trying to escape a lawsuit or EEOC complaint in the United States, unfortunately, you may not be able to, but you could resolve the situation in mediation and more evaluation of where you sit in the nexus of an inequitable industry and your own personal needs and biases.

— Tokenizing. Clearly, the work that’s been done since the original Untokening is still not sinking in or running up against systemic barriers. Continuing to diversify not just your workforce, but your executive teams, boards, partnerships, and joint ventures is what’s needed to resolve this along with that system dismantlement work.

— Punishing your colleagues and employees internally for not meeting standards but demanding that clients and communities put aside their struggles or that we accept how people naturally do their work and art and practice.  Yes, have a mediation practice, yes, express concern about performance. But don’t be dictatorial to your employees, when you embrace others fully. No, you don’t tokenize externally, but you need to stop doing it internally.

Whatever you do, don’t run away from hard conversations. Otherwise, when the system finally crashes, you’ll be underneath it, instead of part of the solution.

The future, especially the future I can help you create from my Black queer feminist urbanist framework, will help you be part of the solution.  You’ll get new action steps, ways of being, and ways of generating abundance in income and well-being.

Finally, my dear Black siblings. Don’t feel obligated to educate anyone or even do extra digging up of history or culture this month. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get that formal position in the industry, especially if you already have a community tie and you have a means of income that allows you to give back to said community.

Now, if you feel called to explore more of your ancestors and elders and learn more about a place out of genuine curiosity, please do! If you love sharing your thoughts and your knowledge on social media, please do. And finally, it’s ok to not know everything and be on your own self-affirmation journey. It’s ok to want a better job or home or career and start the process of affirming that I’m here for you and I would love to be helpful. 

The Principle Corner

Each week, I’m taking a moment to share how I’ve been building the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist practice and ethic, so we can approach this work from a similar starting point.  This week, I wanted to highlight the two working definitions of Black that have been influencing this process.

So, in case you missed it last week, this is my working definition of Black: 

Black: A person of African descent, often with visibly melanated skin, who has been subjected directly or through ancestry to enslavement, colonization, discrimination, or mistreatment as a result of their ethnicity, past and present marginalization, and/or skin color. This also refers to the cultures derived from these activities and their adaptation to their environments.

This is a definition that comes from both my lived experience and my academic environment experience. I was thrilled to find this definition that makes it even more succinct:

“We know race is a construct, an invention of racism. Race was created to justify imperialism and the slave trade. Blackness is not intrinsic to anyone. Blackness is definitely not monolithic. Yet, Blackness, entwined with the enslavement of Africans, colonization of the continent and the subjugation of a massive diaspora– has become an indelible concept” — Sebene Selassie, as quoted in the foreword written by Gaylon Ferguson of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom

So yes, race is a construct. However, we’ve had actual, sometimes positive, sometimes negative consequences over centuries as a result of this construct and we must not ignore or explain away Blackness.

By the Way

Here’s where  I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Who was Carter G. Woodson, the founder of what has become Black History Month? Reading this I felt a very familiar sentiment to what I said above. I think if he were here, he would absolutely support the movement to observe this month as Black Futures Month.

My fellow Substacker Robert Jones, Jr. (author of The Prophets) has an amazing primer of Black gender-nonconforming and same-gender loving (terms that speak to Black LGBTQIA+ experiences) histories and the means of uncovering these ancestors and elders.

Meanwhile, people tried to tell me North Carolina was improving on this front, but none of our “safe areas” are immune from statewide intervention from the General Assembly and other entities that emit power from Raleigh which the whole state must bow down. I know we are ready to organize against this “Don’t Say Gay” bill, but how much of this do we endure before we ask our neighbors and family what’s going on with them that they don’t want us to exist? And even better, why do we let them get so loud and emboldened in the first place?

That last question in the blurb above was even more enhanced after I listened to this podcast and commented about what I thought my life would be like if I had continued to do this work in North Carolina.

On the Shelf, On the Playlist

This year, I’m challenging myself to read more books, versus reading long form articles and hot takes. I also want to strengthen the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist book canon, by re-reading several of its titles. Realistically, I’ll probably be curating and skimming some of these titles, but I still want to lift them up to you as my readers, in case you’re self-educating, doing teach-ins, or need more materials than your university or school has provided on several of these topics. And sometimes, but not every week, I’ll be sharing some of my musical favorites, as I’ve been resurrecting my musical and DJ roots lately.

So as you saw above in the Principle Corner, I’ve started to allow myself to explore other faith traditions and their intersection with Black ancestry and political status. I happened to be in the faith section of the Columbia Mall Books-A-Million, which despite its size had about ten shelves for all kinds of Christian books and had all the other faith books, including other holy texts that carry similar weight to the Christian Bible, rammed together on a bottom shelf, just inches to the floor. It was a true miracle that I found Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom. I have been attending sanghas off and on both on Zoom and in person since around 2019 and I’m looking forward to learning how my identity meets this faith tradition.

And as I continue to explore new and old music, I have been stuck on Lucy Pearl’s singular, self-titled R&B album from 2000. Reading their Wikipedia, you can see that the supergroup might have been doomed to failure before it even really got started. However, I love the grooves and it’s bringing back my 8th-grade year. That’s one benefit of streaming, for hard-to-find titles. However, I encourage everyone to purchase anything I list that’s actually in print, from online sites like Bandcamp or go to their shows (ok, maybe not Beyonce if you can’t win her lottery!)

Before You Go

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The  Columbia University Graduate School of Planning symposium on Black Urbanism I’m participating in is open to the public and free and will be held in Fayerweather Hall Room 209 on the main campus Tuesday, February 7 from 1-4 pm  It will also be recorded!   

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I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future,  but all those books in my canon that I mentioned above.

***

if you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me. I’m still working on introducing a paid tier for Substack and Medium users to also function like a tip jar and if you become a Patreon, you get detailed reporting on my progress as we shift operations into both a for-profit and non-profit model, along with a special thank you note each week!  Also, you can still advertise in this newsletter,  although no one chose to this week!

***

Until next time,

Kristen