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