This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is the one that will transition us from September to October of 2020.
We’ve made it to the end of another month. Not much has changed on my end. Other than garnering a little more hope through the depressions and anxieties.
Hope because many of us work on issues at the local level and so much of what is broken is local.
Police violence is local.
Lack of medical capacity is local.
Voting is local
Discrimination and prejudice of all kinds is local.
Eviction laws are local.
Pre-K-12 education is local
Higher Education is local
Zoning and development is local
Your home is local
Your family is local
You are local.
If you’ve been spinning your wheels trying to find the solution, it’s right in front of you. And since we’ve been in this pandemic world for the last six months, right in front of you is your family, your roommates, your own health and in some cases your job security, and ability to pay bills and keep a roof over your head.
When you do venture out your front door, the solutions come around to who gets to stay in business. Who got and who gets the toilet paper. Who can vote safely. Who gets covered properly in the press.
And depending on what kind of municipal government and state government you have (or work for), you have the power to feed, clothe, protect, insure and so many other things that are only enhanced or fully funded by the federal government.
It’s why in several of the talks I’ve had this year, in this post, in my full ten-year body of work and counting, I encourage and encouraged us to remember and know what kind of government is at our front door. And what kind of front doors do we and the people we claim to serve, even get to have.
Les and I recently binged the show Greenleaf, which just ended after five seasons. It addresses a lot of issues around the Black church, namely how it’s a resource and a refuge for so many, but for many others, there are issues around morality and respectability and even danger. The show doesn’t shy away from any of those things and doesn’t leave very many stones unturned.
It challenges you to think about ways that we do and don’t protect institutions that celebrate culture, without that celebration being at the expense of others. It also challenges you to think about how secrecy and respectability can ruin or slow down progress on the local level. When one is getting life decisions from their Higher Power or faith connections (or lack thereof), no matter what you do as a builder or designer or government official, you may not break through.
However, there are ways. Those of you who are still joining me for the book club, the latest chapter of Chocolate Cities: A Black Map of American Life, also goes into how churches and other civic institutions deem people as unrespectable, even while claiming to be beacons of light for marginalized people. In both sections, I delve into how we can examine ourselves for internalized prejudices and we can do better about creating better environments. Join us in the section that’s right for you.
Finally, you’ll be hearing a bit more from me during this anniversary month. Some dates and projects have changed, but what hasn’t changed for all of us this year? I’m reaching in the air, tapping into that hope and I look forward to continuing to deliver it through my work and projects.
Take care of yourselves and I look forward to seeing you all soon!
(Watch me share a version of these words above or you can skim and read the script I started with below, which has links to several of the things I talked about in the video).
Hey folks. Kristen here and as I come to the end of another month and the end of another calendar season, I wanted to check in and reflect a bit over the last month.
First of all, I think I do best with doing these newsletters monthly and then giving more time and energy to my virtual classrooms and offline design and art projects. So, if you want to hear more from me, you’ll want to join me in one of my online circles/schools. I’ll talk more about updates to those in a moment.
If you’re reading (or watching) this and you’re already in a circle, I’ll be sending special versions of this message for you on September 1. If you’re reading or watching this on September 1, then go there first! It’s in your email! Share this one with folks who need and want to join a circle!
—
The actions taken this summer in regards to the racism and other marginalization in the design world were long overdue.
I have to admit that I didn’t realize that despite all the work I’ve had online for over a decade, along with the speeches and some of the online activism, there were still a lot of places that weren’t listening, weren’t changing and were sadly oblivious to all that’s been going on.
But then again, I didn’t realize, because I’ve known. I’ve known for a long time and I thought more people knew too.
I realized in the Spring of 2010, when I saw how one bad manic mental health episode of my Dad’s could shatter his mobility and that of so many other people thanks to one run red light. Even though he shouldn’t have crashed his car, he shouldn’t have had to be punished by one-hour bus headways, lack of public bathrooms to help him as he walked around town and so few sidewalks and so many six lane thoroughfares in our hometown of Greensboro, NC.
And as I mentioned earlier this summer, upon hearing the news of George Floyd’s death, my dad’s death wasn’t from police violence, but it was violent and without knowing exactly who did it, I didn’t want to speculate and nail a suspect on a rumor. I’d learned that lesson back in August of 2008 when I was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot of a “luxury” apartment complex in South Durham and I could only see his masked face after he turned and tapped me on the head with the barrel of his gun. The person was prosecuted two years later, but not from me naming him in the line up they wanted me to do that night.
So in October of 2010, when I saw a lack of care and diversity and inclusion in how Black people were portrayed in academic materials in my public administration and policy graduate program in a public university, I went back to those moments and decided that it wasn’t enough to write a blog about urban planning, education, media and other miscellaneous topics under a name that could have been anyone.
Hence, the name The Black Urbanist.
I saw a stat earlier today that said that less than 5% of all owned media outlets are Black-owned. It was on an Instagram post about one of the handful of design-focused Black-owned media outlets, AprhoChic, which I hadn’t even realized was still publishing, but I’m glad they are. One of the founders shared in another Instagram post that before they were able to focus on design and media full-time, they were a policy attorney.
That’s the story of a lot of us, working one job during the day and doing design and art at night, suffering through working in offices or on committees or somewhere else without adequate pay or support. as the funding and support for Black media, Black art and design and building and sustaining Black neighborhoods and resources for Black folks is miniscule.
The Black-owned, operated and underfunded equivalents of Planetizen, Next City, Streetsblog and others that may have Black board members, donors, and columnists but not ownership, creative and editorial control,— which is key in this moment of asserting Black power and liberation.
If you’ve seen my byline in a publication or if you’ve read my expert commentary, I can tell you right now only a quarter, if not half of those opportunities have been paid.
I’ve been getting honoraria for most of my speeches and appearances over the past two years, but that wasn’t always the case and I didn’t always have a guarantee.
Yet, I’ve watched many urbanist and non-urbanist media outlets, sprout up, expand and grow. I’ve been part of some media projects that I have absolutely no creative control over and have not seen a penny for my labors and my words.
And with a similar dearth of Queer-led media outlets, being able to uplift my partner Les’s vision on her recent podcast to bring the design world and everyone else in the LGBTQIA+ world together, specifically other Black masculine of center lesbian and queer women was vital.
Like I said last month, the recent spate of media attention on Black designers and planners and urbanists and community activists has been great, but what happens when the cameras and the pens and clicks go away from these White-led and profit and image driven publications, that think that doing the one story or takeover or painting is enough? What happens when you can’t be on social media 24/7 pumping up your community, your cause and your work?
I know many of ushave been wrestling with the word urbanist this summer. However I’ve been worried for years that in a world that thinks it’s ok to call Black music and black culture and even Black neighborhoods no matter their typology urban, would take the the words Black urbanist together and run roughshod, shutting out Black voices and creating further misinformation.
I had that fear again when googling the word urbanist recently yielded one of my posts on page four, after sifting through lots of white cis male urbanist blogs, articles and academic papers. Only one focused on queer issues and only one other focused on feminism of any kind.
All of this is why, once again, I am in full solidarity with the Design as Protest, BlackSpace and the full Movement for Black Lives platform along with all grassroots and mutual aid efforts.
I’ve also been complicit and I’ve held isms, attitudes and performed actions that I’m not proud of and that didn’t help the cause of Black liberation, Queer and Trans liberation and ensuring access across all economic classes. This note only exists in writing and audio, but without American Sign Language, which is ableist by default.
That has to change.
That’s why I’m creating and teaching a curriculum that centers the stories and scholarship of Black Queer Feminist Urbanist womxn and non-binary people, with the kinds of affinity group and identity caucuses that allow people to learn, process, transform and come together in a way that’s aligned with justice.
And why I don’t believe in making Black, Indigenous and other marginalized/colonized people pay for opportunity and their healing spaces if they can’t do so reasonably. But I also believe in brave spaces. Hence why the Mighty Networks space is invitation only, because at the moment, that’s the only way I can ensure that. And if you as a fellow BIPOC design or media (or both) world individual are able to pitch in financially to help me hold this space, you can absolutely do so via Patreon or my Cash App or my Venmo.
And I believe our White colleagues can step up and pay the price for this work, both individually and at the corporate and institutional level, to practice direct reparations for this work. Hence the Patreon campaign and my new Teachable school, which will launch next month.
Existing Patreons at the $40 level will get first access to this school, along with everyone in the BIPOC space.
I want to give a special shout-out to everyone whose been stepping up in your workplaces, professional organizations, schools, families and out in the streets to make it known that Black Lives Matter all across the board.
Not Black Lives Matter, as long as you don’t ask for equal power and pay. Black Lives Matter, as long as buildings aren’t destroyed even though they represent slavery, segregation and classism. Black Lives Matter, until it’s time to abolish the police, reorganize both secular and faith-based charity and governmental systems in favor of grassroots action and mutual aid and include all genders, sexualities, economic classes and abilities.
I am making The Black Urbanist to be synonymous with Black Queer Feminist liberation that’s not intentionally ableist, classist, fatphobic and every other marginalization that is against all people being their full and healthy selves.
And while I can’t guarantee that 100% of the time because I’m an imperfect human, I can at least hold the trademarks and the online handles and the website addresses and keep Heteropatriarical, capitalistic, imperialistic thought away from family, village, community and pod creation.
Those villages, communities, pods and families that form the foundation of human urbanization. That anyone can create. And has created.
Finally, You can comment below, reply back to this email, @blackurbanist and if you have the phone number, text or call me.
Also, I am in the hunt for volunteer advisory board members, social media ambassadors and research assistants. I want to pay every last one of these people, especially if they are Black.
I am on the shoulders of my elders and ancestors and indwelled by Spirit and I hold all of them in great reverence and gratitude.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this ideally weekly but realistically monthlyish digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is the 34th regular edition.
Your timeline is probably full of black and white images just like the one I decided to lead this newsletter with, that uplift women and continue to keep our eyes on how women and non-binary folks, as well as trans folk, are still not heard, seen and even erased from these movements.
However, I’m highly doubtful that you’re witnessing an eviction of a neighbor right outside the doors and windows of your apartment building.
In fact, its the unit above us and the last I saw of that neighbor, they were working an “essential” job at the drugstore. However, like so many people, it was already barely enough to live on and now that we are back to “normal”, so many other things are too.
I’m grateful for a partner who still has a job, but her hours were cut back, just because she decided that her safety and well-being were more important during this once in a lifetime medical pandemic, that compounds all other pandemics and chronic illnesses, including the one she’s raising money for, to advocate for queer-centric care in, full-time.
We went to IKEA over the weekend, and we did a distanced porch visit, via the car we can still pay for and that can get us out and around, without transit and having to incur that risk. We’ve both done grocery shopping and haircuts, fully masked and shielded on all fronts.
But we we rarely both go inside a building. I still prefer grocery and other curbside pickups and deliveries.
And of course, when it comes to white supremacy, racism, all the other isms and issues and their role in general society and specifically how the greater urbanism world have shaped and produced them.
I’ve already known.
In 2012. In 2013. In 2013 again, reflecting back on 2004-2012 when I was doing my undergrad and graduate studies.
I’m in deep solidarity with this recent piece and I hope this isn’t the last time this magazine is this Black and I can’t wait to share an all Black Queer Womxn conversation we did last night that touches on all these things and more.
If you want to get in on these experiences, it’s not too late and everything is recorded so you can go back and watch as much as you want and at your leisure. You can get signed up over here.
(And keep working on my book, which is still forthcoming, because I still do have a lot to say).
Until next time,
Kristen
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, Or you can use that link to update your information we have on file or unsubscribe) support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #33 and I want to welcome all the new people who have come onto the list over the past few weeks and I want to thank those who have been here on the list with me since 2013 and those who I’ve picked up along the way. Thank you all for wanting to join me on this (mostly) weekly journey.
That question depends on who you are.
To my fellow Black queer feminist urbanists ( and all Black and brown souls under the weight of oppression)
REST.
Seriously.
Do something that invites joy.
Mourn and grieve for our lost people, and express the gratitude that you are still breathing and not dead or so gravely ill from The Rona that you can’t read this letter.
That your neck is clear of all feet, off the street and you are breathing on your own, outside of a jail cell or lifeless in a morgue awaiting autopsy.
That for this moment, you aren’t scanning groceries and hoping the next person scrolling by isn’t careless and coughing in their unmasked face.
That you have a few moments yourself in the midst of all the ventilators you have to keep running just so folks can think to see their families again.
That you can hug those children you’re trying to teach the best way you can, and finally, have gotten to the point they can declare summertime and give you a break.
That if you’ve managed to hold onto a paying job that you can do in your home, you can take extra naps and send extra donations to mutual aid.
And that mutual aid is here for you if it seems as if unemployment or even just a little extra help never comes through.
My Black siblings. Rest and rest well. Hug yourself and bask in the gratitude that the world that seeks to kill and exploit us didn’t win today.
Never apologize for your feelings and your tone when it comes to the sanctity of your life, health, and safety.
Write out the vision, heal internally, and radiate outward in spaces and systems we created and which work well for us.
Hand the swords to those we trust to fight the battle for us and aid in dismantling the systems that their ancestors started and they have refined, that they realize no longer work for us and that they benefit from at our expense. Let them stand up.
To all of our abolitionists and accomplices.
Keep educating yourself on how to dismantle the systems of your ancestors and peers that kill and maim Black and Indigenous people.
Decolonize your own mind and lift up the legacy and the witness of your non-White presenting or “model” siblings and elders.
Don’t erase the legacy culture of or force the assimilation of the children you adopt from other cultures who you think you’re saving.
Continue to step up on yours and our social media pages and educate and explain to your family, friends, and colleagues why we are fed up and ready to burn it all down and rebuild.
How we didn’t have that much to lose and the companies we are so afraid of losing property either have (1) Corporate insurance that covers all losses or (2) A community of people that love them and want them to build back more sustainably, both their building and their business practices so that they are able to contribute and provide for a more just society and community. They might have both.
Explain and emphasize that you only get one life and once it’s snuffed out, it’s not coming back. And that Black and Indigenous Lives Matter.
Explain that assimilation and gentrification and colonization erases personalities and places that were already great.
Sponsor and mentor us in your workplaces, with an equitable inclusion of our ideas in their fabric.
Fund our work and dreams and our schools and homes and businesses without restrictions and assumptions as to how well we will do it.
Fund mutual aid efforts, legal defense and bail funds, survivor, and friends GoFundMes.
Fund organizations, efforts, and collective work activities that seek to create the goods and services we need, without causing us all physical, emotional, and financial harm.
Defund as much as you can, corporate entities that still lack care and concern and once again, have insurance policies that can deem property replaceable, but see their employees as interchangeable and not worthy of safe working conditions, living wages, and necessary health care.
Allow and encourage our full cultural and bodily expression without question.
Folks, this is what we should be doing right now.
Other Things To Do
Mel Mitchell’s book, which I’ve been helping to promote, African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities, is now available on Bookshop.org and IndieBound. Also, call your favorite BIPOC or independently owned allied bookstore and ask them to stock it.
SAVE THE DATE for the launch webinars of my new course, The Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Ideas Salon is centered on my growing list of books in my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Cannon and will be taught on a weekly basis, in two sections, a Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) Healing Space and an Allies Educational Space, to allow us to have the freedom and comfort in discussing these issues in the ways best suited to those who are in need of instruction or who want to build connections of people who understand what it’s like to work, practice and live under a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist framework. Join the launch webinar for the BIPOC healing space on Tuesday, June 2nd at 1 p.m. Easternand the Allies Educational Space on Thursday, June 4th at 1 p.m. Eastern.
SAVE THE DATE for my free lecture series How to Communicate in the Modern World, in support of my course for design professionals, community institutions and concerned citizens and residents to master relevant communication tools and skills to aid in their work with and for communities How to Communicate in the Modern World with Mastery. Join the free lecture series on Fridays, starting June 5th at 1 pm Eastern leading up to the course launch of How to Communicate in the Modern World with Mastery on July 10th.
I have revamped my survey on Black Queer Feminist Urbanist women so that it’s more mobile-friendly and so anyone else who feels they can comment on what my experience would be like in your city and what your own experiences have been with land and land-related issues are. Find it here. Black women-identified folks, you’re still encouraged to fill out the other survey using a laptop or desktop, but you can fill out the mobile one as well and mark off that you are a Black woman.
You can book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, or as a panel participant. I can do a virtual delivery. We can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh, and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). She’s relaunched her podcast with some great interviews, including a familiar face to those who are active in the NUMTOT group on Facebook.
As always, I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
Love,
Kristen
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, Or you can use that link to update your information we have on file or unsubscribe) support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #32 and I want to welcome all the new people who have come onto the list over the past few weeks and I want to thank those who have been here on the list with me since 2013 and those who I’ve picked up along the way. Thank you all for wanting to join me on this (mostly) weekly journey. This edition took me a little longer to make coherent, but here we are and here we go!
It’s too soon for us all to go outside. En masse, in clusters of less than six feet.
Even to work. Even to get some fresh air.
I’m not backing down from my belief that we should have isolated this disease.
And when we didn’t isolate this disease, we should have paid for everyone and I mean everyone besides folks who are essential on a regular day, not your nanny or someone else who you think your family absolutely needs, to not go to work and also to get preventative healthcare.
Food and objects should be able to be delivered to homes and the people who provide that service should be paid fair and protected.
Folks treating patients, and that’s all kinds of patients, not just ones with Covid-19, should have everything they need to do that.
If students need some support to one, log on to their computers and two, get the knowledge they need at the point they need, that should be there on demand.
But unfortunately, we all know that was not the case. But should it be a surprise, considering we have diseases in this country we over treat or don’t treat at all, in some of the same communities? — Many of us are aware that New Zealand used it’s government power to make sure the disease was isolated and now they are back to what we knew as normal. And they never had to mask up. They are now looking at how a green new deal and shorter work weeks can be sustainable.
Some of you may be aware of how Hong Kong enacted mutual aid to keep their caseloads down, despite lack of government intervention.
The United States is all of these countries at once, depending on what local and state jurisdiction of the United States you live in. On top of having folks who died that didn’t need to because of the government response. — I have to be honest, I have been outside twice this week. First on Tuesday (May 19, 2020, because if you’re reading this, you’ve probably been privileged to sit at home or sit still long enough to forget what day it is), I went outside to pick up something that wasn’t food for the first time since I started self-isolating on March 10th.
I went to Ulta’s curbside pickup line to pick up hair products that I plan to stretch for the remainder of the calendar year. They came recommended from my favorite online hair salon of black women who were already helping those of us with kinks and coils navigate doing our own hair without the full time help of a salon.
There were two women working at the store, a Black woman and a woman in hijab who appeared to be of Arab decent. Both women of color. Both appeared to be under 40. In Northern Virginia, which was my closest option for curbside pickup. Employees of similar ages and backgrounds were working at the Wendys drive-thru and the 7-Eleven we stopped past.
The masks we ordered just came in the mail in the same hour I posted this newsletter, so I’ve been tying one of my favorite summer scarves around my mouth with a paper towel in between. I spray down the fabric every day with a homemade Febreze style mix and keep it in the bathroom so the shower steam can collect in it.
Yet, besides myself, Les, the women at the Ulta and the folks in the Wendys and behind the 7-Eleven counter, there were no masks or face coverings to be found.
Meanwhile, when went to to our regular Wegmans pickup in Central Prince George’s County, near FedEx field on Thursday May 21st, there’s not a bare face to be found.
I try when I can to tip extra to the Instacart shopper, because I know what it’s like on a regular Saturday, pre-COVID, to service an Instacart order, especially as someone who doesn’t get the delivery tips you normally get if you shop and take the groceries to the house. And you do it while being a non-union employee in a union store.
I think I’m done with tater tots until the end of this, because where we went to get them after picking up groceries was not doing a good job of protecting their workers. But I want them to have the jobs we need, so I won’t even publicize the restaurant here.
Because in all these short trips, I have yet to see one white person actively working at any business and I saw very few actually going inside the stores/restaurants. I’d ship all this stuff our apartment, but at least one of these places doesn’t have home delivery to our address.
I’m tired of it always being our people who have to bear the brunt of all these traumas and tragedies and do the heavy lifting to get what we need, even on a good day.
In the two weeks it’s taken for me to write this newsletter, I’ve seen other articles, namely this one on BuzzFeed and this one on Curbed, that have helped me know that I’m not alone with STILL being unnerved with going outside and going back to work.
But outside of group chats and Facebook groups, people like me, with one foot in the chattering middle class and another in the service class of making ends meet by turning on that Instacart app and preparing to send my loved one back to a job that could still be done at home and should still have full hourly benefits, are heard infrequently. Heard, but mostly on platforms we create.
In case you didn’t crack the code in this section — white folks are getting paid to write, where black folks and other POCs are paying for the privilege to write or writing in spaces where it’s safe to do so, without repercussions.
All the open restaurant street plazas in the world will not solve the problem of the server coming to work sick, unmasked, because if not, they can’t get unemployment or without tips, they would be homeless or without a hospital bed that’s free, they can’t shake the virus.
All the open restaurant plazas and streets will not surmount the issues of race and class already laid bare throughout our industry and the communities we’ve created.
And even though I’m inching outside, I’m going to feel safer at home for a very long time.
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during Covid-19, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
I’m still working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask bookstores to order the print version. We also have an e-book on Kindle. If you’ve read it and want to leave a review, please do on Amazon or reply back to this email and I’ll add it to the review page I’m building on his site.
You can Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). She’s launched her podcast and it’s being featured Monday in the lovely alternative Black Pride celebration, Black in Space.
As always, I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
Love,
Kristen
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, Or you can use that link to update your information we have on file or unsubscribe) support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is edition #31.
It’s 94 pages ring true, especially in this time we are in, and as I continue what I’ve termed my “Essential+Quarantine Revolution”. She hones in on black women in Chicago who work in creative spaces, create all kinds of space, including the architectural and land securing kinds that design professionals are used to. She also refers to space-making as many use place-making, to take the walls and the ground completely away from the concept of community gathering, resource sharing, and humanity-affirming.
I will speak for myself here that even if a building is built perfectly, dare I say designed for social impact or sustainability, but it houses a workplace that doesn’t value or exploits my ideas, a happy hour that results in me being harassed by attendees or, something that is sadly the case for too many people today, void of enough ventilators and protective equipment to keep me alive?
The building is dead.
Even before I physically or spiritually die in it, the edifice is dead and there’s nothing anyone can do, save improving the social atmosphere, and rectifying the injustice that would make me want to come back. If I ever make it out, in the case of that hospital building.
And let’s talk a little more about medical buildings and spaces. Can we not see that it’s what’s killing us the most? People who get to them and they are panicked or disbelieved or underrated or not even treated at all. Buildings that are inadequately staffed, too far away, or unable to be converted. Or they were converted, into something that while provides shelter, provides it for so little and at such a high cost.
And then there are the spaces— the parking lots, the tents, the living rooms, all the spaces that don’t seem like they could be something different, but all of a sudden, in some places, are testing sites, farmers markets, dining rooms, even emergency rooms. But not in enough places and in places of trust and high need.
And the spaces, in their normal state, that should be places of refuge, but instead are places of murder, anguish, pain, and despair— often because the current inhabitant doesn’t match or matches too well the description.
There are so many lessons about cultivating space and place we still have yet to learn. If we expect life to continue to flourish, we must learn.
And for those of us who carry those burdens, tears, pain and anguish no matter what space or place they are in, take a moment and pause on this sentence, these words, this moment and know that you are seen, loved and held by a fellow sister sibling in the struggle, victory and the joy.
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during Covid-19, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
Meanwhile, I’m still working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask bookstores to order the print version. Also, we are hoping to have the e-book version up by the end of April.
You can Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). She’s putting the final touches on her latest podcast, which you will not want to miss.
As always, I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
Love,
Kristen
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, Or you can use that link to update your information we have on file or unsubscribe) support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #30 and my Essential + Quarantine Revolution continues. I first thought that I would have more to say about the things I want you as fellow urbanists to do. And that’s coming.
Those of you who work in long-range planning, who are nowhere near construction administration on your next building project or who are serving communities who are in a long journey of healing through trauma from addiction, violence, root shock, displacement, or something similar — know what this is like.
However, I’m a millennial and those of you who know that and have known me from the time I started this platform 10 years ago know that I’m no stranger to change or evolution. I’m also no stranger to being impatient to change or inpatient period in the things I do.
However, this time, especially for those of us who have satisfied the bottom rungs of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and are looking to what’s next, has been very healing and centering in its own way.
It has to be because where there hasn’t been healing and centering, there’s been death, exploitation, grief, and famine.
And so when I came across a private clarity challenge from another coach and colleague of mine, I jumped on it, as I too was moving back up the triangle as it comes to this Covid-19 pandemic.
My MPA folks and anyone else who has studied organizational behavior will know this chart well. But recently, in an iFundWomen webinar, I learned that this could apply to how products and services are marketed to people as well.
All this being said, I’ve really started to center myself in a black queer feminist urbanist ethic and practice, that also allows me to start the journey to truly allow myself to earn, counsel and just be at my full potential, so I can give back and create the communal and healing spaces my heart yearns for and I believe our world needs.
If you watch the video of my joint panel presentation with Montgomery County Planning, APA’s Transportation Planning, APA’s LGBTQ and Planning Division, and my colleagues, I give you a taste of what that ethic and practice are. (All of the webinar is great, but my part starts at 44 minutes in.)
And as I continue to present on webinars, including a private one today to select design leaders and one on social media next Thursday…
AND get ready to return to regular publishing of my own talk and news show (Think of this as The Black Urbanist Radio Show 2.0)…
AND stop hiding and make my work clearer…
that ethic courses through my veins and enhances my life. I can’t claim it’s what’s kept me immune from the big disease. However, I can tell you it’s healed my heart and mind.
Finally, for this week, I leave you with the incomplete, but growing syllabus of books and podcasts and resources I’ve used to not just build my ethic, but build the site over the years. And of course…
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during Covid-19, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
Meanwhile, I’m still working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask bookstores to order the print version. Also, we are hoping to have the e-book version up by the end of April.
You can Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages).
Once again, I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
Love,
Kristen
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, Or you can use that link to update your information we have on file or unsubscribe) support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #29 and I oddly feel normal and not normal at the same time. Heartbroken but rested and hopeful at the same time. Plus, it’s been a bender to have to manage to avoid Covid-19 and my own existing seasonal allergies, but I have what I need to shelter in place and that’s what I dwell on the most.
Some other ways I am feeling normalish are through preparing to present a couple of planning webinars and a promising new audio/video project. Plus, if you are still in need of fabric for masks, you can order some of my Spoonflower patterned fabric and support me in the meantime.
(Along with via Patreon and Venmo, which are still greatly appreciated, as I like many folks, don’t have many income streams available at the moment).
I’ll share more about one of the webinars and the audio/video project next week, but I wanted to make sure you made room in your must-see Zooming for the webinar on LGBTQ folks and urban planning I was invited to participate in this Friday, April 24 from 1-2:30 p.m.
This will be the first time that I give my signature presentation on my life in planning and my hopes for its future, but centered on my particular experience as a black queer woman (and some shiny new aerials from Google, which I’ll also explain more about). I will be doing it with three other queer folks in planning and I’ll be presenting third for about 15 minutes, along with some Q&A.
It is free, open to anyone (where it asks for your chapter name, just put non-member if you aren’t affiliated with APA), and you can get APA credits. Register and join us.
If you miss it, don’t despair. I’ll post a link to a recap and I will be including an enhanced encore presentation as part of the new audio/video project.
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during Covid-19, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
Meanwhile, I’m working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask bookstores to order the print version. Also, we are hoping to have the e-book version up by the end of April.
Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programing for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). And if you see this before 7:30 Eastern tonight(4/21/2020), check out her very special webinar for AFAB & intersex masculine of center people.
I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #28 and folks, you know. Sending my condolences out to anyone who’s lost a friend, family member or other loved and cared one. Sending healing energy to those of you who are battling and recovering.
Know that you’re not alone, even if you’re just going through stages of grief over lost opportunities or income. Or your already existing anxieties. In fact, you can grieve both the major losses of life and specific routines. And specifically for black women and anyone else who feels like they can’t stop or be angry, you can be and you don’t have to be strong to get through this.
That’s something I’ve needed to tell myself for weeks. Months. Years. If anything, this pandemic has allowed me to not feel as rushed or feel as guilty when this newsletter or some other product of my business fails to meet a standard. (Like showing up in your inbox every week) When it fails to walk in lock-step with the “system”. That the “system” in so many ways doesn’t work.
And I’ve decided to highlight that and other ways I’m evolving into a new series that I’m going to call Essential + Quarantine Revolution. Think of this week’s note, as the prequel and over the next few weeks, join me as I shine a light into ways that I am…
Being Nurtured and Natured into a New Normal
As we go into our second month of battling the effects of this season’s novel coronavirus and the disease that’s developed COVID-19/Rona, I’ve been at a loss of words far too many times to count. But then, when I think about how many words I do have, I realize I have tons of them. But then my brain shoots back and taunts me with them being not good enough or too much or competitive or harmful or something else that doesn’t honor the idea and the fact, that this is an individual project and offering to people, much like any other individual project or offering.
I’ve been someone who sought to write words to a particular audience and who often feels the need to constantly explain those words or where they came from.
This was my normal for so long, a normal that governed this project from its beginnings almost a decade ago. I decided to put all my identities (at least all the ones I could honestly and truthfully claim at the time) on the proverbial table and pull up my chair and demand an audience to the planners, public administrators, architects, developers and placemakers who dared to listen.
However, the longer I await the passing of this season of our lives, I realize that the normal I want to return to, cannot resemble the normal I was living before.
Our lives will never be the same and neither should our urbanism. At the very least, my urbanism will not be the same and I want it to be better.
We have twin crises going on right now. First, is the public health one. The one where we should all be sheltering in place and resting to find healing and peace with this message that nature is teaching us, the nature that some of our work seeks to control and push back.
Yet, many of us don’t have a place and the place we do have is not a place of rest.
That’s not acceptable and that’s the second crisis.
That so many folks rest on the back of those who are deemed essential and essential only for our specific pleasures and desires that we have that we can’t fulfill in our places. That so many people are in places that do not provide them rest, restoration and healing.
As much as I love being a nomad, traveling around and meeting and sharing with new people, I also long for and relish having a place I can call home. A place that provides me rest, restoration and healing. I have it at the moment and it’s something I don’t take for granted. Everyone needs it, whether or not we are dealing with a dark outpouring of nature, much like we are seeing now with this virus and we’ve seen with natural disasters.
I got into politics much like many folks who are marginalized do, because it’s the only way we can thrive. Yet, I wish that I didn’t have to always speak up for myself or my communities, because we know people other than ourselves got us.
That’s another form of work, having to do all this mutual aid, because our human-created systems have failed.
Granted, it’s always good to be prepared and be ready to back each other up.
And that’s to me the heart of planning in this state and time.
Over the next few weeks, pending I don’t get sick and I’ll let you know if I do, I’m going to challenge all of us to think about how we are being natured into a new normal.
And not just how we individually have been natured, but how others around us, especially those who prior to this, seemed to live very different lives. Or those who’ve already been battling crisis, for those whose worlds have been broken, for those who were born into a broken world.
Many of you reading this work in systems and structures creation. It’s most imperative for us to think about how that’s going to change.
In the meantime, I’ll be back sooner than two weeks, health-willing, to discuss my own naturing into my new normal and invite you into some of the conversations, craft projects and curations I make.
I no longer fear my own words and the quality of those words and that those words have space, even in imperfect times. I look forward to sharing them with you and I hope, but don’t require, that you resonate with them as I spread them forward.
.
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
One piece of this new normal is to revise a lot of how I do business. So expect some changes to features you’ve come to get used to and how they operate.
However, I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during this crisis, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
Meanwhile, I’m also working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can and you can ask your local bookstore to order it and support them as well.
I’m using my Kristpattern label to grow my art practice. Check out its Instagram and follow along with me as I continue to explore and center my art and craft creation.
Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). Or catch her on Instagram.
Take care of yourselves and your communities as best as you can and I look forward to seeing you in your inbox and on the socials and on the site next time.
Love,
Thanks for reading! You can support the platform financially on Patreon and listen to this week’s special audio edition of the newsletter; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagram and if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.
This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This is edition #27 and folks, we’re still not out of the woods yet. In fact, as I write this, there’s a tweet floating around saying that we’re not even in the woods yet.
The work I do on a regular basis comes at so many intersections. First, the intersections of governance, education, design, and culture. Then, there are all those intersections I mention in the first paragraph every week. Intersections by their very nature make us pause, look around and see if we have safe passage, otherwise, the danger can literally run into us and knock us off our feet. But, this time, with this crisis, the danger is airborne. And that’s why my main message this week is:
We need to get people home as soon as possible.
Every jurisdiction that hasn’t already issued a stay-at-home order, should. That way, any company that’s on the fence on teleworking, that already performs most or all of their duties on computers and doesn’t need to have human contact to do their job, can be at home.
Everyone else, we need to get personal protective equipment to them, starting with all of our health facilities at the front lines of this crisis.
Those of us who are just sitting at home right now, bored, need to consider our consumption habits and if they support reduced store hours and people in the stores having to do more work lifting and climbing and making.
We still need to do some things, but we could all be sick (and some of us are already dead) and what have we been told when we are sick? Stay home.
Unless of course, you work somewhere without vacation or sick pay or hourly or you own your own business or you’re a contractor. Basically, everyone can stay home, unless you are providing a service for someone else or you can’t pay your bills.
So about those bills. Let’s kill them. Everyone should be issuing immediate moratoriums and suspensions on utility shutoff, rent payments, mortgage payments or anything else that people would go to work to earn money to do right now. And even with those bill suspensions, we all need savings accounts or some other way to have a universal basic income. The government stimulus still creates that, even if there’s nothing to buy, we can save and build up our own stockpiles. Or spend on other things, like new ventures and things we said we could never do. But we need to do, because this is is a new world.
Yes, folks who are landlords,I feel like you’re my first “but Kristen” in this situation especially the small developer crew, you should be on the phone too begging for forgiveness for your mortgage if you still or ever had one. And, if you own the building outright and you don’t depend on it for primary income, please consider rent suspension. Same with all other smaller businesses, we should all reconsider our relationships with those who provide services. And that leads us to our children, elders and others we teach just as much as we serve.
We need to give all of our students grace, grace in grades, attendance, martriculations, learnings.
When we do get back to full employment, we need to start giving people grace when it comes to learning jobs and being willing to be trained for jobs.
Again, we should be doing as much as possible remotely, so we can be ready for not just this crisis, but the next natural disaster or disease pandemic.
Finally, we need to get homes for those who were already on the streets, for the ones where their house is not a home and being locked inside with abusive partners, queer-phobic parents or shady roommates, for the incarcerated and institutionalized who need a rehabilitation plan, not a death sentence.
Then, we can get to that point where some of us can start bragging about our homeschool, our productivity, our creativity. We can all be dancing to that D-Nice mixtape.
Or, we can keep from being sick.
Heal from being sick
Morn those we are losing as best we can.
Or even better, just be. No bragging. No showing off. No value of life based on the product of your hands.
Just being alive.
Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind
I’m taking my time of slowness in productivity to revise a lot of things, namely the job board. Look for a new one soon with new functionality. In the meantime, if you don’t need to work right now, don’t work, rest!
However, I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during this crisis, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
Meanwhile, I’m working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask your local bookstore to order it and support them as well.
I’ll be dabbling more with Kristpattern label. Check out its Instagram and follow along with said crafty dabbles.
Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programing for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages).
I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.
