Welcome to Kristen’s Gentrification Defying Front Porch (KGDFP)! On Sunday afternoons/evenings, you’ll find this essay of the week, my art/fiberworks in progress, and some of my other favorite things, distinct from my Ask Kristen Anything reminders/recaps on Monday and podcast release announcements on Friday, but I’ll do a little bit of that at the bottom of this email to make sure you’re caught up. The idea is that we’re sitting on my front porch and I’m telling you a story, plus sharing my studio progress, similar to how we do at a craft/makers night.

The LinkedIn and my website versions are always free, but if you believe in supporting marginalized creators working against erasure or you just want to buy me a monthly coffee, upgrading to paid here on Substack, and Patreon are great places to do that. Plus, my Bookshop store is always open and I get affiliate income from there.

And now our story of the week:

This sweater that I’m delighted to wear above was about to get frogged. For those of you unfamiliar with the fibercraft terminology, frogging is taking apart your knitted, woven, or crocheted object. When you pull out the stitch, to some, it makes a rumbling noise, not unlike a frog’s ribbet/croaking sound.

As y’all know, I’ve been feeling especially croaky lately. The day I caught COVID, January 19, I learned a major, much-coveted contract was ending.

Now things were getting rough, as I realized what my strengths are and aren’t when it comes to writing and editing. But I’ve welcomed the increased financial stability. Without that stability, I  would not be standing where I am above. Well, maybe we would have come down there to visit, but it certainly wouldn’t have been my front yard! 

Nearly a year ago, after coming home from seeing our current apartment for the first time,  I conceived of this sweater, the Dreamcoat.

Originally the Dreamcoat was supposed to be a long duster-style coat-cardigan. However, the green yarn, Lion Brand’s Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in the Bluegrass colorway, was momentarily discontinued. I pivoted to adding more of the black yarn, which is Lion Brand’s Hometown in their Black colorway which at the time was named after Oakland, but I’m happy to see they’ve shifted the names. 

I would finish my coat, then stand exactly where I’m standing above in said Dreamcoat,  defying gentrification and everything else that said that I couldn’t possibly be standing on that spot and that spot being my front yard.

The Washington Monument would poke out behind my head, as judgy as its namesake would be disgusted, by the idea that I would be far more than a slave wench. The waters would be cool and calm just to my left, the spirits of ancestors who couldn’t successfully make it to freedom on them, rising up and whispering congratulations to me on my little piece of liberation.

However, both of these yarns can be very difficult to crochet with, especially the Hometown. While I had the body of what you see above done, I was disappointed that there wasn’t enough green and enough length, along with having changed the shape of the coat too many times to count.

Not only was my Dreamcoat deferred, but my time thus far back in DC was also becoming a deferred dream. Yes, we got the apartment, but then the invoices fell. Getting paid to read the news couldn’t prevent me from absorbing how bad and challenging most of it was. My maker’s energy declined. Then my bodily energy. 

A couple of trips here and there up to Baltimore and down to Greensboro and Durham would juice it up, but I was just down bad. 

 ~

I’ve been a fan of Regina Anaejionu’s work for years and had signed up for her thought leadership class in early 2023, but I didn’t attend live. Later on in the fall, I decided to dust off my book proposal idea for a book on my changing urbanist theories, and when her self-publishing class for thought leaders popped up in November, I quickly put money down for it. 

What resulted was the realization that I needed to embrace the most searchable, most “explain like I’m five” part of my urbanism work — the concept of gentrification. 

I’ve always wanted gentrification to not be true or be totally defyable, but that’s not the case whatsoever. 

As I’ve prepared my workbook, then course, then podcast, it’s become even more clear that gentrification needs to be defied and eradicated.

In addition, I had so much idle time as I recovered from acute COVID through January and February, to really think about my next financial steps, while living in one of the largest examples of urban renewal(which often begets gentrification) in the United States.

And with the advent of this podcast, things have started to bloom out of the darkness. 

Podcasting has always been a good medium for me,  but needing to process writing the news every morning has kept me from dabbling the way I want to and caused me to pause a couple of attempts over the past few years.

Plus, the AI that’s going into podcasting is working in my favor so far, by helping me edit faster, and not lose audio or forget to post on a particular network.

Another turning point was a couple of Fridays ago when I met an old friend from NC for morning tea.  I was able to be transparent to someone who thankfully is in another sector of this kind of work here in DC and one that doesn’t fear it or question my approaches to my work.

Then, I came home and changed clothes because it got suddenly sunny and warmer and I decided to try on the sweater again.

It fit. But, it could use a button closure.

So off me and Les go not just JoAnn on Saturday, but the arts center built on the grounds of the former Lorton prison, which we happened upon by accident after going to a trial mediation class.

All of that healing energy of the day gave me just enough spoons to attach the button on the same night I bought it! Then after taking this picture above, I went out the next day and got a taller ironing board after going to one Walmart and two Targets. I traced this pattern piece onto parchment after cutting most of the main tissue paper!:

——

All of this,  plus the eclipse and being in eyesight of it,  has me reflecting on how I really was out suppressing my professional voice but now, this podcast is bringing it back in a very special way, along with getting back to not just fibercraft, but drawing my book characters from elementary school, and reaching out to others in the business of defying and eradicating gentrification boldly.

 I’m thankful I yielded to my inner calling to lean into my art — all of it, accumulated over my nearly 38 years of crafting and shaping. 

So, this week on the podcast, I’m talking about the pipeline from urban renewal to gentrification and highlighting an article from The Assembly on how the current lieutenant governor’s wife has given up her job and money and help to lots of needy families, to make herself look more Republican. I tie that into how Black women shouldn’t be giving up their dignity and lives for the will of a state that will never take care of them.

I also included in this episode Dr. Ruha Benjamin’s necessary remarks during the receipt of her honorary degree at her alma mater Spellman College, and ABC News story about the aftermath of Dr. Antonette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey’s suicide.

In the meantime, catch up on the podcast on your favorite apps.

Apple

Spotify

Zencaster

RSS

Shop in my Bookshop to support the show and consider becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack!

And join me at noon eastern every Monday for Ask Kristen Anything About Gentrification, my live stream where I answer your questions. Feel free to reply back with your questions or register below at the StreamYard link so I can put the question right on the screen.

Register and ask a question on Stream Yard.

The live stream will be live on all of my social media accounts that allow me to stream and if you miss it live, don’t worry, I’ll email you on Monday afternoons with the stream recap.

Until next time,

Kristen

Welcome to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation, the newsletter of me, Kristen Jeffers. A Black, queer, feminist, disabled, urbanist elder millennial (born 1985) from Greensboro, North Carolina USA, who lives in Southwest Washington, DC.

This newsletter is my personal letter opening you up to how I crusade for a better living environment and my love for fiber craft. This week, I’m proud to present the return of my podcasting career, Defying Gentrification. And yes, I had some time to do some crafting this week, but we’ll get to that at the end of this email.

The first time I ever created an audio project, was with my parent’s sliver cassette tape recorder and a blank cassette tape.

Theirs looked enough like the Talkboy recorder from Home Alone that even though I didn’t have one of my own, I relished being able to use theirs when they weren’t using it to tape me at elementary school concerts and their sermons at church.

I was a huge fan of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Lynne Thigpen’s Chief character. I took all that to create a character I called the Snooper.

I basically sang a couple of songs and solved a couple of mysteries with my stuffed animals in a nasally voice. As a child (and sometimes when I feel down), I hated my nose, but it came in handy with my Snooper character, since I needed to sniff out crime.

Yes, this was also the era of Urkel and that’s also what it sounded like.

Fast forward and I’ve managed to casually find my way to WKNC-FM 88.1 through the legacy of an uncle who was one of the first Black DJs on the station and an ex who loved smooth jazz just as much as me. The fact that I’m in the WKNC history books is just icing on the cake, especially as I watch my Wolfpack basketball teams take on the Final Four for the first time ever together and the first time in at least 25-41 years.

Photo of me by Andy Musselman for the Technician

The full Technician article from October of 2007.

And of course, many of you remember and loved The Black Urbanist Radio Show and Third Wave Urbanism. Me too, but technology and conflicts were a barrier.

But now I bring you Defying Gentrification. Technology has caught up with me, and I realized you still deserved and wanted to hear my voice despite a couple of glitches in these first two episodes:

Episode 1 — WTF is Gentrification?

Listen on Apple Podcasts

On this inaugural episode of the Defying Gentrification podcast, take you to school in our homeroom to learn exactly what is gentrification, and why should it be defied and eradicated.

But first, on our street corner, the hot topic is how not to leave Baltimoreans of color behind in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy, as well as honor their competence in leadership during disaster situations.

Read the street corner hot topic article from Capital B.

Read the Curbed article referenced in our homeroom section.

Episode 2 — Who Gets to Defy Gentrification

Listen on Apple Podcasts

In this episode, Kristen takes us to school and breaks down who gets to defy gentrification. Spoiler alert, It is those who have been colonized, which generally are indigenous populations of color.

Also, on the Street Corner, the hot topic is both the Kansas City and Washington DC stadium/arena deals and how they are different.

Read the Kansas City Defender article on the stadium vote.

Read the KCUR article and see the poster.

Also, this is a great time to remind you that you can support the podcast financially in the following ways:

Purchase from my Bookshop.org store.

Join the Defying Gentrification Fellowship powered by Podia

Read my articles on crafting and working together across borders on Resident Urbanist. These are free opportunities as our publication is ad-supported.

Do you want to be a guest on Defying Gentrification? Fill out this form and it will get you scheduled on my recording calendar. I’ll then send the details you need to get set up to record.

Be a guest on Defying Gentrification

Advertisers, likewise, you can sign up and submit your basic ad (starting at $75/week)

Advertise on Defying Gentrification

Finally, the Defying Gentrification Fellowship doors open this Monday and paid subscribers on this platform and Patreon will get those materials here. You can also join on its main platform at Podia, where podcast archives will also live. I’ll also be including a special Monday note for folks, along with this Friday podcast launch note.

Join the Fellowship

And one more thing. In honor of that cute photo of me above and the Men’s and Women’s Final Four, here’s a playlist of my favorite songs of my undergraduate years (2004-2007), which I’m continuing to update throughout the weekend.

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/kristens-undergraduate-legacy-2004-2007/pl.u-oN4YI0ElqEA

Until Monday,

Kristen

The state of my union is good, but it could be great.

Welcome to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation, the newsletter of me, Kristen Jeffers. A Black, queer, feminist, disabled, urbanist elder millennial (born 1985) from Greensboro, North Carolina USA, who lives in Southwest Washington, DC. 

This newsletter is my personal letter opening you up to how I crusade for a better living environment and my love for fiber craft. This week, I am using the US President’s annual State of the Union speech to reflect on my own state AND invite you to join my new initiatives, which are now open for registration. And yes, I had some time to do some crafting this week, but we’ll get to that in the middle this email. 

So what is the state of my union, my life, my body in these times? 

This week, it’s grief. And yes, all of the stages are a circle, a sphere even.

My dad would have been 64 today.  For 11 years, he hasn’t been here to celebrate me or himself. He was proud of being born in the year of the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-in. We had a regular booth at the Stamey’s on High Point Road (now Gate City Boulevard)  next to the Greensboro  Coliseum, where we would discuss local and state politics the way many are discussing last night’s State of the Union and all the responses. 

If he were here today, I would be at home this week, sitting in that booth, or maybe outside on our porch with takeout because like many Southern fast-food establishments, you’re eating in places that wouldn’t have let you sit in them because of your Blackness many years ago and others that wish you would take your trans, queer, and dare I say feminism outside today.

And don’t get me started on air purification. You definitely smelled the pig smoker and the cigarette smoke from the smoking section in that Stamey’s then and the windows open would just kill any attempts to mitigate our southern humidity and blankets of yellow pollen indoors.

But wherever we would be sitting, I would be bringing up the fact that Biden had a few sick burns (give this man all of his potato chips!). But, Palestine and all the unnamed countries that are under genocide, many because of our military and economic interests, were not adequately mentioned or honored. 

COVID is not over. My stomach and eye twitch, for which I have to take an antacid and an allergy pill at night to keep at bay, would like to have a word with the president. I know Biden would be angry if I told him he was an overgrown bag of malarkey because he was coughing and stuttering through his speech. But, I feel like he would call me a bag of malarkey because I still mask and I am asking that everyone remember all forms of mitigation, especially air purification and testing if they aren’t going to cover their faces.

Oh,  and I don’t remember hearing a thing about student loan forgiveness and a true Medicaid for All.

But then, I would turn my phone to Dad, show him this Instagram post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4PQQteOv5c/?img_index=1)

and this response video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrZpiylf4nA .

It’s been long enough ago that I can’t say what he would say, but his spirit and ancestry that runs through me radicalized at losing him the way we did, tells me that I need to do everything I can.

And, I would tell him that picture of the Waffle House in Home Depot is real, somewhere ;).

All jokes aside, it’s my great pleasure to open up the registration for the Defying Gentrification Fellowship

The fellowship will entail:

• One week of lunchtime ( 11 am – 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time) lecture sessions and Q&A on the three key ways to defy gentrification from April 1-5 2024. These will be recorded and available to you in our Podia portal.
• Exercises to help you craft your plan to defy gentrification
• Reading materials to help you understand what gentrification really is and why we must defy, then eradicate it for all humans to thrive on the Earth.
• One post-lecture 90-minute strategy session
• Ongoing alumni group virtual and possibly in-person meetups, to aid in your quest for success in defying gentrification and see if you’re ready to move into our ambassadorship program, where you will have even more time with me to eradicate gentrification. I didn’t want to put that on you just yet, because I know you do a lot of this work already, but you don’t always have space to process.

This fellowship is for:

• People of the African diaspora, namely those who have been a victim of gentrification-related displacement, harassment, and cultural erasure who need a place to process and heal.
• People of the global majority (non-white folks) who have been roped into gentrification schemes, but want to do right by their communities.  However, this first cohort will focus specifically on the experiences of those in the African Diaspora in the (so-called) Americas and other English-speaking countries and you may want to wait for a future cohort where we focus more on your experiences and have mentors and leaders with that lived experience. However, I’d love to have you too, to help us shape a lot of the decolonial topics and praxis we will be shaping together,  but you may not feel like you learned anything. You will get one-on-one time with me and a network of like-minded peers, so do consider joining us.

Investment in yourself and our journey: Each course is $695 for the inaugural section with an optional 12-month payment plan of $59. If you pay in full before April 1, you will receive a bonus one-on-one planning session with Kristen, in addition to your post-launch week strategy session.

We will have a formal scholarship plan in future cohorts and we will open them up to more people, but for now, I’m aiming for 10 people who can make this kind of investment with me, so I can see what it would take to make this kind of training, not only sustainable but a very competitive and affirming alternative to some of our professional certifications and training courses, as well as college curriculums. Register here:

Defying Gentrification Fellowship Intensive

(You can also add  yourself to our waitlist if slots are already full at the link above)

Feel free to comment or reply back if you have any questions. Next week, I’ll be back in your inbox with details about our Eradicating Gentrification  Ambassadorship. Yes, I’ve shifted focus on that one a little bit, because I believe in us and what we are capable of doing.

Now, before you go, some pictures of my craftiness this week.

I bought this last Friday night when JoAnn had all the McCalls pattern on sale for 1.99. I had plans to whip up a velvet remnant, but don’t give up on me yet. I got some mechanical pencils so I can trace patterns properly and I’m doing a spreadsheet to inventory my patterns while the numbers are small. Oh, and I went to a new craft night, but forgot to take a picture there!

Until next time,

Kristen

Welcome to  Defying Gentrification,  Crafting  Liberation. This is the revamped and revised version of the newsletter formerly known as The Black Urbanist Weekly. Here, we now are committed to Defying Gentrification. We also believe in doing so with joy, so that’s where the crafting, the literal crafting comes from. Over the next few weeks, we will be launching our new mission and fellowship and ambassador programs and you’ll be hearing from me and others a lot to talk about what that means. But first, an invitation for you to come on the journey with us.

All I’ve ever wanted was to live in a city. I blame Sesame Street because they always made it look cool. I  also blame insect bites, humidity, and the smells of kerosene heaters that I experienced in my youth visiting my grandparents at their rural North Carolina homes.

It was a running family joke on my mom’s side, that I would stand by the screen door at my grandparents, as soon as they said they were ready to go, waiting for my parents to stop gabbing at their siblings, because I had to get back to Greensboro.

Fast forward to around 2013, I managed to not only get back to Greensboro, but here I was living it up downtown and in 2015, my local activism had me tagged as a “next Greensboro Four”

But deep inside, my spirit felt unsettled. I would drive around in my Honda Accord wishing that I could just use a bikeshare system like everyone else. I had even started my “adult” blog in the first place to demand that we get more trains in Greensboro into our beautiful, recently restored downtown depot. And of course, visits to Atlanta and DC, half-day drives on I-85/I-95 showed me that once I got there, I could park the car and ride to all of the things I would want: parks, malls, amusement parks even.

In the spring of 2015, after none of my day jobs in Greensboro really stuck, I got the opportunity to move to Kansas City,  Missouri, and become the  Communication and Membership Manager for BikeWalkKC. It was so much fun learning about a new city and managing marketing for a growing bike network and bikeshare system.

However, a new cloud appeared. Depression.

No matter that I had all these options for transportation and a great job, something was up. It took me dumping everything in Kansas City, moving to DC, and then realizing I was still going through the same things to realize that no matter what, I was still, depressed.

And as much as I love talking about urbanism with all the minds that come to the table about it, gentrification was still affecting my life. If I wanted to heal, thanks to the economic forces around me,  I would have to let go of some things I learned about urbanism.

Oh and then we had a pandemic too.  And during that time,  I got to practice some healing modalities and sit with what we’ve been taught about urban planning and what I as a Black queer feminist know about how gentrification makes some of those things very, very different and even difficult.

So, here I am in 2024. I have a loving partner who loves joy-riding and promoting transit just as much as I do. So much so, that it’s her actual day job.  And we live in one of the best neighborhoods in DC, despite attempts for folks like us to be erased from it. I’ve reclaimed my lifelong hobby of sewing and crocheting because I have that kind of time and space. I can drive AND take public transportation.

And I want you to not just come on this ride with me but understand why it’s imperative as planners and other professionals to understand that whatever we do, we need to be planning with people first. And for people like me who want city living, but have barriers to overcome, I want you to know there’s a space for you to do so, that loves and affirms and wants you in the public square, right where you belong.

So, I invite you to watch the recap of my launch webinar, Six Ways to Defy Gentrification.

And if you didn’t have time to watch, I’m so excited to tell you that it’s so simple to defy gentrification.

You can defy gentrification with faith in yourself, cultivation of joyful activities, and having everything you need nearby.

You can help others defy gentrification by caring about them, then building the infrastructure and providing the access they need.

If you believe me and want to make sure more people understand how simple that is, would love to have you become a Defying Gentrification Fellow or Ambassador.

Click here to express interest in our new Fellowship and Ambassador programs.

We’ll also be doing a Q&A on March 21 about the Fellowship and Ambassador programs, that will go into more detail. I’ll also be sharing more in-depth about these six ways of defiance and how these programs can help you, no matter whether you consider yourself gentrified or gentrifier or a little bit of both.

I’m also still releasing the Defying Gentrification workbook, but pilot fellows and ambassadors will have the first look at the workbook and ability to shape the work that will be released to the masses later this spring.

Finally, on the crafting liberation front, I invite you to join me on the Saturday Morning  Shenanigans craft interview show with Laverne of BzyPeach on YouTube as I talk about my crafting work and plans for later this year.

Until next time,

Kristen

Hey, y’all. I have to confess something. I’ve been cheating on urbanism with my crocheting and fashion design. This will surprise no one who gets to see the bottom of my face these days, but this may surprise you.

Longtime followers of me will know that I grew up in one of the original textile capitals of the world, Greensboro, North Carolina. Therefore, clothing made my town a city.

So my forays into fashion design, namely crochet and sewing, with a dedicated space for such in our home, do have an urbanist tie for me, because my urbanism has always been holistic and not just trains, apartments, and whatever else is in walking distance.

It also involves the people who are there and the economic factors that make each city what it is.

And yes, ableism, racism, queer and trans antagonism are just as much economic and labor issues as classism, as they all stem from imperialism, which is the root of capitalism.

But that’s not the whole story for me.

To be honest, I wake up every day and read and review all the urbanism, good or bad, in the DC region, inclusive of Baltimore and Richmond. I am paid to do such, but that is dependent on me doing so from 7:45-10 am Eastern, which is also my prime creative writing time. It does provide my primary source of business income, but the number of hours I can bill has dropped.

Another factor that’s key is that often this work exposes me to urbanist politics, policy, and behavior that is discouraging to me on a lot of levels, based on who I am, and what I know about how cities work.

However, it has allowed me to launch this experiment of living in the heart of a multi-gentrified neighborhood, and to record how I’m defying that gentrification.

So, I needed a creative escape and that’s what crocheting and fashion design have given me. My mom has always sewn and it’s been a source of joy throughout her career as an educator and her coping with chronic illness. Plus, one of my sibling-cousins is big into the sewing communities online and I too have found kinship amongst other craftivists and crafters who make to overcome the world’s obstacles, especially fellow Black, disabled and/or queer folks.

I’m working on a special project to combine my passion for holistic urbanism and crafting without always having to go out to a farm or a far suburb for later in 2024.

And despite how Nazi and fascist the world and these platforms are becoming, I as Black queer human have a right to exist in the world and on the internet. Palestine, Congo, Tigray, Sudan, Haiti and all the other countries under active genocide, and to take it all the way back, my ancestors and those already here on this land and who are still colonized to this day, have a right to not be slaughtered off the face of the earth for someone’s chance at living the high life. Or a life. So the bullhorn is going to be loud.

But, I am on my COVID sickbed and writing this in notes on my phone lying flat in the time that I give myself because I am committed to radical rest and my medication working right.

I will continue to mitigate and mask post recovery but we are at the point where we need HEPA, Far UV, and universal testing along with the shots and liberal use of antivirals and ample paid time to rest, recover, and cover our bills, along with fashionable respirators that are breathable.

In 2024, as I feel better, I want to be more present for those of you who rock with me no matter what and who love this kind of holistic urbanism, that defies gentrification and crafts liberation. Hence our new newsletter name (for the Substackers) — and tagline here Defying Gentrification and Crafting Liberation.

In each newsletter I’ll share ways I see myself and others defying gentrification and I’ll share what I’m doing in my craftivism craft room. And, I will link out to what’s happening on my YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. And X, until the doors fall all the way off.

Logging off now to rest and I’ll see you soon.