This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week, I’m reflecting on a 2012 post I made about gratitude and how what I’m thankful for has changed. Also, we have a special message from the University of California at San Diego. Learn more about how you can advertise in this newsletter. Prices start at just $75 a week with a four-week commitment. 

I’m still grateful for the country road. But I’m also grateful for the city block, the commuter train, the rapid test and KN95, and people who know how to cook good food far, far away from our hometown. Most of all, I’m thankful for the people who have stepped up over the last week to hold me and Les down — our chosen family, as we continue to battle imperfect bodies. 

A decade ago, on what I didn’t realize would be my last Thanksgiving with my father, and two years before I stopped going to family Thanksgivings altogether, I wrote these words:

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States and this afternoon I will I embark on my annual journey to see both sides of my family within a span of 5 hours. While many folks have the tradition of watching the Macy’s parade, watching football and eating copious amounts of food, my most unique Thanksgiving tradition involves one long country road.

On a regular basis, the concept of one road=one family rules my life. Within ten minutes I can be at my mom’s house. Five for my dad’s. Of course you’ve picked up on the houses being separate, but it’s been so long, I’ve worked at making sure it doesn’t feel like there was separation.

Meanwhile, on Thanksgiving, it’s worked out for many years that both family celebrations are within 30 minutes of each other, connected by one (technically four, but it’s close enough) country road.

I’m very thankful for that country road. It’s the same road I learned to drive on and it’s taught me the value of the rural environment. As I drive over the rolling hills of the North Carolina Piedmont, I see small farms. I see all types of home architecture, including one house that keeps adding turrets, stained glass windows, and doors. My mom and I have bets on it being a bed-and-breakfast, but who knows? There’s even a small waterfall cresting from a dam at another point of the journey.

This road and the country surrounding it are why I love the urban transect so much. For those of you who aren’t urban planners, the urban transect is a system developed in the 1990s to portray the optimal progression of land use. It goes from New York-level urban density to un-claimed natural land. In between, there are levels for used farmland, small-town main streets, and even lesser dense suburbs. It accounts for all the desired land uses in a way that honors compact living, efficient development, and the need for some communities to have space from their neighbors. It allows for the rural areas much like the ones I’m visiting today to exist in a modern, urban-centric, placemaking scheme.

We talk about density and connectivity and the ability to bring communities together in the placemaking blogosphere on a regular basis. Thanks to this road, and the years both families gather on this road, I get to feel what it’s like to be a part of my first community, my own family.

And on that note, let me take the time to express my thanks and gratitude to everyone who has followed me on Twitter and Facebook, given me a byline in another publication, read and shared this blog, heard me speak, invited me to speak and all of the above and more. Let us all be grateful for the great places in our lives and work hard to preserve them all.

Since then, I would see my community come together to help me bury my father, but see it constrict some when I came out of the closet.

I would leave my hometown because being its heroine became too much and honestly too isolating.

I would battle to get enough money consistently as someone living as my quirky and brutally honest, yet dependable self.

And of course, what are we really thankful for on these national declarations of Thanksgiving? What are we really celebrating, specifically by celebrating on that day? Is colonialism really working out for us?

And yet, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the best show of chosen family I could ever ask for, as Les recovered from another sudden 75% lung collapse due to endometriosis.

It’s hard enough to be isolated to prevent the worst health outcomes. However, I can’t thank our chosen family enough for creating the environment of wellness we’ve needed to successfully open up our quarantine pod and keep ourselves fed, rested, and our spaces clean and conducive to health.

If all goes well, sometime later this week, we will be embarking on a trip to North Carolina to see family we haven’t seen for a long time. I’ll be bringing Les to an in-person family event for the first time and I’ll be able to attend thanks to some social distancing and ventilation requirements that were met by my family (my Dad’s side for the record), with love and compassion. 

And I’ll go back knowing that while times can be tough, there’s always someone out there to help and hold us up. It might take a few asks and a little more vulnerability. But, even in this violent, chaotic world, the Earth is calling us back to herself and to a beloved community.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Reading about the Washington Post’s health reporter’s reflection on balancing queerness, COVID, and family acceptance was so real. I know so many of us are in this space at the moment, especially as it seems like containment of the virus is a fantasy and so many of us live with chronic illness anyway. I still want institutions to try and help us. Ventilation and air purification are on institutions. Vaccines, treatments, and tests are on institutions. Accessibility and knowledge sharing can be stunted by institutions. Please give us the right tools to continue to get in the right relationship with our individual and collective humanness. And understand that I will still be masked, but if you’re nice enough and take all the steps, we can have a meal together. And I will fight hard for your adequate health and community care.

Also, this collective of Black Los Angelenos purchasing their block in Leimert Park gives me hope that we can come together and be land stewards, without denying each other the gift of home, health, and community around our culture. I wish them well as they welcome their first Black woman mayor too.

Let’s take a moment if not all of Thursday and Friday instead of the frenzy it has become, and honor a time of mourning, for those who were already here on the so-called United States. We should be grateful and practice gratitude every day. And we should be nudging our families and friends to mourn in solidarity this week, much as we have for trans folks and traffic casualty victims.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and this first one from the University of California at San Diego.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego invites

applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor working in the area of urban studies and planning to begin July 1, 2023.

This is a position for a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at UC San Diego, a rapidly-growing department with strategic emphases on social and spatial justice; climate justice; and multinational planning.

The department is interested in candidates who have demonstrated commitment to excellence by strong engagement in teaching, research, and service toward building an equitable and diverse scholarly environment. The successful candidate will be an excellent scholar with an active research program in one or more of the following areas: transportation planning; climate change mitigation and adaptation; environment and land use planning; health and wellness, and/or spatial analytics.

The University of California, San Diego is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, covered veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.

Department: https://usp.ucsd.edu

Apply link: https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF03452

Open date: November 21, 2022

Next review date: Tuesday, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 31, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

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I’ll be live on LinkedIn and YouTube and Instagram talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours sometime this week. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces.

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My bookshelf over at Bookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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Finally, learn how and what you can you book me for in 2022 and 2023. I am also available to edit and for freelance articles. I’ll be updating the capabilities deck soon for 2023 to reflect that.

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. 

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Until next time,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email. This week, I’m still thinking about how capitalism is affecting our “return to normal” and how I’m just not that kind of normal.

So I already had plans to tackle how capitalism fails the Black body before recent news developments, but then again, this whole newsletter is about that and how it relates to our geography and coming together in physical spaces.

But, these past couple of weeks basically made me realize I’ve been right all along.

We ain’t ready to be outside. We ain’t doing right by everybody outside. And with this being fall going into winter in the northern hemisphere, might be time for those of us stateside to step back. And for those emerging back into the world to think about what’s really going on.

Now I’m not saying we gotta go all the way back to full lockdown. Personal protective equipment (masks of all levels, air cleaners/purifiers, face shields and goggles, and full body suits) and ventilated indoor and outdoor heated spaces of all kinds allow us to be out here with reason and sense. Especially those of us whose bodies already don’t like our polluted air, water, and broken social service systems.

However, I think I miss the lockdown portion of quarantine so much because, for the first time in my adult business life, I felt like I wasn’t missing out.

All the conferences beamed right into the bedroom. I could wake up and sleep at the pace of the sun. I could master crafts I’ve loved for years. Everyone was in the same boat, or at least similar, side-by-side boats it seemed.

In reality, the lockdown was sad and scary because we didn’t realize how much danger was at our door and we, meaning all races, ages, classes abilities, and wealth. Some relationships were rekindling and others were falling apart due to isolation. But it was making us slow down and really consider what was worth doing and many of us, at least based on what was posted online, were actually doing that!

However, once the first waves of infection passed and so many of us in positions of power, wealth, and access stopped dying and managed to not have side effects, it seemed like the hustle came back.

I’ve seen so many people, notably Black folks building business, harp on community, but insist that that community only happen face-to-face.

For every Black person calling on rest as resistance and liberation, another is saying liberation is only in our hustle.

Can we not forget that some of us can sleep and guzzle elderberry syrup and even wear our masks and our body will still do what it does?

Or I guess abundance and wellness are only available to the abled and the privileged.

I’m a dreamer and a creative and I hate the idea that I could be too sick to create because of something that fell out of the sky. And that doing it fast and risky is the only way to success.

It feels like the denials of my ancestors and my elders — you’re Black, so you can’t do that or be that.

It’s as if we have to earn our rights or liberation.

I’m here today to declare that liberation and rest are our birthrights. And no, that doesn’t mean one is forever gone be broke.

To declare and model what it looks like to make and do from a place of abundance. Last newsletter it was my personal abundance in limitation.

This newsletter it’s doing me and then connecting — with these technologies and techniques our ancestors and elders would dream of having, and owning myself as a success, internal and ancestral.

I like to think of myself, as a conduit and facilitator. I create projects, objects, and events. I may be the lead person managing the team or I may work on the object (say my crochet scarf pattern or any other crafty thing) in solitude. However, especially when the project is done in the community, I’m happy with sharing not just the labor, but the fruits of our labor, equitably.

Capitalism is not equitable. And yes, fares in cities that can tax billionaires to provide the funds for the services we punish others for not having enough to access, is capitalism. So is housing in the same situation? Yes, we need to compensate those that build housing, but we need to continue to be creative and work with a team of architects and construction experts that can provide us as a people with a variety and abundance of options without exploitation.

Oh and before you come at me that I’m not thinking about the kids: Open the windows and buy the fans for the schools and offer more tutoring and individualized education.

Also, you’re a doctor’s office, the PPE is for you first, especially since we are trusting you to usher us through the illnesses, ailments, and mobility device needs we expect from you.

You can get out here and hustle and push and pull. Do that for you. But don’t do it on someone’s back. Don’t do it at someone’s expense. Don’t do it for clout. Share the wealth, especially if it’s a group project or event, or something that benefits a broader community.

In the meantime, now that we’re been in this return mode for a second, let’s take a step back. Are you doing what you’re doing because you want to or because of obligation?

Is it really working or do you think it’s working?

You’ll see me when you see me. At the right spots and at the right time and yes, I’m happy, because all I have to do is be.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Another reason to get Black urbanism right is that Black/African urbanism will be the lead urbanism if population numbers do continue their trend in the nations of West Africa and their coastal cities. Also relevant at the moment, is how and why Judaism is practiced in West Africa.

I appreciate CityLab’s Linda Poon for highlighting what folks are and aren’t doing with indoor ventilation and what we should be listening for when a school, concert, or conference venue claims that they are cleaning the air, especially when they claim it’s “hospital-grade”.

And thank you Washington Post for shining a beacon on us “still Covid-ing”, but seriously, we aren’t weird because we are careful, then again, this is the Washington Post. I do want to lift up Elaine Weltheroth’s new WaPo column though, for often getting it right, especially when talking about when it works to walk away from a career.

Finally, this Post article about why Victorian-style homes are considered scary should go well with your candy and costume this year. Read it by candlelight.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me..

I’ll be live on Patreon, LinkedIn, and YouTube talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours from 11:45–12 noon eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces.

My bookshelf over at Bookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

Finally, Learn how and what you can you book me for in 2022 and 2023.

If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me.

Until next time,

Kristen

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. This week, I’m sharing a bit of how I continue to find abundance in scarcity of health and wellness, without betraying myself and my health in the process.

This most recent time of lockdown and quarantine isn’t the first time I’ve had to do so in my life. Nor, has this been the first time I’ve had to worry about my health or the health of those around me.

For years I thought was allergic to the sun because it was so hot on my skin. I then learned about people who really are allergic to the sun. However, one time, I slid around our backyard dogwood trees so much, I had a swollen face.

In the moment, I remember my face getting all squishy, and my dad and mom swooping me in the car to what I assume was my pediatrician and to Eckerd Drug for special Benadryl and going to bed for a while until my face became unswollen.

That was the first memory I have of childhood sickness. Other than cases of flu in 1997, and 2013; (fingers crossed) a lengthy cold in the early stages of us considering lockdown in February of 2020; some nasty cuts falling off my bike into gravel that required weeks of penicillin cream, falling face flat in the second grade in front of the school and embracing my new nose shape, and lots of hay fever and colds — I’ve been relatively healthy, as long as I remember to wear my glasses and take my Allegra.

I also learned early, that despite us being in a Black working-class household, health matters. I saw my mom who’d already had a few miracle surgeries (and me, the miracle baby); say enough was enough when her back went out baking holiday cookies and that started her relationship with a chiropractor, along with our primary care team and her OB/GYN. My dad’s stress and our relative privilege with him having a side hustle in the trades allowed him to go to the advertised nice and friendly mental health inpatient facility as needed, even though there were times when we needed state care.

I’ve now learned as I’ve lived with and made friends with so many folks who look “healthy” on the outside, but are just not healthy enough to do capitalism well, that abundance looks like doing what you can to honor wellness and a world that makes it easier for you to forget that your body doesn’t do all the things.

I listened to a meditation recently on the abundance in the midst of scarcity. That meditation was clear that abundance was doing all the things I can do and being grateful for the things I do have in the midst of thinking about what I can’t do and don’t have.

Because as much as I know and have lived what I showed you above, this is the first time in my and many of our lifetimes, the entire globe has been in sync with a common crisis, especially with public health.

And one of the first ways I practice abundance collectively is by doing what I can to make it easier for those who don’t have the same choices. For doing the research to make our planning and architecture work better for those we claim to build for, along with ourselves.

It’s what’s made me create my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist politic — with self and communal care as a political act.

My day-to-day abundance in scarcity means more trail time. Crochet at home and in my masked spaces. Walking through the mall masked. The best iPhone that took these pictures that I’ve highlighted this week. Outdoor fiber festivals. Outdoor music and community festivals. Takeout from all the best places and Whole Foods groceries. Hugging Les as much as possible.

And yes, speaking inconvenient truths, in a way that’s gentle and loving.

I know many of us have moved on from racial and disability justice. Sometimes I have to blink and make sure the calendar says 2022 instead of 2019.

I get why we want to go back. Lockdown wrought unfinished business for many of us.

However, some of that business can still wait. Or, that business needs to be designed so that it can be a universal experience.

I know we aren’t perfect in every space. I was masked, but I wasn’t able to caption or record my remarks at the crochet seminar I did at DC Design Week on Sunday. I’m still working to make sure my alt-text is appropriate. I have been mask-off a bit more in wide outside spaces.

Including this extra image this week because I’m one, proud of this workshop, and two grateful to the team of Eaton DC, Sweet Pea Fiber, and my partner Les for creating another environment where I can be “outside”. (Photo by Les Henderson)

And I feel the scarcity and fear in having to do stuff because people tell you to or feeling like you can’t take time off or still wear a mask or homeschool your children or wear what you want to wear because we live in capitalism and many of us are not in the positions of power to heal ourselves from the entire apparatus. But we do live on the same globe.

Yes, really, the same globe. Let my words today be a meditation bell, a call-to-action, that not only do we need to do the things that make us individually abundant, but that allow our Earth to feed us and heal us and not destroy us as it syncs back into its equilibrium. May we all be well!

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. Apologies in advance for things behind a paywall. Some things I subscribe to and others I grab just before the wall comes down on me. I will start marking these articles and describing them.

Appreciate this breakdown of what an industrial complex is from the women of Zora’s Daughters Podcast This really speaks to me at this moment, as I see so many of us propping up dysfunction instead of empowering people. However, I do want to shout out everyone else I see who is making a true difference. You know who you are and keep on keeping on! Also, shout out to the Arch is Polly podcast and The Streets are Planning Podcast. Yes, for those of you wondering, a return to the mic is coming.

Something else inspiring for me this week was seeing this update on Jewel Pearson’s tiny home near Charlotte. Already my ears were peaked because of Charlotte and a Black woman with a full closet and tub in her tiny home, but this update really speaks to her mission of pushing back against the narrative and the realities of being Black and having a place to call your own, while also in right relationship with the land and resources.

Especially after reading about this Detroit situation of how Tomeka Langford lost her home and it ended up as part of one of those $1/free house programs that were extra hyped in the last decade. The only inspiration here is that the person who got that home after her, who is writing the article, continued to seek after her, but unfortunately other people advised her to stop looking and push forward with legal challenges before getting to this point of joint advocacy.

And once again speaking of Charlotte, time to let the I-277 loop go. Use this as an opportunity for some reparations and restoration, but as we saw in this skylines article(paywalled), it might not happen for real because there’s more incentive to move on to a less equitable future.

And LA, my answer to this LA times headline(paywalled) is that you all can heal and form stronger racial coalitions. I also found this interesting article(paywall) that really digs into how intra-Native relations can be fraught in a country still reckoning with how it wants to see race.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and friends of the platform.

Advertising in this section has helped people find jobs and new opportunities. It also gets you and your newfound commitments to solidarity, justice, belonging, and equity in front of those who are your backbone and base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

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Learn how and what you can book me for 2022 and 2023

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me.

#

My bookshelf over at Bookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of the books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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It’s scarf season and it’s a great time to learn how to make a Kristfinity Scarf! Or make something out of crochet. Special thanks to EatonDC (where I’m a resident fellow this year) and Sweet Pea Fiber (where you might see me at maker’s night just like on the website on Wednesdays) for helping me make my DC Design Week event this year a success!

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I’ll be live on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours at 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces.

Until next time,

Kristen

Welcome (back) to The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and these are my Black queer feminist urbanist thoughts. I share a reflection up top, then I share other connection points and ways to connect with me in the sections below. I’m back today after several weeks off of this newsletter and my heart and soul are a little raw. I wanted to edit this down, but I couldn’t, I just had to let my fingers go. Plus, today is National Coming Out Day and while some disagree with the notion of coming out, I think it still has value. Read on as I tell you why and what I’ve learned in my two years of being 100% out (and six years of accepting my queerness internally).

Coming out has been the gift that keeps on giving, to my soul. I am now, two years after labeling myself publicly — happily, a genderfluid, feminine-presenting omnisexual person who is still poly, but basically the two relationships involved are with myself and my partner.

Ok, but aren’t we all in relationships with ourselves? We should be, but many aren’t and many do lose themselves in their relationships with other people, romantically, and otherwise.

Something else I’ve learned presenting as one of the “other letters” is that if some gay, lesbian, and sadly even some bisexual and trans people had it their way, people who are gender fluid and sexually fluid would evaporate into the air, for their inability to hold it down in a society that still insists that even people who aren’t in traditional male/female relationships concoct some kind of binary to have order and decency and control over each other.

I’ve also learned that while we all agree that Black is beautiful, we as Black queer people often still crave acceptance. I see disturbing levels of ableism and materialism/capitalism amongst even QTPOC of all shades and ethnicities and I see how African and African diaspora cultures intersect with that.

However, my queerness has made me think harder about what it means to have full autonomy of body, mind, and natural resources. It’s made my urbanism a necessity, not just something nice to have.

Those are my personal thoughts about how my queerness has shaped me in the past two years. Professionally, we’re just getting started with that, here are the three key ways my outward advocacy has been shaped by my queerness.

First, I believe we need sanctuary places for all shades of gender and sexuality — not just the most prosperous or comfortable ones.

Most of you came to this newsletter, especially in the early days, for placemaking and urbanism analysis and so I wanted my first couple of points to speak to how urbanism and design play a direct role in allowing gender and sexual fluidity to not just exist and survive, but thrive and set the tone for moving our culture forward.

Placemaking and keeping must include spaces for socialization. We should be allowed anywhere we want to go and we should have spaces where we connect on what makes us unique and special.

Oh, and you shouldn’t have to make the median area income or above, nor work in one of these spaces, to be able to inhabit them.

Today specifically for those of you who are fortunate to have The Roku Channel, you can see for yourself the impact of having spaces led by women and others who are gender marginalized even within the queer community is not guaranteed and doesn’t always mean gobs of money and support.

However, we need more than the capitalistic bar scene that’s made for hookups and for hooking up only if you look a certain way. There are levels to drag, but not enough places to host those different levels. If we’re going to tell people to read a F*ing book, then we need places to read those books and have quiet conversations.

Don’t get me started on ramps, elevators, and proper ventilation, along with quiet and dark rooms for sensory adjustments (and restrooms). More on that later.

Second, the need for the industry of placemaking/keeping to work through implicit biases and tokenism (along with the work being done around pay equity and hiring equally and equitably)

While I don’t expect solidarity from all of my colleagues, I do try to stay above board and be transparent when I see shady behavior from colleagues, namely some who think that tokenism is still the right way, because it’s better than nothing at all.

And yes, I hear a lot having a partner that’s also in the industry. But. I’m glad she understands a lot of what I go through and I can guide her as we make sense of it all.

But I don’t want this newsletter in this section to become a tea rag either, so I’ll leave it at that.

However, I think we should review how we handle disadvantaged businesses. More cities, namely Baltimore, are including LGBTQIA+ businesses as a protected class. We need implicit bias training especially around understanding how fluidity works and how we have to plan beyond binaries.

And we need to assert that we have the right to exist at work, in whatever gender presentation we are, and that we are professional no matter what. And we don’t need to shrink to stay in a position that doesn’t serve us, because we think we can’t do better at work. I know it can be hard, but we owe this to ourselves to be somewhere, not just after hours, but during hours, that sees us as human.

Finally, we need to be as anti-capitalist and anti-ableist as we are anti-racist and queer/trans-affirming and inclusive.

For the record, I define capitalism as making money on the backs ( sometimes literal, sometimes physical) of other people, rather than working together on an equal and equitable plane to make sure that people can be fairly compensated for their labor.

This is also an illusion to what I’ve said above about my personal disappointment in marginalized communities I’m part of being complicit in the oppressions of others.

However, I do want to commend those actively engaged in mutual aid. Rather than having a reason for needing something, people put up what they need for it or just put it out there for the taking. They barter. They teach all so that more can do certain skills. They work around abilities, instead of punishing others for lack of them.

Now, we are still in a capitalistic society as a whole, so we need to balance paying bills with being generous, but my goal and something I’d like to see the queer community lead on as we organize around our marginalization is figuring out how to take care of folks. Ballroom and chosen family culture is another way we are leading on this.

But that gets us to accessibility. I’ve missed so many “family” gatherings as of late because “family” doesn’t see how vital it is to keep masking. And yes, one-way masking does make a difference, but two-way is even better. If you want to take it back to before the COVID pandemic, to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we have the tools to make HIV undetectable, but we aren’t there with COVID and similar things are happening to bodies where people are picking up and having enhanced responses to other illnesses that are disabling and sometimes fatal. The MPX response was excellent in that we had a diagnostic tool early enough to prevent disease.

And yes, I know we have to live with COVID, but we have to live with it in a better way than we have been. We have to protect the vulnerable and sometimes the vulnerable will be invisible. And not everyone visible, say someone using a wheelchair, has friends to help them up the steps. In that same spirit, you might be up on your shots and you might have only had mild symptoms, but your partner may be more susceptible. Does that make them less of a person?

Some of us would demand that our identities as gender and sexually fluid people be honored, but we can’t get that same respect when it comes to fair wages and labor. Same with finding an elevator and a mask for the indoor spot and level ground and good wind ventilation outdoors. These things are all important and we need to get it right.

Today as many new people make it known who they are — who boldly walk out the door, please don’t shame them or make them feel guilty for not inviting you in a moment sooner than they did. Don’t tell them they are too loud or too much.

And if you have the means to build and uphold better structures, please do, so our bodies and the air we breathe can just flow today and every day.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section.

I know my hometown is fading in relevancy, but still, I would have loved a little North Carolina skyline analysis to include us!

I recorded two amazing podcast episodes this spring and both of them hit the interwebs this fall. I want to thank The Follow podcast for incorporating so many of my influences as show notes. And the Healing Black Futures podcast for just meeting me there.

Before You Go

Check out some special announcements from me and friends of the platform.

Advertising in this section has helped people find jobs and new opportunities. It also gets you and your newfound commitments to solidarity, justice, belonging, and equity in front of those who are your backbone and base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

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Learn how and what you can book me for 2022 and 2023

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If you want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me.

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My bookshelf over atBookshop.org is very much alive and well, purchase your copies of the books I talked about above, plus more that I’ve designated part of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon, the general urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

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It’s scarf season and it’s a great time to learn how to make a Kristfinity Scarf! Or if you are in DC on October 16, join me for a granny square demonstration at Eaton DC from 6–8 pm. Your ticket price includes supplies! I will record a portion of this to post later. Special thanks to EatonDC (where I’m a resident fellow this year) and Sweet Pea Fiber(where you might see me at maker’s night just like on the website on Wednesdays).

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I’ll be live on Patreon, LinkedIn, and YouTube talking about everything I mentioned above and then some for my Open Studio/Office Hours at 1:30 pm Eastern today (10/11). Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces. I’m also going to try to be live simultaneously around that time on Instagram.

Until next time,

Kristen

The Black Urbanist Weekly for August 17-30, 2022, Part 3 of the Black Queer Feminist War on Cars.

Are we equipped to win this war when the battleground — literally, the actual ground we are supposed to stand on, is made of quicksand, moats, and castles guarded by people or their systemic ideas that keep us from all experiencing enhanced and enlightened mobility– some would say accessibility?

Ok, we aren’t in medieval times, but sometimes, the Earth we are supposed to navigate outside of a car, looks more like the environment of Super Mario and its various iterations, than a place where anyone who doesn’t use a car is at ease in using. 

And yes, that matters on this so-called battlefield, because what good is fighting if you’re always going to be dodging proverbial (and real) bombs and missiles on the ground? Or if you make it to the castle, there are fire-breathing dragons, loose cannons, and snakes jumping up and biting you out of the moat. Oh and the moat itself, what if the bridge is too narrow or drawn up?

I had to sit on this newsletter a day or two, because my hypothesis this week — that the minute a Black neighborhood, especially in the United States, becomes a true carless village that everything is within 15-minute or more of walking, biking, or rolling distance, goes through its own dark magic “poof” of its own and disappears.

Historically, that poof was burnt down neighborhoods and towns, like the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And as of late, it’s been neighborhoods here in DC, where rent rates and home prices, and property taxes are calibrated to the highest median income, despite there being a clear racial disparity in household median income that’s well documented and has been for years.

Jobs, especially those that pay well, are sometimes on the other side of hours-long transit commutes, that become more expensive as you go further away from your home and sometimes don’t start or end before it’s time to go home, so your destination and journey become even more expensive, maybe impossible.

However, I couldn’t completely say that every neighborhood in DC that’s Metro-accessible and amenity-rich and car-light is un-friendly on the surface to Black folks. Especially when I go to every neighborhood and see us laughing at outdoor restaurant tables, serving in every job function, enjoying all of the Smithsonians, not just our own, and cheering for all the sports, not just the ones we’re overrepresented in.

I especially saw it when I was in Navy Yard on Monday, a Metro Green line neighborhood that is emblematic of what the “new DC” has become. Tall, shiny apartment towers with optimal access and views of the waterfront. Surrounded by office towers of all configurations, where both my partner and I have hot desks in our respective work buildings. Flanked on the lower floors are all kinds of public services — except clothing stores, which still seem to elude Navy Yard.

But, if you don’t mind wearing all Washington Nationals-branded clothes from the ballpark, tourist T-shirts from CVS and Harris Teeter, or the earthy clothes at Whole Foods, you could just do your whole life from Navy Yard. Same with the books on the magazine shelf, even though there are some great bookstores in nearby Capitol Hill.

But speaking of access, let’s break that down for a moment. The one thing that is still missing from Navy Yard, at least for me, is a clear spot that does Black hair. Queer folk’s hair, yes, but what if it’s really tight and densely curly and I want it to be longer than 2 inches? If that’s you, and your salon, please let us know. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping my car to go to my hair person in South Fairfax County that’s made the magic on top of my head known as the blurple hydrate-and-define.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t add that my partner has an amazing Black feminine-presenting primary care physician who is very attentive that just happens to be in Navy Yard. I’m in the Kaiser system for similar reasons and yes, for that, I’d have to go to Capitol Hill.

Even though we don’t live in Navy Yard (yet), we still live just down the green line of the Metro and several key bus lines, in another neighborhood that has a lot of stuff, but just happens to have a six-lane highway bisecting it. At least there are crosswalks, but there could be so much improvement. 

And there will be, Metro has plans to go down that road, literally, and it has a lot of popular support so I don’t see how they wouldn’t just go ahead and let that happen in about 20-30 years.

But what about today?

Even in a high-end neighborhood like Navy Yard with “everything,” with no limits on who can live there if you have one of DC’s inclusionary zoning vouchers or the income from your labor to live there, for Black folks, something is still missing within that 15-minute walk/bike shed.

However, in looking up recent efforts to create a true 15-minute city for all, there’s hope that I’m not the only one flagging that we need to do this in light of the place-based discriminations and disparities that Black folks and other folks of color face, along with ensuring that people can move in the ways they naturally move. We need to leave behind this particular engineering notion of mobility and work on access, especially as we experience the changes brought by major pandemics and major changes in climate and access to capital as an entire human race.

More cities need to break down their median incomes, rent burdens, and commute times, and cross-reference by race, gender, sexuality, and ability, by local service jurisdictions (wards, districts, or sections, depending on how the city council is structured).

More transit authorities need to realistically serve every jurisdiction in its power and no region needs to make a transit system that only works for people who commute to an office, during daylight hours.

Just like we can’t plan for one universal human, we can’t plan for one universal city and one universal Earth, as if the Earth doesn’t re-kindle and reset itself, even if that reset seems violent to us humans! We have time to reset our relationships, so instead of racing to one point, we can go at ease to many places.

By the Way

If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section. 

If you missed parts one and two of this Black Queer Feminist Urbanist War on Cars series, go here.

Benbow Park, one of Greensboro’s most legendary Black mid-20th century built neighborhoods,  is closer to getting a historic district designation. I grew up in the shadows of these legends and if I could talk to my dad today, I’m sure he’s fixed a light or two in one of these homes and surrounding others as well. Also, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen such a verdant aerial image over a Black community and definitely my first time seeing one like this over predominantly-Black East Greensboro.

Meanwhile, not only were the Talley and Weatherspoon Student Centers the nucleus of my life at NC State in the mid-aughts, I sat in on one of the focus groups back in 2006-2007 to assess what the centers needed to do. I’m sad that I didn’t get to be a student on campus and experience using the current configuration and renovation of the Talley Union, which is impressive even as a proud alumna and family legacy,  and I’m especially sad that this couldn’t be done without the debt load being on the students, especially since many who paid for the renovation were long gone when the full changes happened. But reading this article about the evolution of the student centers brought back so much good nostalgia of a time I did live in a “15-minute-city” and that my generation wasn’t the only one facing what it meant to be living in a rapidly changing campus and surrounding city of Raleigh. 

And speaking of the Triangle area of North Carolina, a reflection of what it’s become, or not. 

Before You Go

This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!

I’m keeping my  Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and slides up here, because this is basically the 2022 version of my origin story and how I practice my writing and planning. And yes, I’m happy to come and do this for you in a virtual session! Sign up here. 

Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC. Also, you can pitch us articles here (we pay!)

You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on the Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.

If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon. Those pledges will be going to commission paid guest articles and editors for this platform.

Finally, I wanted to announce that with my shifts in workload, I’ll be launching these newsletters on Wednesdays, still at 11 am, going forward and I’m taking next week off, to give my body some surgery recovery time, hence why this is the weekly for two weeks, lol. I’ll be back on Wednesday, August 31 to conclude this series on the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist War on Cars

Until next time,

Kristen