We can’t plan for others and create their boundaries if we aren’t in tune with our own boundaries and our limitations and safety nets.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally-known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker,  media maven, and fiber artist.

Some of you just graduated into the “real world” and I wanted to take these next few weeks to give you my own little graduation speeches in these newsletters, along with book recommendations from my Bookshop bookshelf, around the themes of setting internal personal, external personal and working with institutional and other folk’s personal boundaries. I’m calling these little notes Dear Graduates and I think there’s wisdom here for everyone. 

Speaking of widespread wisdom, I’m going to be doing a special email edition on Thursday afternoon, to invite you to learn more about my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Summer School — a one-day lecture+ group and individual meetups to help you apply a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist framework no matter what your occupation or lack thereof is.

To start us off this week with our reflection on personal boundaries I’ve chosen our book Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab.

How exactly does this personal boundaries book based in psychology apply to my career in urbanism and adjacent spaces?

First of all, if you don’t know who you are and what you don’t want to do, anyone can convince you to do anything. 

That could be a parent who wants you to start your career at a government agency because they are looking only at the pension. Never mind you work part-time on a (humane and cost of living adjusted) full-time salary for a community development corporation (CDC) that takes seriously the community part and constantly challenges and remakes the development corporation part into an entity that benefits the entire community and not just a few.

Or, you’re at that government agency, going into your 10th year, third mayor and you’re worried that this might not be a good fit. You can assess if you want to stay on and create the next set of standard operating procedures or if you have what it takes internally to call up a few of your friends working for consulting firms and lock in some subcontractor work, so you can remain at home and continue to heal your mental health and Long-COVID complications.

Finally, you can say no to planning another Pride or Juneteenth event haphazardly thrown together for optics, and work on that grant for the Black queer youth community center you want to operate year-round, with programming that doesn’t have to be crammed into June.

I’ve had to make a big boundary by not going everywhere and doing everything, especially as I await news about when I have fibroid surgery. However, I have learned about new takeout places. I have a new, shiny, properly fitting set of roller skates. And yes, because masks are not optional at yarn maker night (or at many theaters), I can still keep up with some great plays and I’m now a knitter! I know.

On a more professional level, I did my own set of whys around Black Queer Feminist Urbanism a while back.

There are so many feminisms and I want to be mindful of them all, but as I’m just one individual person with just enough spoons to get up some days, I decided to center my feminism on some key personal characteristics. Since I am more focused, I can also write you with more of a purpose. 

Oh and I can better coach you to, if you would like! The Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Intensive, is currently live on Patreon. However, I would love to coach 5-10 of you directly this summer, as part of your yearly professional development, as a graduation present to someone who could use some identity affirming career coaching or if you want to create a community institution and want to understand how you fit in, so you can be a true institution and not a threat. I’ll have more details about this program in a special email on Thursday, but you can go ahead and put the special Zoom informational webinar on your calendar and start asking about your professional development budgets or checking how much you have left to participate in something like this!

By the Way

I wanted to start giving props to articles and other content that I really liked that I thought was relevant again, much like we have a section for shoutouts/classified ads. So, welcome to By the Way, and make sure you check out Before You Go too.

South African Black feminisms are showcased in this book. I myself am working to make sure that I keep a global lens and not just my African-American feminist one.

And speaking of funding African-led aid organizations versus projects doing aid from abroad for Africa, boosting this article on why that’s vital.

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 the base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

#

This is more of an announcement than something else to read, so I’m placing this here, as a favor — the deadline for the Desiree Cooper Awards has been extended to June 1. These scholarship awards are for Black women architectural designers looking to fund the exams needed to become official architects and in addition to the awards, they are looking for folks who want to donate to increase the amounts that they can give to Black women architectural students and architectural designers to help them swell the ranks of the just over 500 Black women architects licenced in the United States across all time.

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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. Appme. 

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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.

#

My very first official crochet pattern is for sale. It’s been tested and reviewed and you can join the club of folks making their own Kristfinity Scarves!

#

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 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces. Also, all of my prior video chats under the Public Lecture/Open Studio label are now available on Patreon and will be making their way to YouTube little by little over the next few weeks.

Until next time,

Kristen

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally-known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker,  media maven, and fiber artist. This week I’m going to begin what will be a summer series of highlighting why I’ve chosen certain books to be on my Bookshop bookshelves and what those books make me think of. This week, I’ve chosen Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism by Aja Barber as my book of note and I’m going to be reflecting here on what it’s meant to redefine my relationship with textiles— something that made my town a city and that in moderation brings me joy.

While raw goods being made into fabric may have made my hometown into a city, our relationships with labor, consumption, and manufacturing must change. We all deserve to come together, with the fruits of our labor, on equal standing, in villages and markets of our making. Or else, we may not have an Earth left to stand on.

Some of y’all might remember those cotton commercials that declared the fiber as the fabric of our lives. For me, that was literally the case. 

I come from a city that was built by the mass processing of cotton, nylon, flannel, and other raw textile goods.  It seemed to thrive as long as we had that ability and struggled as that ability was taken away. I say seemed, not as a pun, but as a reality because those in my city and state who worked in the textile industry were dealing with corporate oppression, especially if they lived in overbearing mill villages, the lack of ability to unionize (which we lost in 1947 at the state level), and if they were Black, they were probably in the most dangerous and dirty of the mill jobs. Oh and we were just the center of something that had been global for centuries, but we were made to feel extremely special for being at the center, then discarded and gaslighted when we complained about its loss.

It’s what makes me personally feel that without textiles (and furniture and tobacco), we wouldn’t be exporting “happy” things like world-renowned college basketball. People wouldn’t want to come to our state, first for “cheaper” living and labor, and second for its natural resources and seemingly less extreme laws despite being in the South. We wouldn’t have the money and the philanthropy that created the educational campuses that educated and employed my parents, so they could get together, have me in the health institutions that philanthropy provided and raise me around those educational institutions and their bounties. Institutions that set the foundation for both this platform as a product with the lens I have and me as a person behind those lenses.

Yet, I still grew up thinking I didn’t live in a real city. What I’ve since learned is that it’s often capitalists and imperialists (through years of colonialism) who have decided what cities are and where they are placed. And those same capitalists and imperialists that determine how we feel about ourselves as subjects and plebs and slaves of their schemes.

When Greensboro was founded in 1808, there was a chance that I could have been a free person of color. But I could have also been enslaved and rented out to one of the homes of the new families inhabiting the centrally-located county seat. 

I do have ancestors and elders who have worked in tobacco fields and textile mills, both as summer jobs between semesters of college and as their main means of survival. Those family members managed to build churches, feed and clothe themselves despite being at the disposal of how well a crop yield went or what the global demand for the textile product they processed was at the time, and the violence wrought on them because of the shape, tone, and appearance of their bodies.

During this current time of decreased supply chains and shortages in the United States, I couldn’t help but revisit how this story has played out for people from (and brought to) my region for generations. And that by reclaiming fiber for myself, as a few other of my peers from this region have done, I could do what I talked about last week when looking back on the Parable series from Octavia Butler and both have a positive obsession, a go-bag and a plan for flexibility in the midst of divine change.

Expanding my knowledge globally, to my other BIPOC siblings, especially those who are forced to do all the work for our supposedly ready-to-wear clothing, I can go forth in abundance, providing mentorship around fiber to those of us who have a choice in where we work and how we consume, and awareness that much of our clothing is still handmade(by force) and isn’t completely industrialized and non-regenerative.

The more we know about our global supply chains, the more we can push back against white supremacist delusion, which unfortunately at the writing of this note, is really rearing its head in the United States. However, it does so every day all over the world and so many folks never get to step back for a moment and figure out how to get free. They just get to make our clothes and sadly so many of those clothes never even make it to a closet, they just go back to markets that are indebted from trying to resell our clothes or the ground and water around those markets when the finished goods are too damaged to wear or sell, but won’t biodegrade.

This is why this week’s featured book is Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism by Aja Barker. I added this book to all of my Bookshop shelves as what she’s saying will not just affect what we consume, but what we build in order to consume and if we even still have an Earth left to do things on. It also comes from the perspective of another African-American person who is perceived as a woman, and lifts up other BIPOC voices, while encouraging us to find and listen to those who once again, can’t look up from a loom or sewing machine to tell us the truth about their labor and what our consumption is doing.

Processing my legacy, stabilizing my present and growing my future in the face of all these changes is also why Kristpattern, my artisanal textile studio, exists. I want to make more of my personal textiles and teach more folks about how that can work for them no matter their skill level with a needle or hook or loom, so we of “privilege” along with our siblings that need revolution from these global factories and schemes can get back in touch with our Earth, liberating ourselves and living our ancestors’ dreams of that mass liberation from all forms of oppression.

But, I’m still sorting through what it means to be in a world so bent on borders and neighborhood boundaries. Next week, I and my book selections for you will delve into how I’m making sense and moving beyond borders.

By the Way

I wanted to start giving props to articles and other content that I really liked that I thought was relevant again, much like we have a section for shoutouts/classified ads. So, welcome to By the Way, and make sure you check out Before You Go too.

Here’s a more comprehensive, unbiased history of textiles in North Carolina up to about 2006 (so before Spoonflower, but after the mass outsourcing of many mills and corporate operations).

I love Abbott Elementary for all the same reasons as fellow Medium writer Robyn A. Henderson. Plus, I can tell that this is a love letter to her mom, also a public school teacher. Watch this interview with her and Charlamagne Tha God, who is also a child of a public school teacher.

I needed this encouragement directly from my big sibling in the chosen family of notable essayists from North Carolina Tressie McMillian Cottham, that it’s not the platform, but the people and the ideas. They can try to shut down your ideas and your voice, but it’s still yours. So, in that spirit, I might be on this platform you’re reading me on today, but not tomorrow. Butimma still be me. And I’m going to control the platforms I do have as much as I can.

Finally, reading and seeing what’s happening on the North Carolina coast is reminding me that being ready to flow is something that my people have had to reckon with for years. Being able to make camp and establish home for as long as its feasible, then taking home with me is something that I should make peace with, at least in the interim.

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!

#

This is more of an announcement than something else to read, so I’m placing this here, as a favor — the deadline for the Desiree Cooper Awards has been extended to June 1. These scholarship awards are for Black women architectural designers looking to fund the exams needed to become official architects and in addition to the awards, they are looking for folks who want to donate to increase the amounts that they can give to Black women architectural students and architectural designers to help them swell the ranks of the just over 500 Black women architects licensed in the United States across all time.

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. 

#

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.

#

My very first official crochet pattern is for sale. It’s been tested and reviewed and you can join the club of folks making their own Kristfinity Scarves!

#

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 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces. Also, all of my prior video chats under the Public Lecture/Open Studio label are now available on Patreon and will be making their way to YouTube little by little over the next few weeks.

Until next time,

Kristen

The Black Urbanist Weekly for May 9-May 15, 2022

My personal parable from the Parable of the Sower Opera is faced with tough circumstances, our dreams and our songs will carry us through life and then will become a life force. This is an urbanist parable because I’m not the only one going forward in the future in song and dream asking for a better container in which to do life.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally-known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker, media maven, and fiber artist. This week I’m going to begin what will be a summer series of highlighting why I’ve chosen certain books to be on my Bookshop bookshelves. This week, in honor of being able to see the Parable of the Sower Opera at Strathmore a couple of weeks ago, I’m going to talk about that work and how it differs from the books it’s inspired on and how its something we need to return to, if we are serious about having a society. LOTS OF SPOILERS, SO YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP DOWN TO THE BY THE WAY SECTION IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS FOR YOURSELF — — 

So before I get into this conversation on Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, the Octavia Butler speculative fiction novels rooted in the idea of how Black and other people of color would fare in a climate-troubled, politically-restrictive, economically-challenged future that at the time of her writing was 25–30 years away and is now just over two years away, I wanted to quote myself from a version of this newsletter from 2019, after I’d visited California for the second time and read Parable of the Sower for the first time:

I could totally see now having paid even deeper attention to the terrain, how people could totally take to the freeways and walk on one side and drive on the other, abandoning their cars due to the extremely high gas prices. How the abundance of fire could become more tantalizing and deadly.

How public services could become commodities and then out of reach of all but the wealthy.

How the middle-class neighborhoods could wall themselves off and still be vulnerable.

How areas like Skid Row could become more common and be depressed for years.

And California could change and restrict its borders at the expense of those who are most needy.

When I wrote that newsletter, which you can find here, in October of 2019, I was reassuring myself that reading these books would be enough for people to take it as a cautionary tale and not let climate change or class issues, or even religious bigotry get so intense.

Yes, I found my way to these books in the first place because of the 2016 election cycle and keeping up with how floods and hurricanes further heightened by fracking and drilling were doing equivalent, but still very different natural disaster damage to us on the East Coast.

But, in the late fall of 2019, it seemed like people were realizing we’d have to resist and things seemed to be favorable.

And then 2020 happened.

But two weeks ago, I managed to request and receive press tickets for the Parable of the Sower Opera. This is a musical adaptation of the novels by daughter and mother duo Toshi and Bernice Johnson Reagon, along with a phenomenal team of actors, producers, musicians, and other performers and public intellectuals. After two pandemic-related delays, it was finally being staged at the Music Center at Strathmore.

I was so nervous though that the Parable Opera would be as dark and discouraging as the books. I was proud that I’d thought to reach out for review tickets for this publication that serves as part of “what I can do”. I was even prouder that even though I’d finished enough of my special wool sweater dress (another “thing I can do”) that it could be worn as a shirt that evening. However, I barely made it to the theater because I had to clean up my puked-up dinner in my car just before we drove over to the Strathmore.

I felt reassured when we got there just after curtains were scheduled to go up that so many other folks were just getting to the theater — some by way of slow Metro service from the main part of DC and that the Strathmore was taking their own Covid screening very seriously, checking every single card and ensuring no one attempted to go maskless, at least in the lobby.

The long and thorough check-in line made some of us who had orchestra level seats be held in the lobby, depending on the TVs showing the stage to tell us what was going on once the opera did start.

Whether by coincidence or not, I feel like care was taken in the experience of those who couldn’t come in immediately for the first few songs for the story to be the way it is — filtered through a TV sharing dystopian news, by oracles that were deemed Talents, and Lauren, the main character, sitting on a bench, behind the walls of both her individual home and the walls of her neighborhood constructed to protect her and others from the dystopia, journaling all of her ideas on how to free herself from this contained world.

Then we were allowed to enter the theater as the scene had been turned into a church service, leading with a chorus — The Church Still Stands — and I felt as I was entering what church would feel like and does feel like, in these times when your church believes it has all the divine tools inside and no divinity could be found outside. A church behind walls, despite being called to minister beyond walls.

I grew up going to churches with wooden cushioned pews and no instruments but an upright piano and an electric organ. We had what we called “prayer service” on Sunday mornings between Sunday school and the main service, and on Wednesday nights before Bible Study. I even went to some rural congregations that still had the wooden floors that became their own instrument when a member of the congregation would randomly raise up (start singing unprompted) a song or a testimony — an act of expressing spoken gratitude for the blessings of God or a request for prayer for healing or resolution.

The first act felt like those prayer services, with all the different song raisings, and then after 30 minutes to an hour, the more polished church service would start, but even then the movements of the Spirit would have people doing different things, and then after another 1–2 hours (ok, I know some of you were at 3, 4, 5 hour, possibly all day services), we would all be pushed out into the “undivine” world to make sense of it and what we just heard.

This theater and opera’s “service” would allow us to explore its themes in a safe, controlled theater environment, that was supposed to serve as a “Balm in Gilead” and a wake-up call, while palatable to all audiences, specifically for the Black church, in its own language, to wake up out of its false sense of security in our current world and to lead people out to the Promised Land.

I’ll admit I was a little confused during the second act because I was still waiting for that abject violence that had emptied my stomach just an hour prior.

Now I see the second act used the framework of captives/refugees pushing through the natural terrain to ground their spiritual freedom — truly illustrating both that God is change, a song can be a positive obsession even in movement, and in my favorite touch, that spirits don’t die, they change form and sometimes that form continues to walk right along with you as you change.

I’ll let you all see for yourself how that last sentence becomes literal in the second act. And my stomach was settled.

Especially after the special post-show episode of the podcast Octavia’s Parables, hosted by Toshi Reagon and adrienne maree brown and they both mentioned how much they two felt this work was enhanced by our current circumstances. They also emphasized that the opera was supposed to mold to the room of its performance and much like church announcements, they encouraged the crowd to leave out and do something practical.

The podcast is a great listen to it as you go about making sense of what Covid has done, what isn’t being done for environmental and economic justice and continuing to move in a positive way, and in the words of Octavia Butler, So Be It and See To It!

And the opera can be returned to often, especially as a cast recording, for encouragement and affirmation. Keeping my eyes and ears peeled for its appearance.

By the Way

I wanted to start giving props to articles and other content that I really liked that I thought was relevant again, much like we have a section for shoutouts/classified ads. So, welcome to By the Way, and make sure you check out Before You Go too.

I saw this just before I hit send last week, but honestly, an exploration of Janelle Monae’s afrofuturist work — specifically her new book The Memory Librarian, especially since her live book tour just passed, is the perfect companion to all the work spoken about above.

And it was both an honor and a thrill to be named to someone’s collective of Black History Month heroes and heroines with Alexis Nikole Nelson, who reminds me so much of myself when I first started this platform, but instead of listening to naysayers who felt like the media was messing up our design practice, continues to educate people and take on national media and speaking opportunities on plants that are edible. Oh and now that I think about that, that’s also relevant to a discussion of any form of Parable of the Sower.

Why there never was a third Parable book as promised.

And finally, Toshi Reagon’s thoughts on the recent news that Roe vs. Wade and other abortion-related Supreme Court cases are set to be struck down.

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 the base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

#

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.

#

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 Black urbanism canon, and other lists because you can never have too many books.

#

My very first official crochet pattern is for sale. It’s been tested and reviewed and you can join the club of folks making their own Kristfinity Scarves!

#

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 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on all spaces. Also, all of my prior video chats under the Public Lecture/Open Studio label are now available on Patreon and will be making their way to YouTube little by little over the next few weeks.

Until next time,

Kristen

It’s ok to be selfish and affirm yourself when it comes to urban planning, especially if “Urban Planning” never had you in mind. However, as you feel more steady and yes, amass power and privilege in your own right, it’s time to be in solidarity and facilitate justice and belonging.

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker, media maven, and fiber artist. This week I talk more about what May will look like if you choose to join me in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist intensive, this mechanism that I’ll lead you through the process I just talked about above. We already have folks signed up and we can get you signed up by joining the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge, on Patreon and on May 4th all new content will load. Existing Patreons, I’ve already adjusted the levels and names, all you have to do is show up!

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I’m against urban planning as this massive top-down institution rooted in imperialism and all of the things that begets (racism, queer antagonism, sexism, capitalism, colonialism, and displacement).

I’m for the kind of urban planning that comes from folks that are victimized by what I’ve put in parenthesis.

I’m for fellow newsletter and blog and social media post writers, young and old, telling their neighborhood’s story and rallying people around positive changes. I especially love seeing the fantasy maps and the charts and graphs that may not have all the details but are a solid start. 

I’m for the public schools and libraries that help people of all kinds interpret history and maps and make sense of what’s come before, what’s happening now, and what could come today.

I’m for all the ways one can monetize and collect funds online, along with all the meal trains and neighborhood clothing collections that keep goods and services circulating through buildings, communities, and neighborhoods of people happy to share.

I’m for the kinds of small businesses that also participate in those kinds of barters and trades and balance their survival needs and the survival needs of the communities they serve.

And so yes, later this week, those of you who are Patreons will get my next set of planning tools — centered around helping you find and create the community level institutions — and following a structured plan, with coaching from me, to get yourself to the finish line. 

Unlike previous courses, this one will be available and relevant at any time of the year, but I’m putting it out now because May has become a time of the year where we look at who we are as people and decide if we are doing right by our communities. It’s also the thick of the professional conference season and the end of the academic school year. It’s right before a time many of us were stretching our legs, going outside, and letting loose.

There are three levels, based on your proximity to what I have come to term Black Queer Feminist Urbanism. The Affirmation level is specifically for folks who also consider themselves Black Queer Feminist Urbanists. I already have one person signed up for my Solidarity level, which is there for you if you need affirmation of your place in urbanism and could also use some guided fine-tuning around how to be in solidarity with your peers. And finally, if you feel pretty affirmed, but want guidance with a large-scale, world-changing effort to Facilitate Justice and Belonging, sign up for that level. If you do choose to sign up for that level, the clarity call is required, on top of our existing Monday office hours through the month of May. At least one clarity call is required if you sign up to actively do the work that you’re eligible for, especially if you’ve already been on a tier that’s now eligible for a certain tier.

Anyway, everyone needs a plan. Especially when you get planned about and not planned for.

By the Way

I wanted to start giving props to articles and other content that I really liked that I thought was relevant again, much like we have a section for shoutouts/classified ads. So, welcome to By the Way, and make sure you check out Before You Go too.

I’m shouting out the work of my old Greensboro friend Eric Ginsburg twice this week. First, because it did an amazing job telling international Eater readers where to eat in our hometown of Greensboro and secondly for telling the very discerning audiences of Bon Appetit about a restaurant seeking to bridge cultural barriers between Black communities and white Jewish communities in Richmond, Virginia. 

We’re approaching Black Pride season, so I wanted to boost back up the lovely folks of Team Rayceen Productions and Rayceen themselves, one of the legendary members of our Black queer community, who chose to feature me a few weeks ago on their daily video show!

And yes, Black women and non-binary folk have been making philanthropy happen —- even when we’ve barely had resources or respect from others. 

And finally, I  came across Fobazi Etarrah’s 2018  addition to the canon of Black women calling public spaces to account, specifically libraries.

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 the base of those commitments. Learn more on how you can purchase ad space!

#

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. 

I’ll be live on Patreon, LinkedIn and YouTube for the first of my Open Studio/Office Hours at 4 eastern. Don’t worry if you can’t watch live, it will be archived publicly on both spaces. Also, all of my prior video chats under the Public Lecture/Open Studio label are now available on Patreon.

Until next time,

Kristen

Urbanism doesn’t always want to hang out with Black queer feminism, especially at times in my embodied & socially distant Black queer feminism, but there’s always an internal map and compass that leads me back to it, my inner child specifically.

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker,  media maven, and fiber artist. This week I talk more about what May will look like if you choose to join me in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist intensive. Additionally, this newsletter is brought to you this week by Elsewhere and CultureHouse’s new job openings (both closing soon!), Greater Greater Washington’s Spring Gala (on Thursday, a rare chance to see me in the flesh, safely), and my Patreon supporters, who will have a first-row seat to the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Intensive starting Wednesday, May 4th. Scroll down to the Before You Go section to learn more.

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Since I’m at home a lot more and coming up on 3 years in the same apartment, I’ve been thinking about what attracted me to the places I’ve lived in that I wasn’t born in. And even to the place I was born in, what about that place was so fascinating I wanted to know the ins and outs of why certain places and buildings and spaces were where they are?

In other words, In a world that already made it hard to be Black, feminist, and queer — why would I care so much about its urbanism in the first place? Especially when that urbanism was actively working to make it hard for me to enjoy it without guilt, shame, or this overwhelming need to wear myself out to be able to enjoy its spoils?

Before I ever bought this web domain, secured all the social media accounts and , there was a child, on a planet, loving its flowers and leaves and dirt even when they made them allergic, pedaling and walking to the places that still wanted to be in their neighborhood, wishing for good neighbors, great art and craft, and a loving supporting collective of souls, sometimes called family, sometimes called friends.

That’s why I do it. That’s why I’m still here. Skating against brick walls through clouds of grief, stitching up blankets of processed natural fibers to graze on, and kites to fly to heights that I aim to see again when there’s life to be given by those flights.

I’m here for that child. When I forget that, I fall off. When I remember that, I stand tall.

By the Way

I wanted to start giving props to articles and other content that I really liked that I thought was relevant again, much like we have a section for shoutouts/classified ads. So, welcome to By the Way, and make sure you check out Before You Go too.

I’m really excited about this new CityLab series encouraging cities to bet on Black women. The first article in the series is by friend of the platform Sherrell Dorsey. Make sure you grab her book as well and look out for her on this platform sometime soon. Oh and look out for me down the line with my own contribution to the series.

Take this article by Tanisha C. Ford (@soulistaphd)  (paywalled, let me know if you need access) on Bel-Air and other Black excellence moments on TV as another teachable moment to actively talk about how Black capitalism fails us all and has failed us over time, and how our own internal insecurities and elitisms can put us down even before we make it to the white gaze.

I’ve also talked before, when we launched the original Black Queer Feminist Book Club/School/Intensive Pilot on how I associate certain songs with certain cities and I often have to play said songs each time I drive or ride or fly into a place. Of course I loved reading friend of the platform Ko Bragg’s( amazing breakdown on how so many artists, namely Stevie Wonder, were warning us in the early days of integration and post Civil Rights Movement activities of environmental danger and climate change and how these songs of our parents and grandparents generations were planting the seeds of our Black intersectional environmentatalisms.

I’m really enjoying these Curbed 21 Questions of New York based architects, planners and designers. Click through for some familiar and unfamiliar names, but plenty of intriguing conversation, especially around what people want to change around the art/design/planning world.

Transitional housing isn’t supposed to be jail, but these tiny home villages in LA are one example of how that’s happening there and sadly in other places that can’t just accept folks living in tents or that folks can handle their own housing, if we stopped pushing that capitalistic narrative on everybody that everyone needs to work X amount of hours to be worthy of survival.

Before You Go

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

Elsewhere, the extraordinary living museum and artist residency in Greensboro, NC, is now hiring two key managerial/curatorial positions that will lead organizational programs and communications. Both roles are highly collaborative, shaping their respective work through collective visioning and goal setting, project management and coordination, and on the ground facilitation.

The Program Manager/Curator will lead curation and operation of the museum experience, the international artist residency, and alternative learning programs. The Communications Manager/Curator will lead the development of social media, newsletters, press releases, print objects, and museum interpretive materials.

Both positions are 30-hour per week roles starting at $18-20/hour. Benefits include 160 hours of paid time off, $1,000 of healthcare/self-care reimbursements and $1,000 of professional development annually, daily participation in Elsewhere’s vegetarian food co-op, and FMLA leave.

Applications are due May 1st at 11:59PM EST. Cover letters can be a barrier to entry. Elsewhere is asking applicants to complete a questionnaire in lieu of a cover letter and submit work samples of any kind along with their resume. Additionally, Elsewhere will host two town halls to introduce current staff, share information, and answer questions. The first town hall is for everyone on 4/13, 6:30-7:30PM EST, (register here) and the second town hall on 4/20, 6:30-7:30PM EST, will be exclusively for BIPOC participants (register here). 

Elsewhere is artist-run space, but has a radically expansive definition of artist that can include practitioners from many fields and backgrounds (educators, organizers, etc.). Elsewhere seeks staff who are visionary, curious, self-reflective, assertive, proactive, solution-oriented, and mission-driven.

Elsewhere shares a radically expansive understanding of creative practice and identity. We strive for a diverse representation of voices, life experiences, views, and interests to reflect the collaborative community we have and wish to serve. To decolonize systemic structures of institutional oppression, we encourage queer creatives of color, as well as all other marginalized groups, to apply. Elsewhere is a ‘second chance’ employer and believes that those who are judicially challenged have a place in our community. If there are accessibility needs or questions, please contact museum@goelsewhere.org.

More information and applications: https://www.elsewheremuseum.org/apply

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CultureHouse, a queer-led urban design nonprofit based in Somerville, MA (Boston area) hiring for two positions to join their creative and passionate team. CultureHouse works with communities to transform unused spaces into vibrant public places. Their projects increase access to social infrastructure (the places we build and form connections)—creating cities that are more resilient, equitable, sustainable, and vibrant. Their work is deeply rooted in participatory community design and the core belief that everyone has a right to high-quality public space. 

Sound like something you want to be a part of? More information on both positions is available at culturehouse.cc/join-us. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, but please submit by EOD on April 30th. Reach out to aaron@culturehouse.cc with any questions. Read on for position descriptions.

Design position: Are you passionate about public space? Do you enjoy having a job that is impossible to explain to friends? We are searching for a full-time Designer to design and build creative tactical urbanism projects. In this role you will scope, design, construct, and see projects through completion.

Operations position: Are you a well-organized person with a passion for helping organizations run smoothly? Well, you just might be right for the CultureHouse Operations position! This role will work to make CultureHouse a more efficient organization by developing and maintaining operational systems.

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It’s not too late to get tickets to the Greater Greater Washington Spring Gala, which will be on April 28 from 6-9 pm at Mess Hall, a wonderful indoor/outdoor event venue in DC. Head here to purchase and learn more. COVID-19 Vaccination is required.

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If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can become a monthly Patreon supporter( which comes with my special May intensive content), or you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmoor Cash. App me. You can join the advertisers above, learn more and secure one starting at $75/week. 

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I’ll resume my office hour next week with a livestream. Details to come in next week’s newsletter. However, you can stream a chat with me this Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern as part of Design Museum Everywhere’s Design Week 2022.

Until next time,

Kristen

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Sometimes, we need someone to affirm us. To be in solidarity with us. To get us through the final details and steps to heal injustice and to provide that sense of belonging above and beyond that affirmation and solidarity.

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker, media maven, and fiber artist. This week I talk more about what May will look like if you choose to join me in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist intensive. Additionally, this newsletter is brought to you this week by Elsewhere’s new job openings, Greater Greater Washington’s Spring Gala, and my Patreon supporters, who will have a first-row seat to next month’s intensive. Scroll down to the Before You Go section to learn more.

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This is what I want to do next.

Affirm my fellow Black Queer Feminist Urbanists.

Walk with my other people of color, queer, broke/poor, chronically ill, neuroatypical, and otherwise disabled navigating the overwhelmingly white, straight, abled, generationally wealthy design and planning industry.

Help all of us in positions of power and influence, but especially the folks I just lifted up above who already do enough of this just to survive and thrive, but those with those advantages can make it so that it’s easier for all, in tangible and transformative ways.

I’ve done a course before. Many of y’all were here with me when we originally launched the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School. Well, this time we are going into actual mode, instead of pilot mode, taking an extension of the K. Jeffers Index for Black Queer Feminist Urbanism, and doing a month-long focus on how to implement Black Queer Feminist Urbanist principles in our lives and work.

I decided to do this in May because it was two years ago in May when many of us experienced a major shift in how we thought about our identities and privileges in the world.

In addition to seeing state-sanctioned violence continue on in law enforcement, we also saw how different states were handling (or not handling) this public health emergency and we saw how our offices and our professional spaces were doing the same.

I want us to start making May a month of reflection, as we get ready to relax into summer vacations, Pride celebrations and enjoy one of the more fulfilling times of year, where we can participate in safer outdoor activities and hope that once this variant goes through, this might be the last time.

As I am still hyper-conscious about events on my own, especially unmasked indoor events, and my own solo workload, I still want to do something, but something that works well for all of us.

So, I am creating a worksheet, a companion video, and weekly-throughout-May office hours/check-ins around the themes of Affirmation, Solidarity and Facilitating Justice and Belonging.

Affirmation will be available to all those who are currently eligible for Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge membership, as this is geared specifically to help Black queer, trans, and gender non-conforming folks make sense of the worlds they inhabit. You can access your worksheet right now and I’ll post the video at the beginning of May and set up a poll for the day most folks can come to the check-ins. Lounge members will also have special bonus material that you have to come over to the lounge to find out about.

Solidarity will be available to all $10 level and up Patreons and as a $75 PDF package available on May 4th if you want to purchase it without making a monthly pledge. The PDF will include embedded links to my main teaching video and to the office hours along with your worksheet, which will be similar to the one in the affirmation group (because you need it too), but also address the ways you can be in solidarity to those who are affected by anti-Blackness and misogynoir when it shows up in community spaces or as a lower-level volunteer or employee. There will also be bonus content and additional content suggestions here as well.

Facilitating Justice and Belonging will be available to everyone at the $40 level and up on Patreon, much like the original school pilot was, and will be a $175 PDF package available on May 4th. This worksheet, video, and office hours series will focus on creating an action plan to actively dismantle and reset an unjust system or create a place of community belonging — i.e. creating a mutual aid group; drawing up working and sealable engineering or architecture plans for a place or space or route that could fix an inequity or an injustice; creating a co-op or community land trust or something else we can discuss together.

I will be hosting a live Zoom office hour at 4 pm Eastern on Mondays for the rest of the month where I’ll go into more detail about each section, answer any questions and get folks signed up at the right place. I’ll share recordings of these office hours as well, with descriptions of key questions asked.

You can also still do the quick quiz to see where you might fall, but note that signing up for a clarity call or coming to office hours is the best way to know what course to take.

Also, this year will be the lowest rate of any year for this program and if you are already in the Lounge now, hang in there so you can continue on through all the other programs at the same rate. Same with all the other levels — this program will go up, so get in now if cost is an issue. Scholarships will be available in the future, but it will never be this easy to join.

I’ll be back next week and during today’s office hours with more details and answered questions, but if you’re ready to join this week, head on over to the lounge or on Patreon.

Before You Go

Elsewhere, the extraordinary living museum and artist residency in Greensboro, NC, is now hiring two key managerial/curatorial positions that will lead organizational programs and communications. Both roles are highly collaborative, shaping their respective work through collective visioning and goal setting, project management and coordination, and on-the-ground facilitation.

The Program Manager/Curator will lead curation and operation of the museum experience, the international artist residency, and alternative learning programs. The Communications Manager/Curator will lead the development of social media, newsletters, press releases, print objects, and museum interpretive materials.

Both positions are 30-hour per week roles starting at $18–20/hour. Benefits include 160 hours of paid time off, $1,000 of healthcare/self-care reimbursements and $1,000 of professional development annually, daily participation in Elsewhere’s vegetarian food co-op, and FMLA leave.

Applications are due May 1st at 11:59PM EST. Cover letters can be a barrier to entry. Elsewhere is asking applicants to complete a questionnaire in lieu of a cover letter and submit work samples of any kind along with their resume. Additionally, Elsewhere will host two town halls to introduce current staff, share information, and answer questions. The first town hall is for everyone on 4/13, 6:30–7:30PM EST, (register here) and the second town hall on 4/20, 6:30–7:30PM EST, will be exclusively for BIPOC participants (register here).

Elsewhere is artist-run space, but has a radically expansive definition of artist that can include practitioners from many fields and backgrounds (educators, organizers, etc.). Elsewhere seeks staff who are visionary, curious, self-reflective, assertive, proactive, solution-oriented, and mission-driven.

Elsewhere shares a radically expansive understanding of creative practice and identity. We strive for a diverse representation of voices, life experiences, views, and interests to reflect the collaborative community we have and wish to serve. To decolonize systemic structures of institutional oppression, we encourage queer creatives of color, as well as all other marginalized groups, to apply. Elsewhere is a ‘second chance’ employer and believes that those who are judicially challenged have a place in our community. If there are accessibility needs or questions, please contact museum@goelsewhere.org.

More information and applications: https://www.elsewheremuseum.org/apply

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It’s not too late to get tickets to the Greater Greater Washington Spring Gala, which will be on April 28 from 6–9 pm at Mess Hall, a wonderful indoor/outdoor event venue in DC. Head here to purchase and learn more. COVID-19 full vaccination is required and if the event is canceled, attendees will be able to request a refund.

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If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can become a monthly Patreon supporter, or you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. You can join the advertisers above, learn more and secure one starting at $75/week. You can also help me with my investments through Acorns. If you open up an account before 4/16 using my link, you could help me get $575 in my retirement accounts. I’ve been with Acorns since 2015 and only now am I starting to see the benefits of having this in my investment and growth strategy. If you aren’t already saving for retirement, and especially if you don’t have a company doing this for you, hop on this link!

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Until next time,

Kristen

The solidarity we seek the most in land stewardship is acknowledging head-on when we have been violent in its practice and steering, rather than shaming those who exhibit momentary violence in trying to survive it. Oh, and COVID denial/acceptance is also a form of violence.

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker,  media maven, and fiber artist. This week is another “Current” edition, where I connect current events with the values of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism. Plus, today I am launching a new benefit for Patreon supporters. It will feel familiar, as it’s a reboot with a brand new curriculum of my Black Queer Feminist Urbanist School. Scroll down to the Before You Go section, where I take over the entire section to explain what’s up!

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So since we are digging into current events this week,  let me talk about what I didn’t talk about last week, that I probably could have said something about, since I was talking about how Black men support Black women.

The intention was right, especially considering the history between all parties involved and how traditional notions of honor are enacted in the Black community, specifically the Black American community descended from the enslaved and colonized, therefore holding containers of trauma and violence, hoping they would never be triggered or needed, respectfully.

However, the action taken was incomplete. 

It was a just act for the years of documented verbal mistreatment; lack of empathy for the way our physical bodies don’t always match soul consciousness, but still deserve respect, and a broken promise between what I assume were two one-time friends. 

What made it incomplete was that we need more than just-violence-in-retribution to heal violent systems and violent beliefs that we the marginalized, especially Black, feminine, poor, disabled, trans nonbinary are problems.

If we are going to end violence once and for all, we have to start at its roots. 

For those of us who are involved in land stewardship work in any form or fashion, that will include accepting that many of us do the work we love, on top of stolen and/or colonized land. 

We need to go beyond acceptance and we need to rectify this issue. 

Not just for healing of the human race, but for the surface and atmosphere of the planet Earth.

So we can have fields of plenty, air of life and abundance, with villages of fair trade and gifting of its plenty, and we as people are not driven to massive war and acts of destruction. We are in a peaceful state and that peace and abundance and prosperity is not on top or at the expense of someone else.

We may find that the pop culture, Hollywood-centric catalyst of this particular conversation of violence is irrelevant, but the violence of colonialism and stolen lands is square in our purview and must be eradicated. As well as our responsibility to continue to mitigate the spread and the negative impacts of not just COVID-19, but all of our environmental harms and diseases, and the lack of access to care for said issues.

I shared many of my current thoughts about COVID and how it appears the urbanism and urbanism adjacent professional community is handling it at the moment on my social media posts from last Wednesday:

I’m disturbed that so much of our professional lives in urbanism have returned back to in-person. No hybrid options, no (visible) masks, the expectation that everyone’s had it and everyone can easily get over it because healthcare is so great and “you’re not one of those people”.

The expectation that we all saved or made more money or that all of our jobs, family members, friends, colleagues, bodies came back exactly the same way. That we can afford exactly what we used to afford, including all these conferences, convening, and even going to the office.

But then again, this work is rooted in a delusion of white supremacy, and therefore at the end of the day, the expectation is that we wear our bodies out doing so and we go bankrupt to do it, that imperialism and everything that begets isn’t real or affecting us.

I’m sharing this because I can count on my hands, yes even in Black, feminist queer, and/or trans liberation spaces, those that acknowledge that life has changed and that even if it looks like we are going back to “normal”, it’s not quite the same.

I’m also sharing because I need to know why we think this is ok, especially those of y’all claiming to be doing this work for equity and yes even justice and not just being provocative or concerned on paper or on these platforms.

Folks that actually care — please prove me wrong and please reach out to me so we can fulfill making all of our spaces less classist and ableist. 

Seriously. I want to be wrong about people I love and care about, who like myself have yet to contract COVID, getting it and it continuing to cause problems. I hope that if you had it, you continue to have a swift recovery and the energy to do all the things, because no one ever deserved to get it and our systems failed us. 

I would like to know for sure that my healthcare ecosystem (which is not Les’s) would come through for me, but I can’t guarantee that.

I want to believe that all these hotel ballrooms and event spaces and even schools are implementing the kinds of ventilation that make these rooms as safe as being outdoors when it comes to lowering viral spread.

I want all of our budgets to recover, and I want all those lost family members and friends back, and if they aren’t coming back, for the grief to lessen.

However, I do want to thank everyone who continues to create outdoor dining and social spaces, protective measures, proper facility-based care, and mutual aid and encourages safe indoor gathering, above and beyond mask mandates and testing requirements.

To make my determinations of not being out of the woods yet on a professional level I go by the Johns Hopkins data site, which gives a global view of case numbers, hospitalizations, tests, and vaccinations, on a weekday basis. I also gave a shoutout to several of the people in the disability and healthcare community, many of them Black women and gender-diverse people, in my last post and specifically Dr. Uche Blackstock, who just tweeted again that we still need to be masking indoors and taking other precautions. 

I also want to highlight the work of one of our renowned placemaking colleagues, Dr. Mindy Fullilove, who is a medical doctor in addition to being an activist placemaker. Read more about the People’s CDC that she and a coalition of others have formed that takes to task the (American CDC’s) current and prior handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and provides solutions and ways to get active around this.

We have to get all countries to equity when it comes to vaccines and care. We have to restore funding for the uninsured in this country to get COVID care and precautions.

We are in a better place than we were, but we aren’t ready, nor do we need to return to our old normal.

I might sound like a broken record at this point about this, but I’ll end this part of the newsletter by thanking those of you who spoke up and thanked me for sharing, for acknowledging that some of us haven’t snapped back to “normal” and that we need to be in solidarity with our planners, placemakers, and people who needed a new normal anyway.

Before You Go

In light of the new normal, the real normal, I got clarity this week on how I want to coach and mentor folks individually and collectively in more depth than this newsletter. 

I’ve created a quiz around this new format of coaching and teaching, that will give you some quick answers around engaging with Black Queer Feminist Urbanism and prep you for my upcoming Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Intensive in the month of May. If you’re curious, go ahead and take the quiz and then book some(complimentary) time with me to learn more. If you are an existing Patreon subscriber, you’ll learn more about how your levels will change today and be able to go ahead and pledge support. And if you’re already eligible for the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge, head over there and find all your materials. We will be doing special May check-ins, but some of your curricula is already preloaded and ready for you. Next week and for the following few weeks, I’ll be providing more details on my website and here in the newsletter about this new direction and why and how.

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If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can become a monthly Patreon supporter, or you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Advertisements for this newsletter are still very much open, learn more and secure one starting at $75/week.

Until next time,

Kristen

Black queer feminist urbanist siblings — I see you. Go forth in peace, love, and urbanity.

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This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker,  media maven, and fiber artist. This week I affirm the being of being a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist. As always, I have my Patreon supporters to thank for financial affirmation. Find out more on how you can become one of those supporters or maybe run an ad on this platform, by scrolling to the Before You Go section.

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If you’ve had the gift of having me sign a book of mine ( I promise, that gift will return very soon), I usually sign it With love, peace, and urbanity. In fact, I think I might make that this week’s sign-off and make it the sign-off going forward. 

Because that’s exactly how I want us to go forth. Knowing that the why’s of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism live just inside of us.

Now I may not agree with everything going on in my own government at all times, which is the gift of living in a democracy. But last week, we got to see some of what it means to show up in the world, as a Black feminist, against all odds and trying to break into a system that needs to be remade and refashioned in our image. 

Specifically, the moment between Senator Cory Booker and the Honorable Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson at the very end of her testimony of her confirmation hearings to sit on the US Supreme Court, where she’s brought to tears at his declaration of seeing our birthing parents, especially our Black women birthing parents, in her and simply declaring not only her worth, but that Spirit/Divine Presence (the words I use for God or a Higher Power), is backing her up. 

I’m not sure if they meet all four intersections of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism, besides Black and urbanist, maybe feminist and even though we as queer and/or trans folks are proud, we don’t assume that status from afar, we let folks affirm it. 

However, I want to affirm that they have the spirit of all four in that statement, and I want to walk us through how we can affirm that spirit in ourselves.

This is not an altar call or even a pose on a mat. This is you looking in the mirror and seeing what’s already inside of that Black body that’s often a threat. That claims queerness, feminism, and urbanism even when people tell you that you are betraying your ancestors.

That claims all these things when it’s only you going through them in a physical or virtual room, but that still makes them real and valid.

Never mind our ancestors walked so many places, from rural plantations and off urban seaport docks into their freedom from an unjust institution.

Our elders continued to walk under and over highways that sought to divide them, driving buses, cabs, and even railcars that would have them sit all the way in the back.

We sit anywhere we want to now. We walk in solidarity with those indigenous to the lands to which we were brought, to heal and enhance the communities we’ve come together to make. 

We too wear that ever cooling spandex as we criss-cross the places we’ve made, now made easier for us to navigate on foot or pedal, even as folks try to sprawl us further and further out from the culture that created us and sustains us.

We are worthy of our designs being made. For our labors to be fairly and equitably and justify compensated. For our bodies to be human, no matter what their shape, size, or behavior. To be housed and allowed to move at ease.

But we know that and if you needed a reminder of that, here it is. 

I want to gift something to you this week, my dear sibling. I created a guide called Defining Yourself for Yourself: Finding Your Black Queer Feminist Urbanism, that’s inside a special place I created just for us, the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge. Waiting for you there is a blueprint, to find this worth and gift in yourself, and do so in a supportive community.

You are worthy. You are good enough. Even if it isn’t this space of meditation and community, make sure you take the time daily to affirm and define yourself, for yourself.

I’ve attempted doing my work in affinity groups before, where I build work based on the journey one needs to take from healing from prior power imbalances and marginalizations, realizing that journey looks different based on how you are socialized and/or racialized.

However, in doing this work this way over the last couple of years, during a time when we had fewer options for outside activities and more time for this kind of deep work, I realized that the way it needs to be done, if it even needs to be done and if it’s even a work, brings up necessary questions.

Next week, I’m going to go into more detail about how I see my affinity group model work going forward and how I want to manage this more general and open space of content.

Before You Go

As I said before, advertising or pledging support to Black queer feminist platforms like this one is a perfect way to be an ally, and guess what, this is an ask! You can also advertise Black, queer, and/or feminist venture, run your birthday or anniversary or congratulations message, or something else that’s not job or conference or heavily design/construction/policy industry related. Even though the ads normally come with a $75/week price tag for a month-long commitment, I do have a one-off option for $155 for one week, and if you’re a Black queer feminist venture on a budget, your ad could be free. Reply back to this email if you’re ready to place an ad and learn more about advertising across this platform.

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Speaking of those outside ads, you can tell me in this survey what kind of ads you want to receive and a little more about who you are in a way that I can better write this newsletter for you. Also, you may still receive two versions of this newsletter, on Mailchimp and Substack, depending on how you subscribed and when you subscribed. If you want to unsubscribe from one or both versions, be sure to do so using the unsubscribe link provided in the emails run by the respective services. Or, you can keep deleting or ignoring the version you don’t like, lol. Remember, there will always be a free version of this newsletter, but you can scroll below for links to ways besides advertising to support this newsletter.

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Once again, The Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge is open for fellow Black Queer Feminist Urbanists to walk through this world together. Some of this information will be in these emails, but we will be digging deeper into how to create this space for ourselves and what the whys and definitions should be in the Lounge. Lounge members are eligible for scholarships for my coaching and consulting services and lounge membership is free. Also, I’ve decided to not do an in-person Black Queer Feminist Urbanist summit in 2022, but I will be adding an event calendar for Black, queer, feminist, and/or urbanist events and I’ll be announcing some digital seminar/panel style events for later this year, that you’ll be able to either watch live or listen/watch at your leisure.

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My consulting services will actually be housed at my soon-to-be-revamped personal website for anyone who needs moving, resumes, career, and other help. If you’re ready to book a season, email directly at kristen@theblackurbanist.com and request a strategy service. The first 30-minute clarity session is free, then subsequent sessions starting at $150 for one follow-up session and $75/session for a package of four.

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

In peace, love and urbanity,

Kristen

How to Start Being More Than a Performative Ally for Black Queer Feminist Urbanists

Being an ally of Black Queer Feminist Urbanism is not passive or automatic. It requires standing in the gap between the inequity and filling in the gap towards true liberation and justice.

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen Jeffers, internationally known urban planner, designer, analyst, keynote speaker, media maven, and fiber artist. This week I go into what it takes to be a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist ally. One of the first ways to be an ally is sponsorship for this newsletter either through Patreon or through our main advertising system. Scroll down to the Before You Go section to learn more about how you can become a sponsor/advertiser.

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Do the reading, and let it sink in.

Speak up, not just when something is wrong, but when something is going right.

If you run a business or organization: audit yourself to see if your compensation packages, workloads, strategic partners, and values/mission are conducive to a diverse and inclusive workplace.

The statements above are what usually come with instructions on how to be an ally to marginalized people, along with don’t be ___________(fill in the ism/ist here).

However, I’m a believer that one doesn’t become an ally as much as they are invited to be an ally. Why?

Because a lot of the time you could spend being an ally, you could be dismantling and rebuilding the system that you’re serving as an ally for the marginalized person to survive in the first place. If you stop short of doing this system replacement, then this is how your allyship gets labeled as performative. Yes, even if some of us pat you on the back and say we liked your mural or we are thankful for your small donation.

I believe that Black queer feminist urbanists, who are often Black women or gender-expansive people, who often are under and unpaid, many who don’t have adequate access to housing, transportation or healthcare, deserve more than survival. We deserve ease as we process and overcome these marginalizations and injustice. We deserve thrivance when we do decide to be active.

And of course, we deserve to not be broke, homeless, sick or left on the side of the road — especially since many of these issues are preventable.

Allyship that goes beyond performance, prevents, heals, and builds the structures that make us thrive.

Yet, when we go beyond being Black and add queer, feminist, and urbanist on top, we often find ourselves needing allies from within our racial communities.

We need folks that understand that everyone’s dream is not 2.5 children (seriously, a half child?), a picket fence and mini-mansion and to work dehumanizing jobs for still too small and unfair salaries to just barely afford and maintain it all.

That someone’s dream is a nice condo or rowhouse, with a working bus stop, to a humanizing occupation and fulfilling cultural opportunities, with just enough space to paint by the window or have neighborhood folks build a community garden.

A dream that is stewarded by community leaders that believe in collective abundance and liberation, not just bounty for oneself in the name of Black Power.

Or to travel around and be free from the intense grind of an American Dream that never really included all of us anyway, to make a real choice about where on Earth they would like to reside.

We also need folks that understand that gender has always been expandable and flexible, even at a young age.

And if that gender leans feminine in any shape or form, it’s not weaker or a sign that they have no real value in culture besides subjugation. No one deserves abuse and we all can heal from ways we abuse others and ourselves.

For those of us who have managed to break the shackles of unequal compensation, let’s invest not in companies that might not be companies tomorrow, but in communities that deserve to maintain at least a notion of legacy.

And finally, just because someone’s body doesn’t live up to our society’s standards that demand its constant grinding or that it even function or look a certain way, we don’t cast them aside in the name of a progress that doesn’t really include us either, when we get to the very top.

Ultimately, we all can function better in a world that lives under the why’s of Black queer feminist urbanism I shared a few letters ago, and upholding and enabling those whys as someone who only shares some or shares none of these intersections, is what makes one an ally.

Next week, unless you’re already in the lounge with us as a Black queer feminist urbanist, I’m going to help you affirm yourself as one and to recognize when someone is being a true ally and not just performing allyship.

Before You Go

As I said before, advertising or pledging support to Black queer femnist platforms like this one is a perfect way to be an ally and guess what, this is a transformative work! You can also advertise Black, queer, and/or feminist venture, run your birthday or anniversary or congratulations message, or something else that’s not job or conference or heavily design/construction/policy industry related. Even though the ads normally come with a $75/week price tag for a month-long commitment, I do have a one-off option for $155 for one week, and if you’re a Black queer feminist venture on a budget, your ad could be free. Reply back to this email if you’re ready to place an ad and learn more about advertising across this platform.

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Speaking of those outside ads, you can tell me in this survey what kind of ads you want to receive and a little more about who you are in a way that I can better write this newsletter for you. Also, you may still receive two versions of this newsletter, on Mailchimp and Substack, depending on how you subscribed and when you subscribed. If you want to unsubscribe from one or both versions, be sure to do so using the unsubscribe link provided in the emails run by the respective services. Or, you can keep deleting or ignoring the version you don’t like, lol. Remember, there will always be a free version of this newsletter, but you can scroll below for links to ways besides advertising to support this newsletter.

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The Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Lounge is open for fellow Black Queer Feminist Urbanists to walk through this world together. What you’ll see in these next few emails is how our allies should show up and work to create this space for us, but we will be digging deeper into how to create this space for ourselves and what the whys and definitions should be in the Lounge. Lounge members are eligible for scholarships for my coaching and consulting services and lounge membership is free. Also, I’ve decided to not do an in-person Black Queer Feminist Urbanist summit in 2022, but I will be adding an event calendar for Black, queer, feminist, and/or urbanist events and I’ll be announcing some digital seminar/panel style events for later this year, that you’ll be able to either watch live or listen/watch at your leisure.

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My consulting services will actually be housed at my soon-to-be-revamped personal website for anyone who needs moving, resumes, career, and other help. If you’re ready to book a season, email directly at kristen@theblackurbanist.com and request a strategy service. The first 30-minute clarity session is free, then subsequent sessions starting at $150 for one follow-up session and $75/session for a package of four.

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

Until next time,

Kristen