Hey y’all.

I haven’t felt jolly for months, years even, and all of my wishes for you this year, have been very profane and anguish-ridden. I wanted to spare y’all those, but I did let loose in a semi-private online forum. Also, my apologies for ghosting y’all here. Technical difficulties have also been the death of me this year, but there’s really more going on than that that I’m at peace with sharing here now. Oh and that opening image is one win, my crochet class for DC’s Heurich House Museum’s Maker’s Month in November!

But  I’ve felt ashamed that it seems like I’ve failed at Defying Gentrification. And I’ve failed at being able to free myself from having to wake up and go to work for someone else anyway and scrape to pay the bills.

I’ve especially felt heavy because I feel like I could have learned all of this never leaving Greensboro and still had some extra time with several relatives who have since passed on, namely my Dad. With Biscuitville and Harbor Inn in my belly, maybe even in the mountains or on the beach, natural disasters notwithstanding.

But, do I know that for sure?

At the end of the day, I take pride in knowing that I have the strength and courage to write and cultivate a platform, that says what needs to be said, even when it’s not pretty or cute.

But what I haven’t loved is that sense of loneliness I get because not enough people are reading these words in real-time and several of the ones that are, are either not in a position to help me through this particular challenge or they are actively shaming me for not fixing it in the way that they (you?) think is best.

Some of y’all might think the internet, blogs, and social media are just toys that try to mess with your head and sell you things. However, this has never been the case for me.

If I’m following you, I want to be there and I want to know more about you. I comment because I see that you’re a real person. And I share these things because I think someone can benefit from them. I also curate my feeds so I get something from them. Hence, how I managed to start crocheting and dabbling in so many other fiber arts, because I saw something I liked on the internet and cultivated it.

Plus, to those who think the media and newsletters and really well-curated YouTube and social media pages are a joke and not worth paying for, I have something to tell you.

I can pinpoint a YouTube channel, a newsletter, and not just one or two but three popular podcasts that folks happily pay for or donate to, even if they don’t necessarily like the output all the time. You might say you feel comfortable paying for them because they are consistent. I’m even a new Patreon of one, because I enjoy learning how to YouTube from them.

Well, I’m here to say that consistency is easy when you’re of the majority, preferred culture in urbanism. All of these folks, even when they have scrambled, have never had to deal with being Black. Maybe queer, chronically ill, or broke, but not Black in America with banks and landlords not caring that I’ve sat with some of you on stages across the US and Canada because that currency is just not enough.

How I hurt when I see Black folks in tents bulldozed over. Standing at the bus stop shivering in the dark because it only comes once an hour. Happy when someone gets a car because at least they can control and own that outright. My Honda Fit will be paid off in 2025. I still can’t get a mortgage because I can’t keep a job or contract long enough to pay bills on time and keep my credit score up.

I get why you don’t want to learn anything from me or pay me for this free information. Or you want me to battle through cumbersome grant and employment applications. Do all the reporting on the public engagement side of the project, but only the public engagement side, and expect to never get paid on time, or even better, cancel the project when it gets too hard to administer or too close to “woke” to fulfill.

A few of you even told me that you feel like my radicalism is what’s making me unhirable and broke. That I should be concerned about my behavior and shouldn’t be upset that others are upset and disgusted by it. But yet some of y’all buy concert tickets and partake in gallery crawls with artists that have similar, if not more radical politics.

Why should I wake up daily, as I did for two years thinking it was buying my support and honor in the DC urbanism community, and look at all these jacked-up ideas for what should make our cities and regions better, and then turn around and be more productive and put on a happy face despite some of those ideas leaving me ass out.

Oh and since I am part of the marginalized communities on the chopping block under this new US regime, obeying in advance doesn’t matter, it just makes me more complicit on the way to my punishment chamber.

I have gotten coaching. I know my NAICS codes. I have capability documents coming. I’m finishing up a new podcast episode that will debut in January and I’m doing better with my meditation and my self-care habits.

But again, how many Black women and other marginalized genders(MaGes) do you know for real? How many of my white and non-Black POC readers in the space can say that they’ve never caused workplace or community trauma, despite being well-meaning. How many of you are Glindas, even by accident?

And for those of y’all Black MaGes reading, I’m sorry I forgot to drop the trigger warning. Don’t let my backlog of posts fool you, I know what’s really up. And I know we aren’t going to survive being cooked, despite our assimilation and our status quo attempts.

I know I may never work in this industry in any capacity again because I’m being myself and I’m telling the truth about this, in an uncomfortable, but slightly less profane way, but I wanted to get out alive and the rate I was going holding all of this in (and yes, watching Les suffer through her own version of it), was going to kill us both.

I feel better now that you know where I stand. I will miss all the things I loved about having favor in this space. But, I will not stop telling the truth or releasing my grievances on my own volition.

If you don’t like it here, head back up to that paragraph with some of the other more popular independent urbanist media outlets and support them.

Or, reach out and understand how you can really support me and Les to keep going. Upgrade to paid, so instead of abetting free labor, so you can be not just equitable, but just and liberatory towards me.

Not just my work, but me.

Meanwhile, I am going to start playing with this platform a little bit. If I only have a little more time left on this Earth, let me start using it with joy and intention. I’ll see y’all in January with some of that fun!

Until next time,

Kristen