For the first time, I spent the night this past weekend in the Richmond metro region.

Richmond’s skyline has always been that beacon of hope after a long journey through the pine-lined parts of I-85 in Northeastern North Carolina and Southeastern Virginia, en route to Washington, DC.

I needed not just to see that beacon of hope, but to be around that beacon of hope and to root myself with the idea that I can do more than just write these newsletters and crochet my dresses, post them on the internet, and hope that I’m actually making friends.

In my last email, I mentioned that I was going shopping for a community.

Why again?

Because even if we lift a Black woman with Jamaican and Tamil roots to the highest office in this so-called country, we still need to address that our land is unceeded, contested, and full of racist, Zionist, imperialist, ableist skeletons and living spirits connected to our downfall.

Around me, in the DC Metro, many of you love to tell us you’re so excited about what we are doing and then you assume our greater urbanist project is impossible in the way I’ve been speaking about it. 

It’s impossible without building more and setting aside less for those who will never be able to participate in a housing market or who may be going to federal prison just because they laid their heads down on a piece of Earth that is still Earth, despite our insistence that that we put borders real and imagined on it.

It’s impossible to have open public transit, paid for by Congressional and state appropriations, without fare gates. Maybe if we addressed that first paragraph, that whole fear of the trains and buses becoming bedrooms and bathrooms wouldn’t happen at all.

It’s impossible to do community-building work, unless you have the right words and look and politic. Or you are willing to run yourself in the ground doing three jobs and five projects and only one, maybe two pay.

Once again, if we addressed our root cause, this wouldn’t be the issue.

So, before 1:45 pm on Sunday, July 21, 2024, I had already decided that Richmond would go on my list of cities that could be a new community and a new home.

It’s not perfect, I’m not thrilled that they are so pressed about people not paying rent in the housing that was created for the people who can afford housing as a market.

And I’m very hurt that my hometown of Greensboro’s city council is considering pulling needed funding from a now 24/7 community center just for those folks who are without house, but who are ready to make home somewhere, just because the plans aren’t perfect and neither are the people. But that’s the point, they’re in need! They aren’t going to be perfect!

But, I know that in this world, even if my president is Black, again, and we share identity markers, the pressure to adhere to what this so-called country and even the globe in its insistence on having nation-states instead of mass mutual aid and local governance networks, requires of its leaders, will make me have to stand up and call for her and her administration to do more.

But not only is she speaking, I’ve been told by many in our Black dignity movement that she is listening. So keep telling her that a lot of her old policies were wrong. Keep telling her we will continue have her back if she seeks to become a liberator rather than remain a cop and warmonger. 

Remember this so-called country runs on our vibes and dreams. That voting isn’t just on one day at a ballot box, but we have tools like the ones in our hands to tell everyone how we really feel, then we can vote with our resources and our bodies in all kinds of ways toward a liberated future.

No more Electoral College. No more gerrymandering. And of course, actually building up young leadership and caucusing. 

And if our Black lady president stops listening, so many of us Black ladies and those who exist beyond those colonial boundaries of gender, will make a way out of no way and we will still rise!

I too am courageous enough to practice my political act of self-care. 

I put on my masks, because they work and we don’t have time for extra on our bodies, because we need to set up the world for the imperfect bodies we do have.

I dare to do what the name of this newsletter states and defy gentrification and craft liberation.

My dream is to have a central community space to make things in whatever place I land in, and it will not die down. It’s becoming a calling.

I need to get rid of these bills, to build cash flow and to root and grow my relationships with the right people.

I hope that’s you. If not, in this moment where Black gender marginalized people are rising up, reclaiming their time, taking back their power, and doing what they can to put one of their own at the top of this raggedy empire, many with the hope that it will stop being an empire and be an Earth again…

I hope you’ll stand up with us and grab your tool. Even if it’s just your fervent belief that we can dream and have a better world.

Meanwhile, I sprained my foot in the gym this morning. And yes, it’s the same ER, same bay, but I’m grateful that I can take the steps I need.

And yes, it’s quite the Parable times and yes, my journal is up and running too. Get those journals going and I’ll have more details on what our self-study will look like soon.

Until next time,

Kristen