This is The Black Urbanist Weekly with Kristen Jeffers, an email newsletter that highlights the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist thoughts and commentary of me, Kristen E. Jeffers, an internationally-known urban planner, fiber designer, and contributing editor. Think of this as an editorial page column, but directly in your email.
If you’re new here, we normally have six sections: Story of the Week; The Principle Corner; By the Way; On the Shelf, On the Playlist, and Before You Go. You can read all archives right here, on my homepage in our normal format. We also normally drop on Fridays. However, because I was on location at CNU for the first time since 2018 and in North Carolina period for the first time since 2019, I am a little delayed in getting this out, and you may get another email on Friday. Today, I’m going to focus on my initial thoughts, and probably Monday of next week, since we are delayed this week, I’ll break down how I feel about conferences like this considering my personal limitations, and then hopefully that following Friday, I’ll have a breakdown and full audio of my CNU31 panel on media and urbanism.
Story of the Week: The Drive Down
I kept telling Les to get her camera ready as we drove down Wednesday afternoon because I didn’t want to miss a single bit of this moment.
Mile 28
Mile 14
Mile 12
Mile 10
Mile 3
Mile 2
Mile .5
And here we were, the North Carolina border. I stopped at the rest area and recorded this message.
And then after about 3.5 more hours, meandering through my old neighborhood in Greensboro briefly, and surviving a gas stop in a county I don’t like to be in after dark, we met Charlotte and its shockingly bright Pride lights on its skyline.
Ok, this trip might not be so bad after all.
The Principle Corner
In this section, we step away from the literary expression that opens this newsletter and into the “practical”.
So to get started, those of you reading along from home are probably wondering how I’m even making this happen and as of this writing, I’m still negative and I managed to do the entire thing masked, save very brief sips of water.
Charlotte’s got some nice patio areas and I took lots of advantage of them. Also, I can see how masking is failing here, it’s super hot and humid and even in the before times, air quality hasn’t been the greatest. But I still pressed on, especially learning as I got home to DC that air quality is going into the orange and even red levels again around here.
I also loved seeing the Lynx in full effect. Yes, headways are an issue, especially without a timetable on the trains on both lines, but to see some effort at making fixed-route transit was great. Same with the Pride lights on the skyline.
However I am still concerned with affordability and seeing the teardown effect again, similar to what I saw the last time I was in Southeast Raleigh
But, now that I’ve done it one more time, especially this particular conference, in the state where not only was I born, but my work was born, if I never do this size of an event again, then I’m good.
I did a lot of short audio diaries to help me keep up with what happened and I how I felt during the weekend because I didn’t want to lose sight of this moment and I wanted to have not just images, but the sound of my voice for this trip. The video above is one that I put on video.
I took audio of the entire panel event on media which was my primary reasoning for returning, in addition to being part of something I’ve been dreaming of for my 11 years of CNU involvement and 13 years of doing urbanism on the internet — being part of a major urbanism event in my home state. Plus, being asked to talk about being an urbanist on the internet as an expert on the media was such a joy. Thanks again Payton for thinking of me, much as I thought of you on my very first panel in 2011.
After this weekend, I’m bunkering, but continuing to mask as much as possible.
Everyone I’ve talked to who’s been balancing outside work with needing to protect their health has said that lots of sleep, rest, and relaxation are how we beat it individually (in addition to all the other mitigations), and I’m going to double up on all of that while continuing to demand better mitigations. As of this writing, I’m still testing negative, but I ate too much fried food and drank too much sweet tea. Next time, I will be tapping into the modern NC palette and trying to keep my stomach from being an explosion.
Imagine though, how much more impactful this would have been if everyone was masked, tested and the air was cleaned with HEPA filters and UV lights. Imagine if we had all of the conference outside, not just our parties. It just proves yet again, that as much as CNU wants to lead, they aren’t really leading in some key areas.
However, Charlotte and the greater NC urbanism community, and the Black, Indigenous, and other folks of color — -y’all showed out and I’m proud of you. We can do better, but we are doing so much better than far too many others who think they are doing well.
To walk into those rooms and log onto the app and walk down the street and see Black folks, and other folks of color on panels, creating identity spaces, with their offices just attending the conference and of course on CNU staff, it makes a huge difference.
As I said in the intro, I will be spending my Pride month breaking down this visit and also what I think the future is of urbanist media ( my panel focus) and Southern urbanism, especially considering the very real safety threats being experienced by Black folks of all genders and gender-nonconforming and trans folks of all kinds.
But in the meantime, it was so good to see all of you, I hate that I had to make such a quick trip, but I’m so proud to be able to not just be in a supporting coupling, but support her urbanism and queer/trans peer advocacy as well.
By the Way
Here’s where 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.
So, happy Pride y’all! One of my first pleasant surprises in Charlotte last week was the skyline. Then again, I shouldn’t have been shocked, because it was Charlotte’s non-discrimination clause that prompted the horrible chapter in our state of the bathroom bill.
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I’m so thrilled to serve on the board of CultureHouse, a Boston- based placemaking nonprofit. So far I’ve been aiding in our equity and inclusion plans, but its chief radness officer Aaron Griener has also been a strategic adviser on the next phase of the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Summit, and I was very pleased to see that he included a quote of me in his recent article on the APA website on Queer Urbanism, from the GGWash article Wyatt Gordon did on the same topic back in 2020. Everything I said is still true and in this Pride and Juneteenth season, we got work to do.
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But, for those of you who are ready to take concrete action within our sector, in addition to contracting with me for your report and project branding design, workshop facilitation, Yes Segura’s business Smash the Box and Christine Edwards’s Civility Localized are also great options to support a trans person of color and another Black North Carolinian woman doing this work. Book all of us, once, twice, and on our terms, and support our young Black, queer, and trans folks coming up on staff and in school into building up and maintaining where we live.
On the Shelf, On the Playlist
My weekly recommendations of books, music, podcasts, and other pop culture
So the Emily King concert was amazing. She probably won’t read this and I probably should have told her when I got a chance to shake her hand and shout her out for holding down our birth year on the music front, but its truly been a joy to witness your climb and watch us grow over these past 16 years. You’ve truly written the right song at the right moment for me over the years and Special Occasion continues to hit.
I also want to lift up Southern Urbanism Quarterly. It’s yet another platform of journalism coming out of the South, showing us to be more than helpless and prejudiced.
Before You Go
This is our last section, where I have classified advertisements for others along with nudges to donate to crowdfunding and social justice campaigns but I also advertise things that I’m doing that are for sale or for hire. Rates start at $75 a week for a four-week commitment and $150 for just one week. Learn more and get started with your ad!
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Mutual aid is a big part of this newsletter.
For those of you who can and I know it’s tough out here for a lot of us, like our colleague who could still use our support with her partner’s chronic health challenges and of course, Les’s as she continues her recovery from her endometriosis surgery, but an extra $20-$50 in these accounts is takeout money, gas/transit money, a doctor’s appointment, whatever they want, which is more than they had before.
I’m adding a link for Project N95 to help folks who still want to use personal protective equipment, but are running into financial hardship now that things like tests and high-quality masks are full price and major institutions have decided to move on. I’m also adding a link for the Entertainment Community Fund and for those in WGA to have relief while they take necessary action to get the funding they deserve for being one of the few industries that can’t be erased (at least for now).
And yes, my yarn-related fundraisers are still going strong, as they too see the value in community uplift and mutual aid. We are directly supporting LolaBean Yarn Co. and Dye Hard Yarns in addition to the spring fundraiser of Knit the Rainbow, a group that works to ensure that knitwear is donated to LGBTQIA+ youth, and raises awareness of queer/trans folks in the yarn and fiber space, is still ongoing.
This is how we as planners and makers can practice solidarity and uplift community groups. If not these campaigns, please find some that are closest to you. I also assume that you do have the financial means to do so as planners, but I know things can be tough for us. But solidarity is free and that starts with speaking up and sharing when you can.
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If you want me to show up on your panel, keynote, or podcast, book a complimentary consultation call. I still have open availability for 2023 and 2024.
If you want to send me money for quick expenses or like a tip jar, you can Venmo me or buy me a Ko-fi. If you become aPatreon, you can do that on a set monthly basis, along with a special thank you note each week! The GoFundMe is still alive if you want to make large donations quickly and you can subscribe on Substack but know that nothing in this newsletter is going behind a paywall, this is considered a love offering. I will be making some Patreon changes and adding a true incentive to Substack.
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I have created a special landing page, www.theblackurbanist.com/books, that’s not only a home for my upcoming volume, A Black Urbanist Journey to a Queer Feminist Future, but all those books in the Black Queer Feminist Urbanist canon. Use this link to purchase from my Bookshop, especially if it’s coming up as an error for you. I’m still trying to figure out why that is and how I can fix it in the future.
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And if you need one more reminder to support my textile and fiber work, head over to www.kristpattern.com.
Until next time,
Kristen