This is The Black Urbanist Monthly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this monthly digital newsletter to share my Black, Spiritual, Diasporic North Carolinian, Working/Lower Middle-Class, Educated, Queer, CisFemme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my monthly column, the one that flaps open as you start browsing that coffee table magazine or printed alt-weekly newspaper or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox. This is a special edition!
Hello everyone! I wanted to drop back onto the site in the middle of the month, because this is a very special month.
I am a proud Black Queer Feminist Urbanist non-binary femme person. And I’m dedicating my work and platforms to asking if the spaces I like to inhabit are safe, affirming and secure for me and those like me.
This month in the United States, as we reflect on Black people’s past present and future, I want to take this opportunity to ask you, all of you, to reflect on a series of questions I first presented last year, strictly to other Black womxn-identified people who reside in what is known as the United States, to comment on both whether or not things I love are available ,if they’ve experienced certain land-use and development challenges, and if they are thriving in spite of all the things that challenge us.
The pandemic paused our first survey, but now I’m reopening the survey to everyone, so I can build a body of data to measure how Black Queer Feminist folx can thrive in spaces in general and as urbanists!
This data will be available for all who need it so we can have better measures around how urbanist theory and practices intersect with Black Queer Feminism.
The survey is also shorter this year and can be anonymous or you can choose to tell me who you are and contribute more ideas in a future survey.
And yes, there will be a reward! One lucky person will receive a $25 digital gift card! I’ll announce the winner in my regular newsletter at the end of the month.
Several of you did last year’s pre-pandemic survey and I’m grateful. Others of you have done this year’s survey and shared it far and wide, and I’m also grateful for you too.
I’m finding out some very interesting things with these surveys and in my usual end/beginning of the month newsletter for February/March, I’ll share a few of those findings, plus, an invite to a special conversation that you won’t want to miss and for those of you enrolled in the school pilot/online circles, two new lessons centered on Black women’s political power, will also drop on February 28th.
In the meantime,
I’ll be back in your inbox on February 28th with some findings and more announcements.
See you soon,