Welcome back to The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m currently producing this weekly digital newsletter on my site, via email and various other places, to share my thoughts, my Black, Spiritual, Southern, Working-Class, Educated, Queer, Femme thoughts on how places and communities work. Think of this as my weekly column, sitting on your proverbial print paper’s editorial page or as so many other of your favorite newsletters do, in your inbox.
This week’s edition is #16 and we are in 2020. It’s a new year and in the popular press and online, we’ve already decided this is a new decade. I say this because I also realize we didn’t have a year zero, so technically, we are still in the last decade.
Lately, I’ve had a sense of urgency around this work. It’s prompted me to think a lot about time. So much so, I’ve decided to do another email series for the month of January around time. Get ready for the following four weekly emails/messages this month:
— And That’s What Time It Is Part 1: To Produce More Media, Not Less (you’re reading this one)
–And That’s What Time It Is Part 2: To Create Inclusive Spaces and Walk Away from Those That Aren’t
–And That’s What Time It Is Part 3: A Time for My Home State To Make Sense of the Future
–And That’s What Time It Is Part 4: A Time For Everywhere I’ve Lived to Make Sense
The phrase “And That’s What Time It Is” is one of my dad’s sayings. He started to use it back around 1998 and 1999, in my pre-teen, middle school years, when we were staring the new millennium dawn in the face, he became fond of saying “And that’s what time it is”.
It wasn’t always a note to the new millennium, but he would discuss a news item or an entrepreneurial idea and then he would end the sentence about that item or idea with that statement.
Or, he would co-sign something I was doing with that statement. Ten years ago at this moment, I would still have been able to call him up, and have 100% of his muscle and his brain, to help me do whatever I needed to do. Now the part that I do here on the computer would have stumped him, but not everything else. Of course, I’m going into the 7th year of not having him at all and the tenth year of him not being at 100%.
But I do have support. My lovely partner. Other family members and friends from all over the world. My Patreon supporters. And yes, you, for reading.
But this week it’s time to do more, especially on the creation of media front. Keep reading to learn what that more is:
What Time It Is— A Time To Make More Media, Not Less
When I started drafting this email as we prepared to welcome 2020, I thought I would share a nice casual, semi-motivational reflection on how we should consider that time isn’t equal for everyone.
That those of us who were on vacation last week should remember that so many others weren’t on vacation. That was me in both cases, I’ve taken on some temporary work and that often means you work the holidays when no one else does, even at an office. This was yet another food heavy holiday, so I was also delivering a few grocery loads. But, my office closed the first three days of the past few weeks, so I had a little time to myself to reflect.
However, plenty of folks out here didn’t even have that this holiday season. They worked because someone needs to be at the grocery store so we can enjoy all our favorite holiday dishes (I delivered my fair share of evaporated milk this holiday season). Hardly any metro area is 100% walkable or bikeable without great effort, so someone had to drive our buses, trains and rideshare vehicles. Here in DC, even before the news of the military escalation in Iran, so many of our buildings have security guards 24/7 and so do many of our entertainment venues. And of course that’s just the people working, far too many folks can’t get any employment or have sad memories around the holidays, no matter what set they used to celebrate and they just moved on because it’s another day.
I straddled a lot of these experiences this year and it had me thinking about how I want to go into 2020. Two weeks ago it was about wishes, but now it’s the new year and it’s time for action.
Something else that Kwanzaa as a practice encourages is bringing back the wisdom of and honoring in some way our ancestors. My father was not an ancestor when I started this platform, but he is now and he was already one of my motivations for bridging the gap between those who make sense of city life and who try to plan city life.
So in the spirit of setting intentions, of honoring my ancestors dreams, of wanting to go into the future, not in fear, but in force, I’m putting the following goals out to achieve platform-wise by the end of 2020:
— To derive 100% of my basic, sustaining income from ventures I or Les or a collective that we’ve created with other BIPOC and queer folks, lead. If I want a little extra money I can turn on the apps, or take a temp gig, but it won’t get in the way of doing the main work, which is building these platforms.
—A daily version of this newsletter, which will still have this general format, but I’ll be scanning the news of the day and applying the lens of my intersections and identities to it. Kind of Iike I do in the On My Mind section, but bigger and better.
—This weekly recap, for those of you who don’t want as much in your inbox, but still want to stay in the loop.
—Commissioning (paying and editing and posting) articles from people like myself, with similar perspectives on urbanism and planning. WE are are needed and I’ll go into more detail why next week, but just know, we learn nothing and we will not survive if we listen to the same voices doing the same things and keeping us locked away. Technology may be changing, but people are still people and I want to be in the middle of that, going hard on the people side.
—Producing a job board and a main website that’s completely searchable and workable and can tell you exactly when something is, what it needs AND, if you want to post and manage opportunities, it has similar functionality to some of the other sites. And yes, I will be adding a paywall, but only for those who want to post opportunities and I will work with organizational budgets of any size.
—My book to launch far and wide, with me as publisher, but partnerships to ensure that both in written and audio form, you can hear from me and be encouraged.
—To be able to podcast consistently again and have it be everywhere it needs to be. Currently, it’s only hosted on Patreon, because it’s too expensive to host everywhere AND keep sending this email AND keep the websites running.
—And yes, for those of us who have one or more of those identities I list every week at the top of the page— I want to be able to encourage you and uplift your work, not to always have to explain it, but to be a place where you can be it and then collect that collective community knowledge.
What’s stopping me from doing all this and more right now? Again, time and money.
This is why you will hear me push not just Patreon support, but general sponsorship this calendar year. If you’re in the place where you can provide sponsorship and financial support and you’re ready to be fully open and affirming of all my (and others similar) identities in your conference, school, organization and community, let’s talk.
If you are one of those identities and want to put your money somewhere that supports those identities in the spirit of our own internal diversity and inclusion, there’s a Patreon level just for you and I do take Venmo (@Kristen-Jeffers-3) and Cash App ($kjeffers2).
And so, I want to end this part of the newsletter, the first of 2020, with saying this decade and beyond will not be a small decade for me and this platform. It is no longer a little site I do on the side. It is the main course, the meal, the resource, the independent one, that can help us make sense of what we’ve endured and that will help us claim our worth.
I’ll be back next week with more on what time it is in our spaces and addressing how I want this year to be different in how I interact in our formal planning practice spaces.
Other Things on my Mind
Les and I splurged on Showtime so that we could join the queer women’s moment of consuming The L Word:Generation Q AND Work in Progress. You will find plenty of press around Generation Q and how it’s become a little more inclusive and how the neighborhoods of Silver Lake and Echo Park are portrayed in the show. But Work in Progress brings a huge shot of reality in to what queer life is like when you’re still not loved and feted in this very queer-friendly world. Episode 4 goes deep into the bathroom issue among gender non-conforming and trans folks and it’s good to know that Illinois is taking steps in real life to remedy some of these issues. Oh and a bonus that there’s a trailer and release date for Lena Waithe’s Twenties.
Ava DuVernay’s last decade is a huge inspiration, as I’ll be overlapping some of these years in my life (35-45) in this coming decade. And Nikole Hannah-Jones’s entire feed speaks to the realities of what it’s been like to produce the journalistic side of media work as a black woman. (Also, so many others like Tarana Burke have quote tweeted Ava and you need to read their own stories of triumph and being ready).
If you need a more traditional, “this is what cities need to think about for the decade” list— I co-sign on this one from Curbed, with every issue covered needing to be layered with equity and identity considerations.
Before You Go
—Check out the job board. I’ve added a couple of job-seeker and job-poster friendly Patreon levels, and that survey’s coming very soon.
—Check out Kristpattern on Instagram and DM me if you’re interested in anything for sale over there. It’s not too late to get one of the cards from the Les’s Lighthouse collection and their great for helping you or a friend turn your wishes into reality in 2020.
— If you’re excited about my next phase and how my perspective can help motivate your group of any size Book me for a lecture, workshop or both.
—Les, my wonderful life partner and sales director, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. In fact, you can join her in her Facebook group and her email list where she’s doing a 30 Day Manifestation and Wisdom Challenge to help us get ready to do well in 2020.
—Don’t forget to check out my mentee’s Rashida Green’s podcast which also discusses environmental issues from a black woman’s perspective. Until I can get my feed back up and running, You can listen to me talk about some of North Carolina’s more notorious environmental issues and the political culture on her latest episode.
—Even if you aren’t in the job or opportunity market or have jobs and opportunities to post, I’ve refreshed all my Patreonlevels. $1 a month allows you to never miss a newsletter and get special book-related bonuses. $5 allows you to ask me one question a month that I will research and answer in-depth and make part of a permanent Q&A, $10 gives you first dibs when the podcast relaunches and when we start doing live events again.$20 grants you digital copies of all my future books, including the one I just teased. $50 gets you something free out of the Kristpattern store. Learn more and upgrade!
—And finally, one last time— you (or your conference, academic program, design firm, event, etc.) can sponsor this newsletter, the site and future podcast episodes. Reply to this email (or DM me on Twitter, Patreon, IG) with your advertising budget and we can send you some customized options. Thanks again for being wiling to support the platform in 2020 and beyond.
Thanks for reading! You can get these messages in your email, support the platform financially on Patreon and get special bonuses; follow the platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and Instagramand if you missed some of the previous weeklies, check out the archives.