Weekly Newsletter

The Black Urbanist Weekly #32 — Who’s Really Going Outside, Safely?

This is The Black Urbanist Weekly. I’m Kristen Jeffers and I’m making this weekly 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 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 is edition #32 and I want to welcome all the new people who have come onto the list over the past few weeks and I want to thank those who have been here on the list with me since 2013 and those who I’ve picked up along the way. Thank you all for wanting to join me on this (mostly) weekly journey. This edition took me a little longer to make coherent, but here we are and here we go!


It’s too soon for us all to go outside. En masse, in clusters of less than six feet.

Even to work. Even to get some fresh air.

I’m not backing down from my belief that we should have isolated this disease.

And when we didn’t isolate this disease, we should have paid for everyone and I mean everyone besides folks who are essential on a regular day, not your nanny or someone else who you think your family absolutely needs, to not go to work and also to get preventative healthcare.

Food and objects should be able to be delivered to homes and the people who provide that service should be paid fair and protected.

Folks treating patients, and that’s all kinds of patients, not just ones with Covid-19, should have everything they need to do that.

If students need some support to one, log on to their computers and two, get the knowledge they need at the point they need, that should be there on demand.

But unfortunately, we all know that was not the case. But should it be a surprise, considering we have diseases in this country we over treat or don’t treat at all, in some of the same communities?
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Many of us are aware that New Zealand used it’s government power to make sure the disease was isolated and now they are back to what we knew as normal. And they never had to mask up. They are now looking at how a green new deal and shorter work weeks can be sustainable.

Some of you may be aware of how Hong Kong enacted mutual aid to keep their caseloads down, despite lack of government intervention.

Yet sadly, some Kenyans were beat into submission of social distancing and quarantine.

The United States is all of these countries at once, depending on what local and state jurisdiction of the United States you live in. On top of having folks who died that didn’t need to because of the government response.
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I have to be honest, I have been outside twice this week. First on Tuesday (May 19, 2020, because if you’re reading this, you’ve probably been privileged to sit at home or sit still long enough to forget what day it is), I went outside to pick up something that wasn’t food for the first time since I started self-isolating on March 10th.

I went to Ulta’s curbside pickup line to pick up hair products that I plan to stretch for the remainder of the calendar year. They came recommended from my favorite online hair salon of black women who were already helping those of us with kinks and coils navigate doing our own hair without the full time help of a salon.

There were two women working at the store, a Black woman and a woman in hijab who appeared to be of Arab decent. Both women of color. Both appeared to be under 40. In Northern Virginia, which was my closest option for curbside pickup. Employees of similar ages and backgrounds were working at the Wendys drive-thru and the 7-Eleven we stopped past.

The masks we ordered just came in the mail in the same hour I posted this newsletter, so I’ve been tying one of my favorite summer scarves around my mouth with a paper towel in between. I spray down the fabric every day with a homemade Febreze style mix and keep it in the bathroom so the shower steam can collect in it.

Yet, besides myself, Les, the women at the Ulta and the folks in the Wendys and behind the 7-Eleven counter, there were no masks or face coverings to be found.

Meanwhile, when went to to our regular Wegmans pickup in Central Prince George’s County, near FedEx field on Thursday May 21st, there’s not a bare face to be found.

I try when I can to tip extra to the Instacart shopper, because I know what it’s like on a regular Saturday, pre-COVID, to service an Instacart order, especially as someone who doesn’t get the delivery tips you normally get if you shop and take the groceries to the house. And you do it while being a non-union employee in a union store.

I think I’m done with tater tots until the end of this, because where we went to get them after picking up groceries was not doing a good job of protecting their workers. But I want them to have the jobs we need, so I won’t even publicize the restaurant here.

Because in all these short trips, I have yet to see one white person actively working at any business and I saw very few actually going inside the stores/restaurants. I’d ship all this stuff our apartment, but at least one of these places doesn’t have home delivery to our address.

I’m tired of it always being our people who have to bear the brunt of all these traumas and tragedies and do the heavy lifting to get what we need, even on a good day.


In the two weeks it’s taken for me to write this newsletter, I’ve seen other articles, namely this one on BuzzFeed and this one on Curbed, that have helped me know that I’m not alone with STILL being unnerved with going outside and going back to work.

But outside of group chats and Facebook groups, people like me, with one foot in the chattering middle class and another in the service class of making ends meet by turning on that Instacart app and preparing to send my loved one back to a job that could still be done at home and should still have full hourly benefits, are heard infrequently. Heard, but mostly on platforms we create.

In case you didn’t crack the code in this section — white folks are getting paid to write, where black folks and other POCs are paying for the privilege to write or writing in spaces where it’s safe to do so, without repercussions.

All the open restaurant street plazas in the world will not solve the problem of the server coming to work sick, unmasked, because if not, they can’t get unemployment or without tips, they would be homeless or without a hospital bed that’s free, they can’t shake the virus.

All the open restaurant plazas and streets will not surmount the issues of race and class already laid bare throughout our industry and the communities we’ve created.

And even though I’m inching outside, I’m going to feel safer at home for a very long time.

Before You Go, A Few Other Things On My Mind

  • I’m still running my Black Women in Metro America survey. You can answer about your life before or during Covid-19, as it will give me guidance going forward in how fellow sisters are interacting with the things I want to do and know. Here’s where to fill it out.
  • I’m still working with esteemed Black architect Mel Mitchell, FAIA, NOMA, over the next few months to get the word out about his newest book of Black architectural history and commentary African-American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities. Follow the Instagram page we set up, order the book from Amazon and until we can get the book in more bookstores, we do have an ISBN number (978-1734496000) and you can ask bookstores to order the print version. We also have an e-book on Kindle. If you’ve read it and want to leave a review, please do on Amazon or reply back to this email and I’ll add it to the review page I’m building on his site.
  • You can Book me— on your media platform, as a keynote/lecturer, for one of my workshops or as a panel participant. I can do virtual delivery of all of my programs and we can go ahead and start booking programming for late 2020 and 2021. Also, If you are a member of the press and you would love to get my expert commentary on deadline, you can reach me at (301) 578-6278.
  • Les, that wonderful life partner and sales advisor of mine, is great at hyping you up, making you laugh and helping you or your organization make radical changes in your life and health. Join the email list for her company Les’s Lighthouse for periodic motivational updates. Also, if you need some laughter and motivation right now, check out some of her prior performances and motivational talks on YouTube. (Heads up, there’s saucy language, but hearty messages). She’s launched her podcast and it’s being featured Monday in the lovely alternative Black Pride celebration, Black in Space.

As always, I hope to hear that you’re still here the next time we talk via email or social media. And that you’re at peace and at rest. Thanks to all of you for continuing to open this email and likewise, hope to still be here doing the same.

Love, 

Kristen

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