This is The Black Urbanist Weekly, an email newsletter that highlights Kristen Jeffers’s Black Queer Feminist Urbanist commentary on one key issue every week. This week we are making the first set of our annual radical wishes and dreams. Including this one, for me to start the year with annual funding for several of my major business expenses. Read on and learn more and please share!
Wishes may be wild dreams, but what we think becomes what we do and in the doing, these wild dreams become real and practical.
Wow, it’s that time again for me to rub my lamp and hope that the genie pops off and makes my wishes come true. I wanted to come to this email with the right tone and intention and hence it’s in your inbox Monday morning instead of for Sunday brunch this week.
A lot of writers/online types make annual review posts and I think this was my logic way back in 2011 when I issued my first wish post. Since then, my Wishes have been highlighted in Streetsblog and they are a long-time fan favorite. Check out previous year’s wishes and see how many have come true.
Now that we are back on a weekly schedule with this newsletter, I’m going to do something special this year and split my wishes into two. This week is a blatant call for gifts to walk into 2022 knowing that I can deliver my work on this platform. Next week’s email/message will include my community-centric wishes, as we welcome in the celebration of Kwanzaa, a holiday during December created to celebrate Black liberation in the United States and beyond.
So, let’s get to this week and my one big wish (and the smaller, but still important wishes it will unlock).
If you already clicked and donated above, thank you.
If not, please consider it. I was going to go into a spiel on why I need to raise this kind of money, but then I remembered that this is the wishes post. Wishes can be radical imaginations. Wishes can be wild dreams.
Being able to pay all my business subscriptions upfront for a whole year is a wild dream.
Having a profitable Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Summit from the community and mutual aid-minded people, with income circulating back into communities that can manage and thrive the most with it, is a wild dream.
Being able to finally onboard staffers at a living wage is a wild dream.
Getting the $30,000 of grants I’ve already written is a wild dream.
Having people who doubted me, especially in defense of institutions that fail to serve them, as both citizens and employees, circle back and affirm this work as valid is a wild dream.
Being able to call out those who continue to fail to see the error of their ways, so that those who want to do good by communities and the greater urbanism industry and/or are just coming into their own as young designers and creators can know who to avoid and who to hold most accountable, without repercussions on all of us, is a wild dream.
Building an on and off-line collective of thriving Black Queer Feminist Urbanists globally is a wild dream.
And finally, being alive is a wild dream of its own and I am reminded that breathing is enough. However, making these wild dreams and wishes a reality is always the goal. I believe in the power of writing a vision and making it plain and that’s what you see here.
Next week, I have more to say about some of these wild dreams and how I can see them manifesting across society.
Before You Go
— Fellow Black feminist urbanist Jay Pitter details the work she’s been doing to document Toronto’s Little Jamaica and how this area is a big part of the Black Canadian story.
— I’ll be listening to Danyel Smith’s Black Girl Songbook and lifting up my sisters/siblings in Black Girl Song.
— And in case you missed my live stream on honoring bell hooks and how her work intersects urbanism, you can find it here.
Until next time,
Kristen
P.S. What I mean when I call myself a Black Queer Feminist Urbanist.