The Black Urbanist Weekly for August 8-14, 2022, Part 2 of the Black Queer Feminist War on Cars
This battle on cars assumes that we all have the same common enemy and that we don’t harm each other as we battle said enemy. Let’s make sure we understand what the battleground is.
Welcome to The Black Urbanist Weekly! I’m Kristen and this is my Black queer feminist take on urbanism and adjacent subjects. I usually open up with an editorial-style reflection on a topic of my choice, then I share my favorite links in the By the Way Section, and then, Before You Go, I talk openly about how you can financially support this project and my other works, plus, welcome outside organizational sponsors. This week, that’s Patreons that could be you! Now, back to the main part of the email.
Y’all are still here, so I assume that some of you have keys jingling in your pockets, that aren’t just of your house. And of course, you even have keys to lock things, considering how advanced some of us are living with apps, fobs, buttons, and sensors having replaced metal in a lot of modern buildings and vehicles.
Just like there are several assumptions made above on the content of your locks, we assume so much when it comes to how car dependence affects us.
Ok, let me stop again and define we and us. We, for me, are the mostly white, male, straight, abled, and middle-class land-use and transportation planning, engineering, and administration sector, plus those who do not fit into those characteristics, that insist on upholding this person I described above, as the universal human.
And of course, depending on the sentence grammar, we are us.
However, as much as we want there to be a universal human, there is no such thing. There are human models though and that, unfortunately, seems to be only understood by car companies and other consumer goods that really want everyone to buy their products.
Of course, we are pushing against car companies here, but we also need to understand that we will continue to lose this battle if we don’t understand that we can’t keep planning and speaking and upholding that universal human from above.
I first learned of this concept during an anti-racist planner’s Zoom meeting last year and I wish I still had the copy of the paper that discussed this phenomenon.
However, some of the work done around universal design, yields from the idea that there is one universal human, that looks like the pedestrian on the traffic signals, so at least he’s of color sometimes, but he’s still a he unless it’s the one with the skirt, who is a she and the wheelchair which is coded genderless.
On this platform, I purposefully create a universal human that is reflective of who I am in the mirror. For clarity, that’s:
—Black: American, North Carolina native, Maryland resident, one-time Kansas City resident descendent of the enslaved who were brought to this area through the ports of the British colonies established in and around 1619 and later the segregated folks of North and South Carolina.
—Queer: Genderfluid, leaning feminine, assigned and socialized feminine, loving all kinds of humans, but specifically drawn to the feminine and the androgynous and the non-conforming who have hearts for service to the betterment of the world.
—Feminist: Allowing the feminine, the masculine, and the genderless to coexist harmoniously, celebrating all forms of the feminine and not assuming its weakness.
—Urbanist: Celebrating the way humans come together with their skills, their cultivations of nature, and the creation of structures to share and thrive in human life.
I’ve written before about my whys and base definitions of my generic Black Queer Feminist Urbanist human, however, I’ve realized I need to spell out what I see in the mirror when I apply those labels.
Even though we are talking about the specific battleground of transportation that is equitable for all, we have to establish who we as humans are. We are not the same and we cannot walk (ride, bike or drive) around this world planning for a universal human when we live in a world of humans.
So next time I come to you, I want to talk about how to do better by my humanity in this world on cars, but in the meantime, I want to hear from you, via the comment sections, email replies, tweet threads, and video threads/stitches, what would it look like for you to be the universal human and how you see the war on cars and other “urbanist holy grails” such as eyes on the street, sidewalk ballets, and TOD working (or not working) for your body. I also want to hear from you if you are the current “universal human” and if even that makes sense for planning in your community.
By the Way
If you’re new here, I write out my grand thesis of the week above, then I share other articles/videos that were noteworthy for me this week in this section.
I’m going to share a notable War on Cars episode in this space every week of this series and I wanted to start with their interview with Gretchen Sorin, the author of Driving While Black, who gives a great overview of how car ownership has historically been seen in the Black community, especially in the US; as well as how our movements and spaces in transportation and around transportation modes have always been fraught.
I am going to spend more time with Rosa Parks and her story, as we’ve been told so many things, yet also hidden from so many key things in the story of a “universal human” of the US mid-century Civil Rights Movement, especially when it comes to transportation and mobility access.
Finally, can anyone’s subway train beat this fox speeding down the London Underground tracks from last week?
Before You Go
This is where I advertise all the ways you can support me on other platforms and financially!
In case you missed it, you can watch my Smart Growth America Panel Session replay and look at my slides. We did not record the technical assistance sessions, but we’ve heard some good news from our advisees as a result of those sessions. Learn more about my advisees, the community of Royal, FL. Thanks again to the SGA team, my wonderful co-panelists Jupiter Peraza of the Transgender District in San Francisco and Benny Starr of the US Water Alliance, and our keynote, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson.
Plus, I’m back at Greater Greater Washington in a formal capacity, editing the Breakfast links Monday-Friday. Subscribe to that newsletter, so you can keep up with the latest and greatest urbanism news coming out of DC.
You can purchase a whole suite of products that demand that all bodies deserve healthcare (including special ones for disabled folks, Black folks, and queer folks), from the endoQueer store, my partner Les’s organization raising awareness of reproductive health disparities in the LGBTQIA+ community. Also, check her out on the Black Women’s Health Imperative endometriosis panel.
If you just want to support me for any reason, but don’t need anything in return, you can donate to my capital campaign, or Venmo or Cash. App me. Plus, selecting a book or two from my bookshelf over at https://bookshop.org/shop/kristenejeffers, and taking a “hook” at making my Kristfinity Scarf is a great way to not doomscroll throughout this summer and make something for your own internal freedom. Share them as you care for your squad and let them comfort you as y’all decide on your next major move. And yes, you can still make a monthly pledge to my work on Patreon.
Until next time,