I’m guilty again for trying to have the perfect draft for my words. And balling up my rage at the state of the world til it jumps off and triggers myself and others I love. I’m in bed. I’m running away from errands and opportunities. But, it’s time to write something and release this stress and pain and anguish I’m carrying out into the world.
Because I believe the following is my absolute last word on what gentrification is and how it affects Black folks and others who are colonized and of color:
Black folks, especially in the diaspora, but sometimes even in heavily colonized areas of our home continent, can facilitate gentrification over their own people. And of course it can happen to us. But until the day we globally admit that Black folks that aren’t named Oprah, Beyonce, Tyler Perry, and other documented Black billionaires and millionaires can’t be gentrifiers, we are done as a movement and as a people. Those people I named aren’t above being followed, sanctioned, denied financing opportunities, and the like for what they are intending to do with their work, because of global white supremacy over the financing markets and sometimes just the pettiest of racisms and other isms we do need to process as a people.
And for me, I am working on closing this 15-year chapter of leading my work with my thoughts and my ideas on urbanism. I’m good at it and it can produce steady “respectable” work. But respectability politics is a dark closet in a time where those with money and power expect nothing but death among those they don’t like.
I am sick of seeing my colleagues in transportation facing budget cuts with punishing riders who never had and never will be able to afford a pass.
Not enough of them are speaking out like this recent article from
I am sick of course of landlords and developers and even community organizers and local and state elected officials who are stuck in status quo.
I’m bankrupt and while I had moments where I thought I would overcome that status, it’s not working and I’m not meant to use my thoughts on urbanism and my loyalty to its thought leaders to get ahead.
My body is shutting down and the only thing that plugs it back up is doing art. That’s where the crafting liberation part of the title comes from.
And, I am working on practicing what I preach and giving myself space to practice the faith, self-care, cultivation, and creativity needed to truly defy gentrification as I mentioned in my last newsletter.
Today starts my full-time journey of making my creative art the main paid offerings of Kristen Jeffers Media and Design.
I will imbue my urbanism throughout this journey, but I will not nitpick,or sacrifice, or criminalize any modality or person on this journey for perfectionism.
I grew up adjacent to a Christian cult and I refuse to go back into another set of binary rules and thought, especially when so many in the urbanism space can’t accept their racist, queer and transphobic, classist, and ableist behaviors. Oh, and I’m not about to lose the one bit of dependable transportation and shelter because I’m waiting to be paid or because someone wants me to “get it together” before I start a project. Especially since we can’t agree that public transit is a public good that should be just as free as the sidewalks we walk on.
Now many of you here on Substack are here for the new journey, but I just wanted to give you that heads up. And, I’m going to be doing better about sharing my art practice in this space and offering you opportunities to do mutually beneficial work and to share those opportunities with those who could use the kind of help I need.
So, the video above is me saying what I just said over 6 minutes or so.
And I’m ending this with my latest YouTube on Kristpattern. This summer, I’ll be sharing more of my art practice there and here. And, in October, we are having a 15th-anniversary party for this platform that will be an in-person showcase of my art, design, music, and other things I love, to fully hard launch this next chapter of my life.
So watch these videos and stay tuned in this space for a fun Black queer feminist disabled journey of crafting liberation and defying gentrification!
Until next week,
Kristen
