Author | Lightnews

Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

@blackurbanist.bsky.social

8.4K followers 1.5K following 2.4K posts

Black, Queer, Dynamically Disabled, Southern USA, Spiritual, Working/Lower-Middle Class Feminist Urbanist freelance writer and editor and podcaster.

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Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · Feb 4

ICYMI on other platforms, we’re going to try out being Greensboro residents together later this year. Her first time, and I, well, you know. My newsletter has all the details. theblackurbanist.com/on-the-radic...

On The Radical Faith It Takes To Defy Gentrification

Welcome back to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation — an art, design, and policy newsletter/journal of myself Kristen Jeffers, a Black queer feminist disabled millennial (US southern)urbani…

theblackurbanist.com

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Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · 23d

here I am, publishing what I think is the first self-help architecture and planning workbook for Black folks of marginalized genders (and the people that love and support them).

theblackurbanist.com/the-defying-...

The cover of the book The Defying Gentrification Playbook

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Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · Sep 3

Friends, I'm back here because it's almost time for me to put a book in your hands. More here about The Defying Gentrification Playbook, its December 16, 2025, release date, and a major health update that's affected it's process over the decades -- theblackurbanist.com/im-autistic-...

I’m Autistic, I Have Trust Issues, and I’m Self-Publishing My Defying Gentrification Playbook on December 16, 2025

Regular readers and longtime supporters. I told you I would come back to this newsletter when I had a date for pre-orders and a place to launch the book. Well, I do have a release date, December 16…

theblackurbanist.com

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Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · May 22

My heart's no longer in leading my creative practice with urbanism and active defiance of gentrification. I will be sharing my creative art and of course, I'll be living happily in urbanized spaces for as long as I can afford to. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKFB...

The Future of My Work As A Victim of Gentrification, In Need of A Space to Craft Liberation

YouTube video by Defying Gentrification with Kristen Jeffers

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Apr 27

While some products like cars and mattresses are still made in the US, China basically makes most consumer goods we buy in the US, including kitchen appliances, electronics, and personal care items. Things are gonna suck because of Trump's stupid tariffs.

Your Home Without China (Gift Article)

We analyzed import data to show where Americans may see product shortages, fewer choices and price increases.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

MrsBundrige @mrsbundrige.bsky.social · Apr 27

I threatened to beat up my white neighbor recently if she called the cops on the young Black men standing on our street listening to music, eating food and talking. “They don’t live on this street” ass bitch. They were literally just enjoying each other’s company and not bothering anyone.

Harlem Toots @chadstanton.blacksky.app · Apr 27

Since we’re talking about why policing is so popular I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some people like that idea of being able to threaten others with state sanctioned violence. Matter of fact thrilling to issue this threat is an animating current to the current fascist movement.

Post Punk-y Brewster @krismeana.bsky.social · Apr 27

Steve said I’m a hypocrite because he was replying with anti Blackness to someone who told him he hoped he died from his mental illness. As someone who is Black living w mental illnesses both of y’all suck tbh! However, you are STILL a racist, Steve!

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Wunpini F. Mohammed, PhD @wunpini.bsky.social · Apr 27

“In Ghana, Meta is displaying nothing short of a complete disregard for the humanity of its key safety workers upon whom all its profits rely: content moderators. They are treated as objects who can be used up, burned out and replaced with no care whatsoever...”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Meta faces Ghana lawsuits over impact of extreme content on moderators

Workers at contractor in Accra say they have suffered from depression and anxiety as a result of their work

www.theguardian.com

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Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · Apr 27

And for the record, here's the

DEFYING GENTRIFICATION FRAMEWORK

I can have faith
I can engage in cultivation, and, creativity and self-care.

BUT I NEED

Community Care
Infrastructure
Access
Convenience

FROM OTHERS TO

DEFY GENTRIFICATION

DEFYING GENTRIFICATION FRAMEWORK

I can have faith
I can engage in cultivation, and, creativity and self-care.

BUT I NEED

Community Care
Infrastructure
Access
Convenience

FROM OTHERS TO

DEFY GENTRIFICATION

Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they) @blackurbanist.bsky.social · Apr 27

Back on the mic this week with some major updates on moving, and how I'm feeling now that we are nearly 100 days in and some of the dust is settling -- open.substack.com/pub/theblack...

Gentrification is fascist, but it's not too late to stop either.

Defying Gentrification Podcast Episode 10

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · Apr 19

This is getting fewer headlines than it should. After coming to power promising to help working people, the president is revealing his real priorities by actively making it easier for banks to rip people off.

The CFPB Has Been Gutted

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated the positions of 1,406 employees at the congressionally mandated agency.

www.wired.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

🇬🇾🗽Sydette The Dreaded Gorgon🗽🇬🇾 @blackamazon.bsky.social · Mar 23

….. they hate everyone and we gotta just say it

PinkNews @pinknews.bsky.social · Mar 22

Iconic Golden Girls actress Bea Arthur, who served in the Marine Corps, has had her contribution scrubbed from Department of Defence website

Web page about iconic Golden Girls actress becomes latest victim of DEI purge

Bea Arthur, who served in the Marine Corps, has had her wartime contribution scrubbed from the Department of Defence (DOD) website. The URL now reads "DEIBefore".

www.thepinknews.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Rev. Alicia T. Crosby @aliciatcrosby.bsky.social · Mar 23

If empathy is a sin, sin boldly.
Sin often.
Sin with abandon.

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · Mar 22

I just reskeeted @prisonculture.bsky.social saying people don't know. I'm telling you people don't know. I keep having conversations, even conversations with people who are in media who are missing huge chunks of what's happening. People are busy and aren't directly impacted so they don't know

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · Mar 22

For folks who don’t know, ethnic studies programs like African American/Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies and the like come directly from civil right era campus activism. Attempts to disempower such programs should be framed as attacks on civil rights same as much else rn.

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Aura Bogado @aurabogado.bsky.social · Mar 22

A man slated for deportation has captured conditions inside the Krome Detention Center in Florida. He says some people have been confined like this for up to 30 days.

At least three men have died at Krome in the past five months.

www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8248mFR/

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Crystal Fleming クリスタル @alwaystheself.bsky.social · Mar 23

Good news! Protesting still works, so keep protesting 🗣️🗣️🗣️✨✨✨

Stacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · Mar 23

Hunter College has reposted their search for 2 scholars of Palestine Studies. Both searches are open rank and the new deadline is April 21. Please share widely!

cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

Jobs | City University of New York

cuny.jobs

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Mar 22

I don’t see how, unless our entire profession stands shoulder-to-shoulder in unity, we successfully push back against this effort to break our profession and our democracy.

Cowering & compromising won’t work. He is attacking us for the success of our work.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY SUBJECT: Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court Lawyers

www.whitehouse.gov

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Crystal Fleming クリスタル @alwaystheself.bsky.social · Mar 23

Gift link, where the gift is “evidence that Columbia will need to get even more fashy in order to satisfy internal and external pressures to get more fashy” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/n...

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan on X) @markanthonyneal.bsky.social · Mar 23

"Actions like boycotts are a form of pastoral ministry for those who feel ignored or forgotten. They show that churches care about whole persons and the communities in which we live." -- Esau McCaulley
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/o...

Opinion | Don’t Like What Trump Is Doing? You Have More Power Than You Think. (Gift Article)

Church-led campaigns against businesses for retreating from D.E.I. promises are a form of pastoral ministry for those who feel ignored or forgotten.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @ebonyteach.blacksky.app · Mar 23

In The Dawn of Detroit, Tiya Miles begins by teaching readers that long before the fort of Detroit & Sandwich (later Windsor) existed, the unceded Anishinaabe village of Waawiiya-a-ta-nong existed on both sides of our strait.

In the beginning, this was one village.

thenewpress.com/books/dawn-o...

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Crystal Fleming クリスタル @alwaystheself.bsky.social · Mar 23

As it’s now confirmed that Columbia is not getting their money back without collaborating with even more fascism, the only question at this point is whether the university’s leadership will roll back their fashy acquiescence or get even more fashy. Unfortunately I think we (still) know the answer.

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @ebonyteach.blacksky.app · Mar 23

100%.

Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · Mar 23

It’s so frustrating that Christian nationalists seem to be the only people who internalized the legal tactics of the Howard Law & NAACP. The Federalist Society is designed to undo the work of Howard/NAACP, & it’s largely succeeded.

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · Mar 23

Think it’s important to highlight how everyday violence of the U.S. criminal legal system is making what ICE is doing possible: this man was convicted of a crime at *16*; he was *pardoned*; when ICE came decades later they claimed the conviction made him a felon w/ no recourse against deportation

Keith Boykin @keithboykin.bsky.social · Mar 23

Rodney Taylor is a beloved Georgia barber who came to the United States from Liberia with his mother when he was only two years old. He applied for citizenship but was denied. But this year, ICE arrested him, locked him up, and has scheduled him to be deported to a faraway country he's never known.

Recently engaged, beloved barber arrested by ICE | How his immigration story is questioning the system

Rodney Taylor, a Georgia barber, has been pursuing permanent residency for years. Now, he faces deportation to Liberia despite being in the U.S. since childhood.

www.11alive.com

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Reposted by Kristen Jeffers, MPA ✊🏽🌈 (she/they)

Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · Mar 22

Urgent: Illegal Activity Underway

Many undocumented immigrants file tax returns with the IRS, providing details about their residences, families, employers, and earnings. The IRS has historically encouraged tax compliance by issuing ITINs to those without Social Security numbers.

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