Multiculturalism in the Muck of Burning Man
Black, brown, and POC Burners lead a discussion on racial inclusion in the muddy Black Rock Desert.
Wooden masts cracked, and giant tapestries billowed under the sudden wind and rain on Friday, September 1st, just as a racial inclusion panel featuring diverse camp leads and Burning Man organizers dug into the challenges of race and culture, and equity.
Before torrential downpours left tens of thousands of Burning Man attendees stranded in flooded camps and ankle-deep mud in a northern Nevada desert, a much-anticipated discussion about the organization’s diversity efforts and the grassroots racial inclusion work from the community-led Multicultural People of Color Neighborhood (MPOCN), was taking place.
Known on Playa (the alkaline desert plain that covers the ancient lake bed the event is held on) as Scout, I’m a first-time camp lead of a majority Black camp called Solid City and the moderator of our community’s first racial inclusion panel.
Hosted at Kosmic Kamels, a Middle-Eastern and North African (MENA) majority camp, the hour-long discussion featured three camp leads: Mama Dynamite, my co-lead for Solid City; Nexus, a Black and Filipino American of Alphabet Cookout; and Playa Chuck of Whatcamacallit Winery, an Asian-American and six-time attendee.
“We come from different communities and sometimes it’s a community that looks like us, sometimes it’s not.” —Scout, Racial Inclusion Panel moderator
One of Burning Man’s founders, Chief Culture Officer Harley K. Dubois, and the Director of Placement Bryant Tan, aka Level, completed the five-person panel.
“What does it mean to be racially diverse in a homogenous space,” I asked the leads in my kickoff question. “We come from different communities, and sometimes it’s a community that looks like us, sometimes it’s not.”
For folks of color, queer people, and those with varying accessibility needs, feeling included in a space isn’t determined only by the people we’re with, but by the circumstances of our environment, socially, emotionally, and physically. Our presence doesn’t change how we feel.
Mama Dynamite, an African-American woman with they/them/us pronouns, described the challenges of growing up in 1970s Queens, New York. When bussing began in her predominantly Black community in an effort to integrate her school district, she was confused over why “the white people didn’t like us.”
“Then, after moving further out unto Long Island,” she continued, “[I] definitely learned which neighborhoods you may not want [to move to] because you might not be welcomed. When you start looking for houses and jobs and things like that, you definitely encounter that uncomfortableness. Suddenly, all the neighbors come out, and they’re standing in the street [trying] to be intimidating.”
“Diversity at Burning Man is at the inflection point.” — Harley K. Dubois, Chief Culture Officer for the Burning Man Project
Dubois, the chief culture officer for the Burning Man Project, shared how she helped her father coordinate the bus integration program in New Jersey during this same era of cultural shift in the U.S. while acknowledging the differences in experiences. She also drew on her own childhood learning to be an ally.
“I [also] went to school in Canada, and everybody was white there,” she added, comparing the experience to her time in New Jersey. “And it just felt like…it doesn’t feel the same. So I’ve been yearning for this. [Diversity at Burning Man] is at the inflection point. It’s been [growing] the last three years. It’s been profound. I see such a big difference, and I’m just so appreciative.”
The Burning Man event can feel culturally exclusive for Black, brown, and people of color. Acceptance and recognition are determined by who you know or, as the camp leads described during the panel, what you see when you search for the event online, as the panel’s camp leads acknowledged.
Their responses captured the sentiment of moving beyond eye contact at home in the Default World to embracing one another in person in Black Rock City. It’s the power and impact behind “I see you” or “We out here!”
Many Burning Man attendees, outside of the growing class of the white wealthy and privileged, can attest to the financial hardships associated with the event. From ticket costs, large resource allocations, and travel to the desert to requesting time off work and missing days of income, these hurdles are relatable.
A member of Kosmic Kamels spoke on the challenges of his international diasporic community. “As Palestinians, we don’t get the chance to meet each other much because we are divided into so many groups…This is the only space that we created where we can meet so many Palestinians, so many people that support the cause, that want to be with us in this, in here. We work hard to create a space together that can hold us in our struggle, that can hold us and be a container for us to heal ourselves.”
Fellow Kosmic Kamels camp members nodded in agreement, acknowledging the unique challenges and opportunities the Burning Man space creates. “For us, it’s magic,” the member continued. “It’s a dream come true to be able to bring all of us from all over the world to meet here and to create and be.”
Nexus, a ten-time Burner and the lead of Alphabet Cookout dug into the racial nuance that is often overlooked in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space.
“Sometimes, for mixed people like myself, I feel like I’m scared to take up space… in an all-Black or an all-Asian environment. I think for me, the opportunity I find at Burning Man is to make and claim the space I want for myself and to find the people that will be with me, whether they’re mixed or not, whether they’re also Black or not, Filipino or AAPI.”
A first-time lead and head of Whatcamacallit Whinery, Playa Chuck commented on the demographic changes he’s witnessed.
“It probably wasn’t till 2016 or 2017 that I got to see just how few of us there were out there and how few Black people, how few Hispanic, Asian and people of color. So, to me, the most inspiring thing now is seeing the kind of art created by people of color, right? Because, you know, I’ve always thought of Burning Man to be the forefront of art and culture.”
“So much of that is about [the] community helping people.” — Level, Head of Placement, Burning Man Project
Level, recently promoted to the Head of Placement, the department that determines how the city’s hundreds of camps are laid out, reflected on his time transitioning from attendee to employee, given his similar identity to Nexus as a queer Asian individual.
“I often heard this, even before I started [with the organization]: ‘Anyone can get a ticket! Radical inclusion! Everyone’s welcome!’ It felt like a one-dimensional way of understanding the barriers to coming to a place like this, how to do Burning Man, and how to do it right,” he continued.
“And so I think I, fortunately, in my role in Placement, now Head of Placement, so much of that is about community helping people.”
The discussion shifted to visions and the potentials of the future, just as the wooden masts supporting the Kosmic Kamels’ bedouin tent creaked against the force of the howling wind.
“I think each of us has the ability to bring in more people into these kinds of circles, right?” continued Level. “And I think for me, and in my role of trying to support and prioritize this, we can not just build a multicultural neighborhood but a city.”
Nods and verbal affirmations from the dozen or so attendees prompted additional comments from Level. Eyes also tracked the swaying beams.
“It takes more people helping new folks learn about what it is and more images and videos and music that are produced by folks of color. I think seeing our artists is inspiring to folks, you know? And I think seeing them at the head of things will continue to inspire folks. So I think that’s kind of where we’re headed,” he added. “Let’s get more folks into leadership.”
The panel served as an important space for camp leads and neighborhood members to move beyond sharing grievances or demands of the org, (although those were present within the conversation). It was a time to share our first encounters with the event and how our ideas and relationship with Black Rock City are evolving as the demographics and artistic expressions shift.
The panel is laying the groundwork for my own future academic study on equity, inclusion, and diversity and how building these factors into the foundation of intentional community design rather than as an afterthought could change how we as a society can progress into multiculturalism with empathy and understanding.
Ideally, this model could be used as a design framework beyond the desert event, from urban planning to tech companies. Counterculture and nonconformity are important tenets of creative thinking spaces but so is radical racial inclusion. I will continue studying and exploring this environment, in my effort to build a framework with multiculturalism at the forefront, not as an afterthought.
Given the role Black Rock City’s alternative lifestyle and culture plays in the greater society — from Silicon Valley and Hollywood to journalism and academia — the lack of a global majority representation is a dangerous impediment to effective racial healing and power-building. — From the Tow-Knight Center’s Initiative in Internet Studies report on Racial Inclusion at Burning Man (Aug 2023)
To be truly radically inclusive is to find ways to make the experience approachable by all. We should aspire to move beyond inviting or welcoming the stranger, the first-timer, who has felt excluded or ignored due to their race, ethnicity, or cultural background and shift into including them at the start. The best way that I know how to start this is through conversation.
We approached the Q/A section of the discussion around 2:45 pm PT when the Friday rain and wind storm suddenly caused the bedouin tent masts we were housed under to collapse.
Everyone in the many-tapestried structure jumped up to keep the remaining wooden masts standing. Even as the rain poured in sideways and the wind whipped the fabric coverings to and fro, hands and bodies braced the masts.
Members of Kosmic Kamels ratchet strapped and lag-bolted the critical support posts, barking orders and hollering for tools. The chaos soon devolved into order as the structure was secured.
Despite the discussion around the benefits and challenges of being Black, brown, Asian, and international in this predominantly white American/European environment being disrupted, the frantic moment caused by the torrential weather brought forth the best qualities of our racially diverse Burners and the org’s own staffers.
Our hands worked in unison to keep this international camp, with its unique challenges around culture and ethnic differences, standing. I can’t showcase this collaborative desperation as my hands were preoccupied with holding up beams and masts. Still, a video of the moment may be available sometime in the near future…
The panel and the bedouin tent’s near collapse spoke to me as an engagement journalist, watching this multicultural community express itself in real time with empathy, action, and collaboration.
The next day the event spoke to me as a disinformation researcher. I saw the media reports on Saturday and Sunday describing the muck as ruining the event, false reports of an Ebola outbreak, and FEMA or the National Guard being deployed by President Joe Biden.
Lastly, it spoke to me as a community researcher. The principles around Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, and Radical Inclusion grew stronger as the mud deepened. The expected, even deserved, chaos depicted by numerous media reports of a postponed Man-Burn and closed roads did not come to fruition for most of the 70,000-member community.
The spirit of Black Rock Citizens thrived in the muck of the Man.
I believe (now that I’m on my way home) that the muddy mess brought Burning Man back to its communal roots.
The muck kept folks within their neighborhoods, the roads too treacherous to walk, let alone bike or drive. It brought us back to trusting in ourselves and friends, community support, and reliance on our fellow citizens.
I turned to my neighbors, Sargent Kush and the Swordsman of the Society for Temporal Preservation, for weather and Black Rock City information, as well as some amazing heckling of folks attempting to drive off Playa during the storms and their blessedly strong drinks.
I relied on my fellow MPOCN neighbors Mo’Better Village, The Inkwell, and Black Rock Academy for physical support, from securing our kitchen and shade structures to sharing water, gas, and food.
While I hope the Burning Man Project learns a few lessons from this anomalous weather event, such as the importance of strategically placed cell towers, the need to shift away from fossil fuels in a climate-challenged world, to having a few bulldozers or what have you on-premises, the MPOCN, alongside dozens of neighborhoods, certainly turned this mucky mess into magic.
Radial inclusion must mean racial inclusion, both in the city and in leadership. The 2023 panel was another important step towards a truly equitable multicultural community of thousands.
And as they do in the Marvel movies, Solid City will return in 2025.
