Diversity & Radical Inclusion: Black Lives Matter
My earliest memory of the police killing an unarmed black man is from February 1999. Amadou Diallo, a young, highly educated Liberian man living in the Bronx, was shot at 41 times and hit 19 times by four plainclothes NYPD officers. As a mixed-race kid born and raised in New York City, I’ll never forget watching the news and hearing that the cops claimed they were looking for a suspect in a crime, and that they opened fire after approaching Diallo and thinking he pulled out a gun.
Of course, it turned out to be a wallet. I remember thinking, “Really?”
Of course, the officers were later acquitted. I remember thinking, “Really?”
This is the seventh entry in a long-form series designed to spark conversation about diversity, Radical Inclusion, and differences in the global Burning Man community.
When you’re still developing your perspectives on “how things work,” events like these can have profound impacts on your worldview. The public outcry, the news coverage, the change in venue for the officers’ trial (it was determined they couldn’t get a “fair” trial in NYC so it was moved upstate to Albany), combined with growing up in a city that already oozes skepticism, trained me at an early age, for better or worse, to expect things that seem straightforward to turn sideways and to take things with a Central Park-sized grain of salt.
Fast forward to the 2010’s, and I spent a few years covering some of the killings many of us have heard of. I was in Ferguson, Missouri, in November 2014 waiting to hear if a grand jury was going to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown in August of the same year. It was amazing, but not surprising, how clear it was to the many black residents I spoke with that they did not expect it to happen. Of course, it didn’t. After Eric Garner was killed while telling the world “I can’t breathe,” three words too many known and unknown black people have had as some of their last, we waited in New York to see if Daniel Pantaleo would be indicted. Of course, in December 2014 he was not. I was in Minneapolis after Philando Castile was shot seven times during a traffic stop (while his girlfriend and daughter were in the vehicle) by Jeronimo Yanez. I’ll never forget Castile’s mother telling me “Don’t let them forget my baby.” Yanez was charged but in the end was, of course, acquitted.
These are just a few examples. How’s it going to play out for Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, and the other three officers? For so many black people in this country, there are many levels to the pain and anger at play here. It is not just that black fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters are being killed by the police. That’s painful and angering enough. It is also that there continues to be little to no recourse nor justice. When you see the same pattern play out over and over again across the country, over the years, with the details different but the circumstances all too familiar, the depth of the pain, the anger, the skepticism continues to deepen.
We’re in a national moment, yet again, that demands pushing forward in the face of injustice. As a Burner and a person of color, I’m feeling an increased need to use my skillset and align my many cultural principles in helpful ways. I know many of you are too. So how do we do it?
Burning Man and Race
Some of the criticism of Burning Man culture I often see in the press and on social media is that we (the event, the global community, etc) are detached from reality, that we’re a bunch of bohemian-bourgeois hippies and techies running around in the middle of nowhere, ignoring or escaping from the truths of the other 51 weeks of the year. Part of my job on a daily basis is to constructively counter this conveniently superficial narrative. Luckily, I have countless examples to choose from.
A lot of my personal focus over the last year and a half has been specifically on building a deeper dialogue around race in the global Burning Man community. What I’m hearing is that, if anything, Black Rock City is very much tied into and a reflection of reality, as the conversations in my series on diversity & Radical Inclusion have shown.
Let’s start by not forgetting that Black Rock City is still a city in the United States, and that Burning Man is not separate from or immune to the world around us. In my interview with him last year, Marlon Williams , “ In my travels to Black Rock City, I am traveling through America, and…Black Rock City is a very American city. Even [through] the typical ways in which it tries to have a constitution and Principles and trying to have inclusion, without affirmatively trying to move forward on that ethos, [it] just replicate[s] all the things that already exist within the default world. Black Rock City is not on another planet. It’s very much on Earth, and specifically the United States, with all the challenges of our racial histories.”
Despite the ways in which some try to separate our experience from national conversations, we create contexts that reflect the realities of our culture. Burners have a city and culture rooted in the 10 Principles. We certainly have ideals, but we’re not a utopia and we are far from perfect. The ways in which we still have room to grow provide us with an opportunity.
What Does “Political” Even Mean Anymore?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen comments on social media and elsewhere that “Burning Man isn’t political,” or that we should all “Keep the politics out of Burning Man.” That perspective, at best, teeters on the edge of the “ignorance is bliss” perspective, and at worst it parallels the ways in which conversations around race and social justice get deflected. Ever heard someone bring up an issue around race or diversity and someone responds with “Well, what about all these types of diversity? We should talk about types of diversity.” It’s a modern version of a tool that has been used for centuries to diminish the realities people of color face, where (usually white) people say, “Well, what about all these types of diversity?” and people of color find themselves needing to justify the singular focus and importance of race, while simultaneously bringing things that are their concern into the conversation as if they are of equal standing.
The “Burning Man isn’t political” perspective is based on the false narrative (highlighted above) that Burners find themselves or wish for their experiences to be separate from the world around them. We’re a year-round culture. We are a community of people from around the world, representing countless perspectives, caring about countless issues, with an endless list of reasons why we participate in Burning Man.
The word “political” in this context seems to be used to mean that activities or perspectives that tie together Burning Man with issues outside the physical or social media trash fences are not wanted or welcome.
In fact, happenings from within the Burner-sphere have been deeply tied to the default world for years. We’re in a moment that calls for our community to actively embrace how we have the potential to have a real, positive impact.
NOTE: “Political” and “partisan” are different things, and it certainly is important that Burning Man spaces around the world are welcome to people from all sorts of political parties and perspectives. Burning Man Project does not act in any partisan manner and it doesn’t support specific candidates or ballot initiatives. It does however, encourage civic engagement, as reflected in its mission/vision, the 10 Principles, and its program areas.
What We Have to Offer
Writing about race and Burning Man, longtime Black Rock City Census volunteer Uncle Vern “Burning Man can be a catalyst for positive change…both in our desert culture and in social relations outside Black Rock City.” How?
For me, it has to do with taking the lessons we all learn, the skills we share, and the love we give in Black Rock City out to the world. We’re in a moment when it’s needed more than ever, and I think there are a bunch of things we can all consider. Don’t forget:
We have unique skills and we know how to get things done.
I had never seen a more concentrated collection of so many talented and highly specialized people than when I started going to Black Rock City. We have people who know how to build complicated structures, operate heavy equipment, organize gatherings, coordinate complex logistics, build power grids, create temporary experiences and spaces that change people’s lives. Shit, we know how to leave no trace in an entire desert year after year. You do it for your theme camps, your mutant vehicles, your art pieces. With a year of no Black Rock City ahead of us, find a community organization fighting for racial and social justice, give them a call, tell them your skillset, see what they need.
Burners are sometimes paralyzed by the feeling that we need to be the ones to “start” new things. New camps, new projects, new… Don’t be. Ask the people who are on the front lines and have devoted their lives to social justice how you can jump in. We have a lot to offer!
We’re empathetic, we’re good listeners.
Remember that conversation in deep playa that changed your life? The one that was unexpected. The one that made you realize the potential you had inside yourself all along. The one that made you feel heard for the first time. Those are some of the most powerful gifts we hear about year after year, and there are thousands of you with the ability to give the gifts of conversation and active listening. The impact you can have on someone’s life by giving them the platform to radically express themselves cannot be understated.
To be clear though… Engaging productively in a moment like this is not asking for black people to explain why what’s happening is troublesome to them. People of color in America are constantly having to do the double work of processing their feelings around traumatic events while justifying and explaining the source of that trauma to white people. If a person of color expresses how they feel about racism (or a woman expresses how they feel about sexism, or a trans person expresses how they feel about transphobic behavior or language), believe them. Listen actively, show love.
We’re collaborative, and we know how to iterate.
Very few things, if anything, happen in the Burning Man world via solo missions. Getting your camp’s resources together, building art, seeing an idea through from concept to completion; we do this on teams, with friends, with volunteers. It’s important, as we move forward to address the issues we care about, that we recognize that we can accomplish more when we work collaboratively.
Part of the magic and beauty of our city in the desert is that we get to iterate every year. After we leave no trace and go home, we have 51 weeks to reimagine what we want our home to look like the next time we gather. We meet as camps, we tinker, we plan new events, we learn new skills, we build new art. We invest in ourselves and our community. We create a city that we want to live in, from the ground up every year. Something didn’t work this year? Scrap it, try again next August. It’s some of why for the last two years, a contingent from the US Conference of Mayors has visited Black Rock City t o learn from us.
Not every city has the ability to pivot as meaningfully or profoundly as we do. That malleability and willingness for people and things to change is so much of what makes us Burners. It’s also a tremendous privilege, and we can take this outside of the desert context. In a year without Black Rock City, what do we want to iterate on, build, contribute, and gift as a collective culture? How do we build the future we want to live in?
We have some practical principles.
We’re always talking about the 10 Principles and how they can affect positive change in the world. But what are we actually doing with them? Theme camps like are pushing the envelope on Radical Inclusion, organizations like Burners Without Borders take Civic Responsibility and Communal Effort to communities around the world, the Black Burner Project uses Immediacy and Participation to educate. As the coronavirus pandemic forces us to social distance and turn towards our smaller, tight-knit communities, how are we elevating these principles in our daily lives and the lives of those we care about?
Parting Thought
It’s only in hindsight that we analyze and name periods of history. We look back and label something as Ancient, as the Middle Ages, as the Renaissance. These are all terms relative to where we sit now, though. What did people call the age they lived in then? “Ancient” times were modern for people breathing then.
So, what age are we in now? Maybe the better question is: what age do we to be in now? What do we want the history books to say about us?
What role do we want Burning Man to play in this moment? It’ll be at least 14 months before we gather in the dust again.
Burners, we have a chance to be part of this conversation.
Black Lives Matter.
Are you interested in writing something related to what’s going on? Please submit your story here.
Originally published at https://journal.burningman.org on June 3, 2020.
