San Francisco Chronicle calls Burning Man on its racism

[Kinetic IV]

I thought it was always Burningman.com, not .org.

[scorin_soren]

Im from atlanta and the freaKNIK WAS BUSTED BY THE GORVERNMENT!
IF BURNING MAN WAS BLACK THEY WOULD CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD JUST LIKE ATLANTA AND SHUT IT DOWN! JUST CULTURE!? I THINK NOT. BLACK PEOPLE GET LYNCHED FOR TAKING A HIKE STILL TO THIS DAY! BUNCH OF WEST COAST SOFTIES THIS IS A GLOBAL PROBLEM. THINK ABOUT A WAY TO FIX YOURSELF AND FIX IT YOURSELF. BUY SOME HOMIES A TICKET.

[Isotopia]

Score_some_meds_Soren.

[Trishntek]

Im from atlanta and the freaKNIK WAS BUSTED BY THE GORVERNMENT!
IF BURNING MAN WAS BLACK THEY WOULD CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD JUST LIKE ATLANTA AND SHUT IT DOWN! JUST CULTURE!? I THINK NOT. BLACK PEOPLE GET LYNCHED FOR TAKING A HIKE STILL TO THIS DAY! BUNCH OF WEST COAST SOFTIES THIS IS A GLOBAL PROBLEM. THINK ABOUT A WAY TO FIX YOURSELF AND FIX IT YOURSELF. BUY SOME HOMIES A TICKET.

Not that I agree or disagree with what you are saying, but how you say it,,,, you do not need to SHOUT! It is rude and unnecessary.

[jkisha]

Geez Trishnik, they said it FIVE F*ckin years ago for christ sakes. You sure must have had a boring day to go digging up a thread this old.

JK

[Eric]

Jkisha- Trishntek didn't dig it up- look at the dates on the postings. Scorin_sorin, someone with only 2 posts somehow dug up a bomb thread from 5 years ago to post. Trishntek was responding to that bait.

Hmmm.

Sock, or troll?

[AntiM]

There's a lot of crap buried deep in the old thread, mundane drivel, irrelevant jokes in limbo and a whole lotta yawn. A few golden nuggets, and this ain't one of them.

[jkisha]

Jkisha- Trishntek didn't dig it up- look at the dates on the postings. Scorin_sorin, someone with only 2 posts somehow dug up a bomb thread from 5 years ago to post. Trishntek was responding to that bait.

Hmmm.

Sock, or troll?

My apologies to Trishntek.

JK

[Trishntek]

quite alright dear,,,, now just put your hands through here,,,,, that's it,,,, now put on foot over here,,,, uhuh,,, and the other one here,,,,, now open wide!!

besides, isotopia responded before i did

[gunsmith]

sf chron is a BS rag, I have an editorial saved in my files from 2003 sf chron- weeping and wailing about the "Patriot Act" - when B.O extended it for another 4 years they had zero complaints.
they're two faced jerks.

[steve.t.sullivan]

I know its five years too late, but...what bullshit. There's no discrimination against people who aren't white. The only REAL barrier to Burning Man is financial, and some effort is made to address that via low income tickets (beyond that I think its up to the theme camps to sponsor people). Just because you don't see a bunch of black people somewhere doesn't automatically make the place racist.

[theCryptofishist]

(beyond that I think its up to the theme camps to sponsor people).

Yeah, cause building our infrastructure, and planing our camps, and working together to make a village that works, and buying a metric fuckton of booze and mixers, and inventing theme nights, and making other interactivity, and plotting all year long (yes, it's already begun) simply sucks up our spare cash and leisure time; we need to cut into our eatin' money and work time.

[big baby jesus]

Darryl: "It's about time that BMORG's racism..." Nothing in the article implied racism, just a lack of people of color.

Don't be a dildo, defend your statement.

[LovePaint]

Maybe it's the people YOU interacted with?

For my burn, I was an Asian girl camping with a Latino gay guy and a white girl. Our next door campmates and burn buddies were a trio of Brits who were Anglo-saxon, Indian, and Persian/Irish. I talked, interacted, and hung out with whites, blacks, East Indians, and spent a whole day with some Persian Jews. Sure there were mostly white people there, but there were tons of people from other ethnicities and countries. If anything, there were far less Asians than any other "color" on playa, but I didn't mind.

I didn't feel "barred" for the "racist" event, and found it one of the most inclusive places I've been in. Maybe there are more white people there because North America/Europe/Australia (the most commonly representative continents) have a majority caucasians, and also cause it's hella expensive to go so there's a disproportionate number of middle/upper-middle classers.

I think this is silly though, trying to shove American preconceptions of "skin color" on what felt like a very international, inclusive event. It's like saying all the pale people that I met from the US, France, Germany, Australia, etc are all the same since they have the same color. Shall we have affirmative action at Burning Man now too?

[C.f.M.]

Burning Man isn't racist. Classist, sure, which of course leads back to racism, but it isn't inherently racist.

Divide what goes on at Burning Man into factions, and see how "diverse" the rave scene, Rainbow gatherings, the goth scene, geekdom, etc. are.

Round heah - and allow me to speak for Atlanta, since the previous poster clearly doesn't know what he's talking about - that we have a pretty diverse "scene" down here in the South.

Heck, I flew out of here all the way to Reno with two black virgins (who loved it, BTW).

White people just love to talk about how racist everybody else is.

[teardropper]

That's right. Tired topic. Radical inclusion. I believe it's meant.

But the article never mentioned it was racist. Didn't imply it. We getta' talk about race without being racist.

Jeez...

[Playa Luigi]

The person writing the story is going completely on hear say. If the author actually went to the event, then they would stfu!!

[Simon of the Playa]

it aint about the schvartze....

[curiousgnate]

as a half black half italian who considers himself half black and half italian, i know that burningman isn't racist. not a racist word or action have i seen on playa. I love seeing other people of color out there. granted there aren't tons, but over the years there are more and more. i don't give a shit about the color of someone's skin, i care about the depth of their heart. who gives a fuck about race, its a social construct anyway. what is race even, but a way to box people up and separate them.

[Teo del Fuego]

Im from atlanta and the freaKNIK WAS BUSTED BY THE GORVERNMENT!

I'm from Atlanta, where I lived for fifteen years, including every year of Freaknik. I think you are full of shit. Unmitigatedly so. Freaknik was shut down by the Atlanta PD and the elected officials of Atlanta, the vast majority of which were/are black folk. The event was shut down because it caused major gridlock on Atlanta's main in-town arteries, featured much too much violence against person and property, and resulted in mounds and mounds of trash all over private property. I know, I lived on Piedmont Park, the epicenter of the event and it got so bad that I stated parking my car in another part of town and riding my bike out to it whenever I needed to get somewhere.

Saying Burning Man, an event that practices radical inclusion, is racist is so incredible stupid. My camp featured caucasians, african-americans, and asians from Colorado, New York, San Francisco, and Ireland.

[Penny Dreadful]

Speaking on the lack of diversity at BM, for obvious reasons, we black folk are rather shy around crowds of white people dressed in strange costumes setting a wooden structure on fire.

I kid, I kid...

I'm a black woman (I guess) and I went to BM for the first time this year. I've known about the event for ages, since the early nineties and have always wanted to go, but knew no one crazy, fun, experimental, adventurous enough who wanted to join me. I'm lucky to have become close friends with a BM veteran to introduce me to it. I never had so much fun in my life. But more than that, BM was like an epiphany, which I would like to talk about some other time.

I have to tell you I didn't notice how many whites, blacks, or Latinos and Asians were there. I just blended in with every crowd I went into. No big whoop. From my personal experience, BM felt like family. It honestly, truly, felt like a giant family. To call BM racists is to, one, have no understanding of what 'racism' means, and, two, underestimate the financial and educational disparities between whites and minorities that prevent their socializing at events such as BM. Just my two cents.

[Simon of the Playa]

penny my dear, your two pieces of common cents are the most valuable so far in this thread.


be careful, around here, straightforward pure reason will be ignored.



wrap up those nuggets of nougat in a heaping helping of bullshit and perhaps the profound nature of "Emet" will work it's magic.


welcome to e-playa.

[theCryptofishist]

Thanks, Penny.
I suspected that that might be the case, but I didn't think I had the position to call it as truth.

[pinemom]

The only racism I ever see is Purple People....

For some reason one of your camp mates comes into camp covered in head to toe Purple glitter, purple person....Get alot of crap for it!

So dont go PURPLE GLITTER! you will be ostracized..huh Box?

[gaminwench]

In our camp of 40 burners, the (only)black woman cracks a serious whip....

[Simon of the Playa]