The famous festival in Nevada has a policy of ‘inclusion’ yet you won’t see many ‘burners’ who are black. Is it unwelcoming, or are there other matters in play?

After three treks to Burning Man, the famously hedonistic festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, I must admit it: I am a black Burner. My black friends and family think I’m crazy for going to Burning Man. According to its own 2014 census, Burning Man is 87% white and 1.3% black. But while Burning Man founder Larry Harvey recently told me that the reason so few of us are here is because “black folks don’t like to camp as much as white folks”, the 20-odd black burners (plus one Chicano and one Latina) I interviewed during this year’s Carnival of Mirrors-themed festival had a more nuanced take. Some agreed with Harvey, but many had very different ideas about what keeps black folk from Black Rock City.

We black Burners hailed from several countries and included virgins and veterans. Below are excerpts from our conversations, as we chatted about white hippies, the great outdoors, the problems of black hair and skin in the unforgiving desert and everything in between.

Part one: why don’t black people go to Burning Man?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photo of Tyra Fennell (-Fifi Pickford-) supplied by Fennell Burning Man 2015. Photograph: Tyra Fennell

First-time burner Tyra Fennell (Burner name Fifi Pickford), San Francisco/Valhalla camp

Maybe you’ll find some people of color, but generally speaking, this is not our bag. I had to think about the dust in my hair! I think we need to acknowledge that white people have culture too. And I don’t feel like it’s segregationist. I just think there’s certain things that white culture gravitates to.

Craig Lee AKA Big Happy, San Francisco/Black Rock Roller Disco camp, four-time burner

I love Burning Man! But most of the black people who came out of the hood I grew up in think this shit’s crazy. My family saw a picture of me dressed up out here wearing a tutu, and had an intervention when I got home because they thought I was gay: I just loved dressing up! Back home, I was probably one of the most conservative, stick-up-the-ass people you could have known. But when I first came here I was like, “What the fuck?” I loved it.

Dug Claxton, Toronto, Canada/crew of Smoke and Mirrors installation, five-time burner

If I can generalize, black people do not gravitate towards things that make them uncomfortable. My dad took us camping as a family, from coast to coast in Canada. I don’t think we came across very many black people along the way. But there’s no lack of black people in the arts, so I don’t know why that’s not represented here.

Ashara Ekundayo, Oakland, California/Que Viva! camp, first-time burner

There are massive amounts of white folks. You don’t know if anyone has your back. It’s expensive to buy a ticket and then you have all the things you need to buy to be out here. This is an extreme experience! And, there’s the fact that some really horrific things have happened to people of colour out in the wilderness.

Nicholas Powers AKA Honey Shot, Brooklyn, New York/People of Color camp, 12-time burner

I first went to Burning Man in 2002. I was afraid when I saw them burning down this man. I thought they were going to throw me on the fire! The white people were going so crazy. And after “the man” was torn down, there was all this protest about the War on Terror. Someone held an American flag over the ruins, and the heat just incinerated it.

Favianna Rodriguez, Oakland, California/Que Viva! camp and Migration is Beautiful art project, four-time burner

Favianna Rodriguez. Photograph: Alexander Heilner

Even as progressives, we don’t think about how to experience the universe through pleasure. And the problem is that fun and leisure have become the domain of white people. And that’s how white supremacy works. It disconnects ourselves from our bodies, so that we grow to believe we are only here to be productive citizens. But our lives have value regardless of how “productive” we are.

Nicholas Powers

There’s a sense of survivor’s guilt in pleasure for any group of people who have endured some nightmare, from genocide to dire poverty. We have to ask: Am I betraying my people if I have pleasure with white people here? Interracial sex or even just a pleasurable conversation? The McKinney pool incident this summer reminded us of the danger which lurks when white and black people try to share a common medium, like water, for fun. The medium here is dust, not water, but it still connects people in pleasure.

Christopher, Las Vegas, Nevada/Black Roller Disco camp and Soul Train art car, veteran burner

I opened up for Eddie Murphy in 1987 with my puppet act. A comedian there told me that Richard Pryor was going fishing with some white people, and he was afraid for him, because fishing is “not what black people do.” There’s a certain mindset, when you see white people doing things, where you think, “I better stay away from that.” It could be hereditary, from when you absolutely did have to stay away from things white people did.

Oree Originol, Oakland, California/Que Viva camp, two-time burner

It’s hella white! The type of music is mostly techno, and there’s a perception people of color aren’t into that genre. But the main reason is that it’s a lot of money. I got a free ticket, and I was able to bring my art to the playa to share. There’s a project I have been doing called Justice for Our Lives, a portrait series of people from marginalized communities who have been killed by police. I’ve been able to make banners and install a bunch of prints around the playa of Mike Brown and Sandra Bland and Rekia Boyd and others.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark Adolph(-Leut-) – close up portrait Burning Man 2015. Photograph: Alexander Heilner

Mark Adolph AKA Leut, Seattle, Washington/Do More Now camp, veteran burner

It does have the feeling that I am infiltrating white people at play. That can feel off-putting to a lot of black people, who might be looking for a black experience and can’t find it here. I live in Seattle, so I live in a white world. I’m more comfortable with it. But my family comes from the Bahamas, where they have the Junkanoo festival. On Boxing Day at 4am there are people out in fabulous costumes and bands. I would love to have a Junkanoo parade right here in the middle of Black Rock City.

James Vanié, New York City, first-time burner

The majority of black people generally tend to stick to their own, as do white people. Some of my most memorable experiences in life have been created from being explorative, curious and naive. Burning Man resonates with me because of that.

Jamila Reddy, Los Angeles, California/Que Viva! camp, three-time burner

I think of that phrase, “Don’t block your blessing.” Don’t buy the stereotype that black people can’t handle being dirty. Go out into the woods and look up at the stars! To let go of that because you don’t want to sweat your perm out? It’s fine out here as long as you’re diligent about moisturizing. (Laughing) I’m not supposed to want to camp because I am black? You should never let anyone keep you from doing what you want.

Part two: Why black burners love Burning Man

Cheryl Dunn AKA Mama Spark, Oakland, California/Black Rock Roller Disco camp, four-time burner

The first time I came to Burning Man, I didn’t sleep for three days straight. I just stayed up in awe. This place is family, it was like coming home. I grew up in Oakland. I knew I had to fit in somewhere, and when I came here, I was like: “Oh my God! This is it.”

Do I worry about my hair here? Fuck it! I get it relaxed and it does whatever it’s got to do. Black folks don’t come because they don’t know about it and they don’t want to know about it.

Tony Edwards AKA OhTony, Los Angeles, California/Que Viva! camp, 14-time burner

I was dating a girl from Switzerland and she turned me on to electronic music. That’s a big draw for me now. And then there’s just the playa, the beauty of the weather, and the mountains, and the dust. I ended up meeting several women here and the last one became my wife. We got married here.

Ashara Ekundayo, Oakland, California/Que Viva! camp, first-time burner

I’m a curator of a gallery in Oakland called Omi, and the opportunity to observe the creation of such grand and sometimes grotesque exhibitions really appealed to me. And the turning to ritual appeals to me. Also, despite the stereotype that African American folk don’t camp, we have a long history of being in the wilderness. We know how to be outside, how to tend the land, how to fish. Think about how we ended up on this continent in the first place. People were working the land.

Tym Byers AKA Sophomore, New York City/Gymnasium camp, two-time burner

When I came here it blew my mind. I felt like when I went to Disneyland for the first time. And people don’t use online profiles here to connect. They don’t sit behind a screen and type: “No black guys.” They are much more welcoming in saying hello, and giving you a hug, and striking up a conversation with you, gay or straight.

Ginger, New York City, virgin burner

It’s different than having to proclaim Black Lives Matter in New York. Here, everyone matters. Everyone is just so friendly, and one thing I like about here is that no one knows your profession. No one says, “I’m a doctor, I’m a big investor, I have money.” Everyone’s like: “Hey, welcome friend.”

Favianna Rodriguez

Many of us in Que Viva! camp – which includes United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, who is in her 80s – love Burning Man. It’s an experience to learn building skills for us to take back to our communities. That it is a majority white space can be tough to deal with, but it don’t let it affect me. I come here to have my own experience, which helps me understand what full liberation means – we need to speak out about the suffering in our communities. But it it also means that we go out and have fun. That’s such taboo in our activist space, to actually enjoy ourselves. Also, you have CEOS of major companies here. You have major culture changers here. Our ideas get to mix with their ideas here. And we get to have fun together.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steven Thrasher (-Thrasher-), supplied by Steven Thrasher Burning Man 2015. Photograph: Steven Thrasher/The Guardian

Steven Thrasher, New York City/Comfort and Joy camp, three-time burner

I stayed with a gay theme camp, Comfort and Joy. If I saw a gay bar that looked as white as this camp in the default world, I wouldn’t go into it. But they were so kind and welcoming. And when I told them I wanted to write about black people at Burning Man, all these white gays wanted to help me. They weren’t defensive. They told me about their concerns about diversity. Unlike so many gay spaces, which become beholden to banks and corporate sponsors, this camp was full of radical faeries dedicated to social justice, queerness, community and, yes, to fun. Much to my surprise, they taught me that there are white gay men who do actually care about Black Lives Matter. They’re just unsure of what to do about it.

Tyra Fennell AKA Fifi Pickford, San Francisco/Valhalla camp, first-time burner

I wish more black people would come here. It’s a really interesting dynamic of a giving culture. I always say, people who are really evolved don’t need organized religion to do the right thing. These people at Burning Man are kind of it. They’re on another wavelength, and you just feel it. So, that weeds out not just black people, but a lot of people.

David Miles III, San Francisco, California/Black Rock Roller Disco, virgin burner

My dad had been coming a long time and I had seen Burning Man on The Simpsons. I graduated from college a couple of years ago, and it was time. There is a lot unspoken in the normal social contract, and you get to examine this at Burning Man. Ideas as simple as that you wear clothes in public. You shouldn’t have to wear clothes, it should be more a form of expression.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamila Reddy - landscape - Black Lives Matter Burning Man 2015. Photograph: Alexander Heilner

Jamila Reddy, Los Angeles, California/Que Viva! camp, three-time burner

Burning Man helps me to see ways in which we’re caught up in the Matrix, which is essentially these socially constructed sets of principles, such as racism and homophobia. When I open a magazine and I see 20 blonde white women, I say, “Aha, that’s the Matrix!” I’ve grown up believing I have a life of scarcity. And there’s actually an abundance. It’s helped me dream big, and to see that if you have a powerful idea, it can come to fruition. I want to draw big murals in cities. Why not? Look at what’s going on out here. This is crazy – but it’s real.

Part three: How do black Burners experience race in the real (default in the parlance of the festival) world versus at Burning Man?

Craig Lee AKA Big Happy, San Francisco/Black Rock Roller Disco camp, four-time burner

Every problem you’ve been dealing with all year, as soon as I see the playa, that shit’s gone. It’s the one place on earth where they don’t care what colour you are. They just want to know, are you cool? If I didn’t know so many white people who did crazy things with hippies, I probably wouldn’t have undergone it.

James Wolfensberger AKA Kryon, Zurich, Switzerland, three-time burner

Race at Burning Man is very different than in the United States. This is a different galaxy. You go through the gates, and we’re all on the same playa. I’ve been three times to Black Rock City and once to AfrikaBurn. There aren’t many black people at Burning Man in South Africa either, but maybe a few more than here.

Tony Edwards

If you’re African American and you walk around in this country, there’s a certain tension that is always there: “Am I being scrutinized? Are the police looking at me?” Here, everything gets turned on its head. Because, who’s going to care? There’s a guy walking naked, and no one’s saying anything to him.



I used to say everyone at Burning Man is the same color – grey – but I was a bit naive back then. But there is that release from that constant stress of being black in America. I maybe got called “nigger” here once. But, hey, if I’m going to start remembering every time someone said “nigger” to me in 14 years, then that’s a whole other level of psychic tension that I don’t even need.

Romana Norton AKA Cleopatra Jones, Davis, California/Barbie Death Camp, four-time burner

I feel far more threatened on a daily basis at my own job at UC Davis than I ever do at Burning Man. There’s no threat here. I’ve never felt threatened here at all. But microaggressions, overt racism: I’ve experienced it all on campus. Burning Man is a reprieve for me in a lot of ways. It actually renews my faith in humanity, because it is pretty tough out there right now.

Christopher

I don’t know other black people’s experiences, but mine was getting to a point where I realised it’s not some greater power out there oppressing me in the default world. You get to go out and make your way. Race is not a big deal here. It’s not even enough of an issue to mention it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest James Vanié Burning Man 2015. Photograph: James Vanié

James Vanié, New York City, first-time burner

I work in an industry where minorities are few and far between. I have had to navigate social barriers in the workplace, some self-imposed. I can’t separate Burning Man too much from the default world because I spend most of my time with people that promote a lot of what Burning Man is going for. On the playa I ended up hanging out with two white guys from New Zealand and an Asian guy from Austria. Race was never discussed – only our vantage points of how we have experienced the world, geographically and philosophically.

Steven Thrasher

I don’t feel any more or less free at Burning Man than I do in the default world – there are a lot of rules here. I feel compelled to wear pants and no hat in New York. I feel compelled to wear no pants and a hat here. And I don’t feel any more or less black here. What I do feel is closer to whiteness, and a sense of guilt, in how racially and financially exclusive this place is, especially when I am coming and going.

I’ve always felt like a gross hypocrite preparing to “leave no trace” while raiding Reno like a prepper on my way to Black Rock City, engaging in more consumerism than I indulge in any other time of the year. But this year, I was aware of the stark racial differences. Except for the Burners, everyone in the Reno Wal Mart where I bought my supplies was Chicano. Every vendor on the road to the playa was Native American. Nearly every person at the Denny’s I ate at when we left was Chicano. Hardly any of those people will ever go to Burning Man.

Burning Man literally is a gated community. I don’t like myself for paying money to enter the gate to be in a racially exclusive space. But I do it.

Dug Claxton, Toronto, Canada/Crew, Smoke and Mirrors installation, five-time burner

Every time I step into the United States, I am dumbfounded by the death rates of black people in their interactions with law enforcement. And that doesn’t end going to Burning Man. Coming on to the playa this year, three minutes after hugging a naked greeter, our vehicle was pulled over by the police. It was dusk, and the official reason for the stop was that we didn’t have our tail lights on. This led to the officer saying, “I need all three of you to get out of the car and stand over there,” while a dog sniffed for drugs. There were no drugs to be sniffed, and I was just seething on the side of the road. That might have been racially motivated.

Tyra Fennell

White people have a lot of original wealth. They have a lot of support. They can be adventurous, they can make mistakes. So it frees them to experiment and to do thing like Burning Man, right? Whereas black people, we don’t have that luxury. We are working so hard to stay middle class, to stay on point, to fight societal norms that are against who we are. It’s just harder for us to have the luxury to do something so decadent as Burning Man. And that’s just what it is: decadent. You and I are probably privileged, and that’s why we’re here.

Vernon Andrews AKA Uncle Vern, San Jose, California/People of Color camp, veteran burner

When I saw other African Americans here I wanted to speak to them. But it was weird at first. I didn’t know if you should speak, or give a brother the head nod, so it was awkward those first couple of years. Then I thought, I needed to know who like me is here. So I began doing research on black burners, with a qualitative survey.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dug Claxton – dress Burning Man 2015. Photograph: Dug Claxton

Dug Claxton

I like to imagine a majority of people who come to Burning Man have slightly better attitudes about racial stuff. Back in 1999, I came and I had the best time! In 2000, I came, and it was a completely different experience. I think people were a lot more standoffish, and the reason I attribute to that is in 1999 I had dreadlocks and in 2000 I did not. And I think there is a friendly, hippie, bohemian negro idea that gets attached to having dreadlocks. I think when my hair looked like every other “scary black person” the white Americans are used to seeing in their movies and TV shows, people kept their distance. There were other reasons for it, but I didn’t come back until 2009, when I had dreads again.

Vernon Andrews

In researching black people at Burning Man, what’s surprised me is that most African-Americans who come here have a good experience and want to come back. If we can come here, and enjoy ourselves, and bring some friends, then quite possibly there’s some hope for slow change to happen. Burning Man is not for everyone. Maybe only 10% of white people who come to Burning Man will like it, and maybe only five or six per cent of African Americans. But if change can’t happen here, it’s not happening anywhere.

Nicholas Powers AKA Honey Shot, Brooklyn, New York/People of Color camp, 12-time burner

A few years ago, a Korean American friend organized a meeting at Burning Man only for people of colour. During that, I felt that the weight of race in the default world was just gone. The white people at Burning Man weren’t looking at me as a possible threat. If they were looking at me, it was in a totally different way - maybe as a fetish cultural object. But the WEB DuBois “double-consciousness” was gone. When I felt that weightlessness, I felt a relief, but I also felt a certain kind of sadness descend. It was like, wow! That’s how much weight I live under in the default world. And it made me wonder: How much does that constant weight shape me?

Marlon Williams, Brooklyn, New York/Chakralicious camp, five-time Black Burner

As a black man, I am always trying to make people more comfortable with me, so I can be less intimidating to them. To the point that I curve my shoulders and it’s hard to stand straight. On the playa this year, I had this moment where I lost my balance, and these two men held me, and helped me to straighten my back. I felt really beautiful, in support and solidarity.

Burning Man is a space where race still exists. It doesn’t disappear, but it’s a magic place. It doesn’t solve everything, but it helps you go through it. I had a night where I was dancing, and I was feeling beautiful and strong, and then I tried to to find a friend in their camp at a party, and a man came up to me and asked, “Are you with this camp? Security is here.” And I felt sad and dark and deflated. He used the word “security”, he said I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had triggered someone’s fear again. That could have broken me. But part of being here is being able to develop your own strength, to look at a person and say, “You are talking from your fear.” I went back to dancing, and I felt beautiful again.