I wrote this as a response to a  post on a Burning man group on Facebook.

The original question was:

Max Smallpenguin

Am I sensitive or is BM mainly a white folk thing?

There were several posts back and forth... I finally posted this:

My experiences at Burning Man have been the most beautiful and the most horrible. Everything is extreme there. Are there clueless racist folks who said stupid racist shit to me when I was there? Yes. Were there awesome loving amazing folks who were German, French, Caucasian American, Asian , Bi racial, Tri racial Quadriracial(whatever that is) who adored me, helped me when I was lost, danced with me, laughed with me, shook their asses on art cars with me, and are now my friends for life? Yes!!

Being a black person in this country you will have to deal with racism of all sorts. It still exists. I say this not with a chip on my shoulder, but as a reality of living in my skin. But the fact that at Burning man there is freedom of expression love and acceptance...now that is freeing. I choose to love. Even those who don't love me because of the color of my skin. I can still send them love, and that love just rebounds back to me. So if they are racist fuck them!

Focus on attracting loving friends at Burning Man and you will be blessed over and over again. Yes, I'm black and I like to go out to the dessert and play every once and and shake it. And that's okay.

Oh, on the color blind thing... to me that's funky. I'm a chef. I see all the different colors of the food I prepare and that diversity is not only healthy and beautiful to my eyes, but each color incorporates the vitamins an minerals into the various parts of my body that I need to be a healthy well rounded person.

When it comes to money, I don't want stock in just one type of company I wanna diversify! So when it comes to people, yes I see everyone's color and want to learn about people who may look different than me and have a different culture, and at the same time we can share so much as human beings. We may love the same types of food, or music or dance...whatever. Different folks give life so much spice. So no, I'm not color blind, I want to behold the beauty of all of the colors, cultures, races, tribes, vibes whatever.

And when I am the one black American at a party on the playa I can break all kinds of stereotypes. I can break any labels I want, that's the cool idea about Burning Man, you can be free if you want.

I strive to carry that freedom on in my life off the playa too.  Living in this country as a black person you must deal with racisim, and we are dealing with these issues as free black people.  Freedom.  We are free, freedom is now our birthright.  Yes.

J9