I am really, seriously annoyed with Burning Man, at the moment, and am not so sure that I'm going to ever be in a forgiving mood, after this.
I went onto ePlaya. You know, ePlaya, that place where the most offensive and outrageous stuff you'll ever see in print shows up, and is left there because "we don't censor"? Well, they do. Somebody calling for a war of extermination against my Mother's people? That was OK. My suggesting that driving those who know how to build thermonuclear weaponry into such a state of rage and despair that they'd work for anybody who'd get them out of the poverty into which they'd been thrust might be kind of dangerous? Intolerable. That had to be stopped, right away.
Truly, sensitivity worthy of a Klansman.
Somebody was talking about how he couldn't make it to Burning Man this year, I offered a little reality about what the long term implications of being poor were, and the likely consequences that this was going to have for the future of the West. Much whining about negativity followed from the rich kids, and after I talked back to some of the more condescending ones, found that I had been banned from the forum.
I don't take kindly to censorship or classism, or racism, either, for that matter, and I've been treated to all three by a community that dares to talk about its commitment to "radical inclusion". As long as those who are included are rich, Christian and white, I guess, with the rest of us expected to be properly grateful for being allowed to breath.
If that's how the community thinks, then I don't need to volunteer my time for that. Until I'm given a real reason to think that this isn't how burners think, I'm locking up this and my other groups, and spending my time on something more worthwhile.
