Yea, that's so cool! My partner was volunteering at Playa Info. But yea, I met the founder of POC Camp at the end of my 1st burn last year. At that moment, I decided to help build actual infrastructure for the camp (it was just 4 people or less for the past 4 years.) Basically, POC Camp is a lil sister/brother camp to Que Viva! Camp "Our camp is called Que Viva! camp, is dedicated to social change, both off and on the Playa, bringing artists, activists and issues like immigration and racial justice to the playa in a celebratory, magical, Burning Man way." The founder of POC Camp wanted a place for activist minded activities / workshops and play. I wanted to moreso build a space where POC on playa can gather and find each other in an obvious way. Our ideas don't really conflict each other and we had a camp of 16 people this year, which is 4x anything done before. We tested 2 workshops: Whine and Wine, a forum for non-poc to ask questions that'd be deemed inappropriate or insensitive over Wine (pretty successful.) and Soul Force: Why Black People are Magic, an exploration of black activists history in America (turned into an explanation session about why America cant give up guns to an Australian man.) Other than that, we were burning like everyone else and it was a great time. Half the camp were burgins and all want to come again next year. I also noticed this year that more people of color were at the burn than my 1st. Non-people of color response to the camp was interesting. Some sensitive people felt they were somehow excluded even though almost 1/3 of the camp was non-poc. One of our burgins, that was trying to bring more people in for Whine and Wine, was told to go home because of the topic. Interesting behavior. This year there was an incident where a long time (10+) and one few black Rangers was tackled by a Pershing County Officer while diffusing a situation started by a jackass in DPW.
Dude, this is incredible! Especially the Whine and Wine. What day(s) did you hold the event? I'm really happy to hear that the camp was so successful this year. What did you do to recruit and increase the numbers? Can you explain in more detail the conversation with the Australian man? I heard several stories about how DPW guys were being assholes. A guy in our camp was telling us about how a couple of them were harassing him as he was trying to set up camp. I wonder, was the population this year much greater than last? If so, perhaps the stress of setting up that much more got to them.
Sorry for the late reply, Whine and Wine was Thursday from 7PM, Soul Force was Wednesday 4PM. Actually, most of camp was 1 degree of separation from myself. I recruited others from NYC burner happy hours, others came from Que Viva! overflow, and the African singers were friends of Uncle Vern. We are developing an action plan to reach 25-30 person camp in 2017. Well, he genuinely couldn't understand why people of the African diaspora would want to retain their historical identity and culture developed in parallel to Western and "white" culture. He felt we should give up and just assimilate. DPW has kinda always had the "we're badass and hardcore" thing. Well, the population can't really increase anymore because of 447. Their workload doesn't really increase unless the city itself does. They're building the same things each year.
Congrats on the recruiting man. I think I'll stay at The Dump for a while, but if ever the opportunity arises to join POC, may I? What race was the Australian man? I recently watched an interview with trumpeter Christian Scott where he proposed an idea to create gun reform. He suggested that 10,000 black men in each major city rally together and sign up to carry guns. That'd light a fire under the scared white folk to create gun reform laws. Is using fear a morally correct tactic to create something necessary? I'm not sure, but it's certainly an idea. What's 447?
Hell yea! Just dont be a dick (Rule#2) White Guy Well, thats how gun legislation started in America. The Black Panthers would open carry and it scared the white people. Highway 447, the 2 lane highway we all use to get there.