Curious what people are actually doing to help. Rather than just talking about it. Discourse is great. It lets off steam and does a doozy for moral accounting: we feel moral for talking about it, reducing the urge to actually take action. But without action, there is just more of the same. Disorganization, disaster, toxins, distressed and disregulated people doing what distressed and disregulated people always do. Going to party while the world burns isn’t only increasingly distasteful; it is also increasingly dangerous for everyone’s long-term survival.
From Karen
Long-time Burner. First-time caller.
I’ve been doing this since 1993, so perhaps I have finally reached the GET OFF MY PLAYA portion of my Burning Man career. My middle name is literally Karen. I can take it.
I keep wondering whether we are asking the right questions?
The Hawk Fire is burning in Washoe County. People are evacuating. Firefighters, first responders and emergency resources are already stretched. The Stallion Fire has burned tens of thousands of acres. Nevada is under a state of emergency.
Right now, thousands of us are arriving to build a temporary city of 50,000-ish people in one of the least accessible places imaginable.
I know Black Rock City has infrastructure. I know Burners practice Radical Self-Reliance. I know we bring our food, our water, our shelter, our generators and enough shit strapped to the tops of old RV’s to survive the apocalypse.
However, we do not bring everything.
We use Nevada’s roads. Hospitals. Ambulances. Firefighters. Law enforcement. Gas stations. Grocery stores. Emergency services. Those resources are not ours for the taking simply because we planned a party in the desert.
So maybe the question isn’t CAN we still go?
Maybe the questions should be:
Are we showing up for the right reasons?
Are we adding to a system that is already under extraordinary stress?
Are we taking resources that the people who actually live there may need?
Is this really and truly responsible?
Radical Self-Reliance is one of our core principles.
So is Civic Responsibility.
Burners are extraordinarily good at showing up. We build impossible things. Feed people. Bring water. Fix shit. Share what we have. Take care of strangers. I have watched us do it for more than thirty years. My tiny camp was built to do just exactly this and we do it 365 days a year.
I feel that this is one of those moments when showing up means asking what Washoe County needs from us before asking what we need from Washoe County.
Before we build our city, we pay attention to Reno.
Call me Karen.
Seriously. It’s my actual middle name.
)'(