You may have heard of Burning Man, the wild arts and music festival held in the Nevadan Black Rock Desert. The first of the ten principles of Burning Man is its "radical inclusion". However, whether or not this principle is acted on is thrown into doubt by the Black Rock City census, which says that festival goers self-identify as 87 per cent white, six per cent Hispanic, six per cent Asian, two per cent as Native American and just 1.3 per cent black.

Pressed as to why he thought the festival may have work to do to make the event more inclusive, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey told the Guardian: "I think it’s a little much to expect the organisation to solve the problem of racial parity. We do see a fast-increasing influx of Asians, black folks. I actually see black folks out here, unlike some of our liberal critics."

Harvey went on to reference a previous time he was criticised for saying, "I don’t think black people like to camp". Pressed to explain the comment, Harvey said, "Remember a group that was enslaved and made to work. Slavishly, you know in the fields. This goes all the way back to the Caribbean scene, when the average life of a slave in the fields was very short. And, so, there’s that background, that agrarian poverty associated with things. Maybe your first move isn’t to go camping. Seriously."

Harvey is adamant that he is not talking out of line and describes his family as "biracial" – his ex-wife is Jamaican and his son is mixed race. Harvey also claims that his stepson has suffered racial discrimination at the hands of police.

The festival founder hit out at a "black, lesbian" diversity consultant that Burning Man hired who he believed was simply ticking boxes and failing to truly represent the black community. "She lived in a white nonprofit world," he said.

Asked whether or not he’d be looking to improve racial representation at the festival, Harvey argued that it would be patronising to do so. "We’re not going to set up a Marxist state. We see culture as a self-organising thing. And we’re unwilling to impose and mandate behavior from the outside, we want to generate change from the inside."