What's Your Tribe? (page 2)

It occurred to me that my questioner also belonged to a "tribe" — the "white Anglo-Saxon tribe," perhaps even a sub-group — the wealthy Eastern college educated. I concluded that people tend to differentiate themselves tribally by race, ethnicity, religion, education, income, speech, food, song, games, sports, dance, social customs – a tremendous range of measures that can be used to define and delineate a special group.

But these tribal differences have consequences. For example, when today's young Blacks wear baggy pants and jackets imitating the garb worn in prisons, they are distinguishing themselves from others who do not follow their urban "street fashion." But what does this fashion communicate to the "other tribes?" Is the message received that such Black youth glorify criminals and want to emulate them? Or another example about language. When the Black Rap music uses language that vilifies women and their own mothers as whores or record songs that promote a life of violence, does this convey the impression that the U.S. Black tribe admires such anti-social values?

There are , of course, negative tribal values in the white society as well. When racists fly the Confederate flag out of their home windows or stick flag decals on their pick-up trucks, the message comes across as bigoted tribal symbol of those who extol the pre-Lincoln South of slavery and not-so-secretly embrace anti-Black views. Similarly, those white elite tribes who paternalistically encourage special academic indulgence for Black students are disdainfully suggesting that Blacks are inherently and genetically less intelligent. Of course, when young Blacks claim that book learning and academic excellence is "acting white," they are validating the prejudice of tribal whites.

These reflections cause me to ponder a number of questions. Who determines tribal values and where do they come from? To what extent is a tribal identity or label forced upon us by others rather than our imposing it upon ourselves? Are all "tribal" differences positive or negative? Are the differences accurate or untrue — and in whose eyes? Even more important, how much of the escalating strife and clashes among "tribes" today is based upon these differences?

I end with another perplexing question. Current genome studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that the genomic DNA structure among different species of monkeys and apes is extremely varied, much more so than among humans. The genomic difference between any two humans on earth is only one-tenth of one percent, while that of Orangutan apes is ten times that of humans. If mankind is 99.9 per cent identical genetically, despite skin color, hair, height, eye color etc., why do we persist in maintaining our tribal customs that keep us so separate and create so much human conflict, violence and warfare? Hindus vs. Muslims in India. Catholics vs. Protestants in Northern Ireland. Hutus vs. Tutsis in Burundi. Whites killing a Black in Jasper, Texas and Blacks killing a Jew in Brooklyn, New York. The appalling, unending list is global.

So, what is our tribe – man or monkey?