"Racism" & Group Psychosis

[H2O Man]

“I would like to draw a distinction here between racism and tribalism. Tribalism is a better description of our group psychosis.

“In our societies, people are conditioned along tribal lines. I use the word ‘tribalism’ because racism presupposes that there is more than one race of people on this planet. That is just another lie that we live with. There is only one race of people, the human race. We all belong to it. The drawing of artificial distinctions among people, and skin color is the most artificial of all, is the result of tribal conditioning. Tribes attempt to ensure the survival of people who look like them, act like them, smell like them, talk like them, or believe like them at the cost of any other segment of humanity. A tribal mentality divides people into opposites, black and white, French and English, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, or any other unconscious way that divisions can be made. Only in the example of language and religion are the differences more than superficial, although still not meaningful.”
-- Dr. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter; Eye of the Hurricane; Lawrence Hill Books; 2011; pages 113 - 114.


The discussion of certain topics on DU:GD tends to result in arguments and hostility. These topics include the “-isms,” such as racism and sexism. In part, the disagreements are rooted in the models that people use to define these issues. Those models have an impact upon the way various individuals perceive and experience the world around them. Too often, of course, these result in an “us versus them” concept of the larger society.

The behaviors associated with those perceptions and experiences may change over time, but their flavor is often identical. For example, Eugene “Bull” Connor was the poster boy for the violence that grows from hatred in the south in the 1960s; while Patrick Buchanan was a White House fixture in the 1970s and ‘80s. Yet both were motivated by the thought that non-white people were intent upon becoming full citizens of the United States. Each projected their personal pathologies upon non-white people, and were haunted by their own paranoid delusions that white folks would be victimized.

The model that Rubin used to understand both group and individual behaviors was “tribalism.” His second book addresses this in the above quote. He spoke at length about it at two of the public presentations that I was with him for ( Colgate University on February 27, 2001, and Binghamton University on April 25, 2001). I think that it has value, although it will not replace the various concepts of “racism” that different people use.

In part, I suspect, his perceptions were based upon his being incarcerated for 20 years. I remember that Malcolm X often said that prisons were second only to universities, in offering an opportunity for education. Not surprisingly, our nation’s prison-industrial complex provides a somewhat different view of the phenomena of “racism” than even a university department that studies prisons adheres to.

This does not mean that one is “right” and another is “wrong.” Just the opposite. For there are often more than one way of understanding any human behavior -- especially those with long and ingrained histories. Likewise, some beliefs are simply wrong. For example, I recently read parts of a discussion about racism on another internet site. One gentleman insisted that Native Americans had a long history of racism, before 1492. Sad that anyone would publicly reveal such gross ignorance; pathetic that he believes that nonsense.

Rubin used to say that there five large tribes: black, brown, red, yellow, and white. Each of these larger tribes contains numerous sub-tribes; for example, the English, French, and Germans. At various times, these sub-tribes go to war with one another -- WW1 and WW2 being obvious examples. Yet, he noted, if a non-white tribe was in conflict with any one of the white sub-tribes, the whites tended to unite to protect their own.

The larger white tribe would dominate the globe for many years, in large part by dividing and conquering the various non-white peoples of the earth. And the history of the last few centuries clearly supports that. The actual history of the conflict in Vietnam, if we consider it from WW2 on, provides an interesting example of how that process worked -- at least for a while.

The tragic, and often confusing conflicts that we witness around the globe today are often rooted in tribal and sub-tribal identifications. The post-WW1 and WW2 maps that were drawn exist primary in people’s minds. Like “race,” they are not realities in the natural world, and quite simply do not exist anywhere outside of people’s minds.

Is there “racism” in America today? Yes, of course. It is entrenched deep within the minds of many human beings. That “race” is a construct that exists only in some people’s minds, does not reduce the terrible damage that racism does. And that is true, even when racism becomes more institutionalized in our society, and racists believe themselves more sophisticated than old Bull Connor.

Perhaps one advantage of using the model of tribalism is that it might allow us the opportunity to move more people beyond accepting the group psychosis that Rubin spoke of. It might allow people of good will the chance to identify the causes of some of the inequalities that exist in the United States today, when we face problems so profound -- such as climate change -- that we no longer have the luxury of remaining invested in, or victims of, racism ….or any of the other “-isms” that are a product of diseased thinking.

Peace,
H2O Man