University of Virginia Library

Discrimination Forces Return To Tribal Past

people are sometimes forced by the
exclusiveness and discrimination
that has been practised against
them is provided by the recent
history of the American Negro.
Indeed, many American Negroes
have now come to reject that
description of themselves, and
prefer to be called, and call
themselves, Afro-Americans. They
regard the term "Negro" as a
pejorative one. That term, in their
view, fails to make sufficient
reference to the tribal origins of
Blacks. Hence, in reaction to white

exclusivism, which has prevented
them from becoming full
Americans, they propose to return
to their African past as something
with which they can genuinely
identify. Hence, the proliferations
of courses on African history,
African art, African languages,
African hairdress, and African attire
all being offered as means of
accomplishing what American
whites have for the most part
denied the American Blacks: a
self-image they can respect, and a
cultural background to which they
can look with pride, and from
which they can go forward as a
separate but equal tribe within
United States.

Desirable as all these things are,
and important as I for one regard
the teaching of African history to
all students, and understandable as
the American Negro's development
of an interest in his cultural origins
may be, that interest seems to me
to have been generated by and for
the wrong reasons. What that
reaction represents is little more
than a counter-reaction to the
tribalism of the white. This seems
to me a tragic folly. By all means
let us have the fullest teaching of all
things African. As an
anthropologist I can vouch for both
the value and the quality of African
culture, but let no one make the
mistake of assuming that the resort
to tribalism on the part of the
American Negro is going to solve
anyone's problems, any more than
tribalism anywhere in the world has
solved any problem.

Surely, the proper approach in
the contemporary world to the
solution of the problems of group
misunderstanding and group
conflict is not separatism and the
creation of barriers, but the
breaking down of the sense of
tribalism, of separateness, of
barriers; not the creation of new
nations, but the creation of new
commonwealths of nations with the
ideals of amity, not the enmity, of
nations in view, until the objective
is achieved of a genuinely
functioning United Nations.

The followers of Martin Luther
King carried signs which simply
stated, "I am a man." Not a black
man, not a white man, not a lodge
man, not a separate man - just a
man. That, being man, is
responsibility enough. And the
question of questions is not
whether this people is better than
others, or that the member of such
and such a group is better than the
members of other groups, but
whether the individual in any and
every group, by virtue of the fact
that he is a man, has a right to his
birthright: the optimum fulfillment
of his potentialities as a human
being.

If, as there are, many
tribalists who not only refuse to
grant, but do everything in their
power to abort, the right to human
development of millions of their
fellow men, counter-tribalism is not
going to cure them of their
tribalism; it is much more likely to
solidify it and make it more
intransigent. It is true that it is
difficult and disheartening to talk
to so many deaf ears for so long
with so little result, and not lose
patience, and it is perhaps too easy
for us who are not Negroes to talk
of patience. How long is
"patience"? Nevertheless, it is
necessary for those of us who
believe that tribalism is evil and the
wrong approach to what is called
"the race problem" or "the Negro
problem" to make the case against
tribalism unequivocally clear.

There is neither a "race" or a
'Negro" problem, but there very
definitely is a white man problem,
and he, the white man, is the
Negro's problem. Until the problem
of white tribalism is solved we shall
make no significant progress in
human relations, in so-called "race
relations." The "white man"
problem will not be solved by
affording him an even more defined
and delimited segregate as a
whetstone upon which to sharpen
his wits for further scapegoating.

It is also true that one of the

few things that the white man
understands is physical force. This
precisely is the reason why the
white man should not be provided
with any further opportunities for
the exercise of that dreadful
understanding.

It should be abundantly clear
from the long, and particularly the
recent, history of tribalism that it
constitutes a highly destructive
form of group behavior which in
the contemporary world should
receive every possible kind of
discouragement. The brainwashed
flag-waving patriot, as a
consequence of repeated
conditioning, is automatically
bathed in a broth of glandular
secretions and stimulated to
neuromuscular reactions at the very
sight of "the flag" or upon hearing
any of the tribal anthems. He will
react in the same way when "the
honor" of his tribe is challenged,
and will think of such
neurohumoral reactions as "love of
country," or whatever other
substitute for thinking with which
he may be inclined to react. The
tribalist may genuinely believe that
he loves his country, and therein
lies the great danger of such beliefs,
for in the name of "love of
country" he may do his country
irreparable harm.

Man may not learn from history;
nonetheless it is evident to some
that in the recent history of
mankind, at any rate, it has been
the tribalistic mentality that has
created so much havoc in the
world. The English "Hang the
Kaiser," the German "Gott Strafe
England," the English "A Land Fit
For Heroes," the American "The
World Made Safe For Democracy,"
- all tribalistic shibboleths of the
First World War, not one of which
was realized, and only for the most
part the contraries were established,
haunt the memories of those who
lived through that unspeakable and
wholly unnecessary slaughter of the
innocents.

The fabricated atrocity stories
were of the most evil and malignant
kind. In the Second World War the
fabrications became the terrible
realities. The tribesmen came to
believe the lies their leaders had
indoctrinated them with, and given
the opportunity avenged themselves
upon the unspeakable enemy that
could be guilty of such crimes.

The tribalistic psychosis is such
that it readies the tribalistically
conditioned mind to receive
without critical examination any
statement which called upon it for
instantaneous tribalistic reaction.
The critic, indeed, under such
conditions is considered suspect,
disloyal, and anathema. During
World War I Bertrand Russell was
jailed for protesting the es with
which the tribal leaders of England
were deceiving the British public.
During recent days he has been
ridiculed and condemned for
initiating an international
examination of the guilt of Mr.
Johnson in connection with the war
in Vietnam. The tribalists, of
course, would far prefer that
nothing at all were said upon such
matters if it cannot be put in
supportive tribalistic language. It
matters not that Russell, in every
position he adopted and
courageously stood by in spite of
the barking of all the dogs of St.
Ernulphus, during the First and
Second World Wars, and in
connection with the Vietnam war,
was invariably right. His views were
in opposition to those of the
tribalists, and he therefore had to
be repudiated and chastised.

I cite the case of Bertrand
Russell because he is indisputably
one of the great benefactors of
humanity. He stands as
representative of many others of
perhaps lesser fame, who have often
been made to suffer ever greater
injustices and indignities than those
visited by the tribalists upon
Russell.

The beat of the tribal drums is
recognized for what it is by those
who have retained their ability to
think for themselves. They decline
to yield to the hypnotic effect of
the martial clamor, to fall in and
march with the herd. It is a kind of
independence of the spirit the
world stands much in need of.
While there are today more
individuals of this genre than ever
before, we need to produce more of
them if we are ever to be rid of the
spirit of tribalism. How may this be
accomplished? Principally, I would
answer, through education in the
schools.

But how is such education to be
introduced into the schools? Are
not schools among the most
tribalistic of institutions as they are
today constituted? They are,
indeed, and as long as they
continue to be organized as they
are and motivated by their present
value system, there is little hope to
be expected from this quarter.

Where, then, is the requisite
education to come from? I think it
must continue to come where it has
always come from, namely, from
such teachers outside the schools as
Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther
King, Albert Schweitzer an those
who write and speak on social,
political, international, and related
problems; those, in short, who
freely discuss the tribalism of our
day, and what, if anything, can be
done about it. They are the people
who essentially clarify the issues,
and thus make it possible for the
individual to judge them on their
merits, and to arrive at his own
decisions of conscience in regard to
them.

Everything should be done to
encourage freedom of debate and
discussion in the schools and the
colleges, and, indeed, everywhere
possible.

If we can secure a sufficiently
wide discussion on tribalism, that
will, I believe, more than anything
else, open the understanding of
people to its dangers, and
constitute, at least, a first step in
the right direction.