What If Calling It Tribalism Changed Everything

Racism is usually treated like a simple diagnosis: some people are “racist,” end of story. We’re not satisfied with that framing, because it rarely changes minds or behavior. So we grab a glass of Moscato and dig into a sharper lens we heard from Neil deGrasse Tyson: what we call racism often starts as tribalism, an ancient human instinct to bond with people who feel familiar and to distrust the “other.” That idea doesn’t excuse harm, but it gives us something we can actually work with and it opens a path toward real accountability without instant moral shutdown.

We talk about why labeling people as “bad” tends to backfire, and why separating actions from identity can be a powerful reset. From kids being casually cruel at school, to boys navigating a narrow definition of masculinity, to adults forming workplace tribes and ranking human worth by status, money, education, and looks, the same pattern keeps showing up: we sort, we exclude, we justify. The question becomes how to keep the comfort of belonging without turning it into demeaning, degrading, or minimizing someone else.

Then we zoom out to the bigger forces that know exactly how to exploit tribal instincts. When politicians and media convince us another group is threatening our tribe, division becomes the product and the most powerful people keep winning while we stay distracted. We connect that to the real-world cost of “othering,” from immigration cruelty to global public health choices that can raise the stakes for outbreaks like Ebola and the return of preventable diseases when vaccination rates drop.

If you’re tired of culture-war scripts and want a more honest conversation about human nature, polarization, and what we can do next, listen now. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves deep talks, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Summer Catch-Up And Moscato

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome to Life 110. Hello, friends and family. It is Angela and uh Vanessa. Happy summer, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I think we're in the thick of it. We are, and we're actually doing our podcast episode with a nice glass and moscato in our hands. It's gonna get wild, folks. Just kidding. Come on. Everybody knows Moscato is like super weak.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I did not know that. Until you told me that. My girlfriends like Moscato, and I'm like, you guys are like so ghetto.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

It is it's like it's like a fancy wine cooler, Angela.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Fancy wine cooler. Um, anyway, I hope you guys are having as much fun as Vanessa and I are having. So this one probably we'll we'll we'll laugh a little bit more, I think. Uh so let's get down to it.

A New Lens On Racism

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Um when I walked in to Vanessa's house, I said, I have a topic. I have a topic I want to discuss. And um, let me give you the backstory. Last night I was listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think everybody knows who he is, this amazing astrophysicist. He's so many more things. He's so many. He's amazing. He's like a rock star. He took science and made it so cool and everything. Um, he and the other person, I can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Um the science guy. Science guy, yeah. What is his name? Uh from ah, my kids love him. They've watched him on anything. Well, it'll come to it. It rhymes. Science guy. Okay, it rhymes. Anyway, Bill Nye.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Bill Nye the side. Bill Nye, science guy. Um, so he um Neil was on, I'm calling him Neil like I know him. Neil, my buddy Neil was on um a talk show. And the host, Shannon Sharp, some of you might know who he is. Um, he just had an infamous little little bout of of what it happens when you're a celebrity and you like young, very young women. Those of you who know.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I think they always like very young women. It just it boggles the mind, but okay. Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, cheers. Um, so anyway, not to no throwing no shade to the young women. That's so funny, though. I'll say that later. Uh anyways. It's the Moscato. It's the Moscato. Hey, we need to know the name, so maybe they'll endorse us. We can start getting endorsements.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

They've they might they might pay us to not drink their Moscato.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

No, okay, okay, okay. Um, anyway, so let's get serious. So Shannon Shark asked Neil a question. He said, What about racism? Can you explain racism? Yeah, racism. And Neil said something that I never thought of. He said, It's not racism, it's tribalism.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

And I said, Okay,

Tribalism As An Evolutionary Survival Tool

SPEAKER_01 3:03

explain that. And he started to, he started explaining it with um just giving giving us facts that we were all our ancestors started off in the savannah, yeah, in Africa. For those of you who do not know.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

I'm sorry if this is the first time we're breaking your bubble that all life started in the cradle of Africa.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yes. And he said that when when our we know when our ancestors were there, what happened is we obviously gravitated and developed tribes. And that's how we survived. And so instinctly, it is still within us to gather with like-minded and also people that look like us and have an affinity for those people and see anything or anyone outside of that as a threat.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yes. Because often they were, right? Like if you think about it, when humans originally were, you know, fighting for control or whatever over the environment, et cetera, we were basically just warring factions from the beginning of time. It wasn't like a peaceful human evolution was never peaceful, of anything, right? As soon as we could make weapons, we made weapons. Like it's been, it has been, we we walled ourselves off, we created giant forts, we've we've this has been a thing. So um, tribalism is in fact, I think, also an evolutionary force that kept us safe from warring others. Yeah. Yeah, understood.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So it it served the purpose back then. It's absolutely a purpose. What I was thinking was, I'm wondering, would it be different if we started to have conversations more about the tribal piece of it in the sense of no, I'm not, I'm not racist. I just I just like the people that look like me, um, that believe what I believe, I'm I'm comfortable around them, I feel safe around

Separating Actions From Identity

SPEAKER_01 5:15

them. Okay, I know what's going on. Let me let me say it like this. So you so if someone goes to a therapist, um, this person has commitment issues. Yeah. They get into relationships right before it's time to get engaged or get married, they ghost a person, right? And one day that person wakes up and says, you know what, there's something freaking wrong with me. I need some help. Let me figure this out. So they go to the therapist and they discover that this fear of commitment comes from the fact that their mother abandoned them when they were a child. Yeah. So now you know where your actions stem from. Exactly. So you can do something about it. So you can do something about it. Yeah. And then you're you're not a bad person. Correct. Because the person you're ghosting or leave at the altar, you're horrible. You're a horrible human being. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

What you are is in fear. Yeah. So I Angela, I absolutely adore this concept and the way of looking at this because I think that the reason where we are where we are at today with politics and how divided our country has become was because we, and I I'm gonna say collectively, society, made people feel bad about who they were or their thought about their tribalism. Yes. So because people were made to feel bad about their tribalism, and it was construed to you are racist, you are a bad person, even though in their minds they're like, no, I'm not racist. I'm not a lot of times, it's not people who have racist actions rarely think of themselves as racist, right? They don't, they don't think of themselves, it's not part of their identity. Right. They just don't understand that the things that they might do could be construed or are racist actions, right? And that's the the and I think that it's just like when your kids do something wrong and you call them a bad boy. No, you are a boy who did something wrong. You are not a, you know what I mean? Like you're not a bad person. You just did something wrong. It's not, it's you have to separate the action from the person. And I think tribalism and defining it that way gives you the opportunity to do that and gives them the opportunity to separate their actions and what they're doing from who they are as a person. So they're not bad. They're just behaving in a way that was evolutionary advantageous to them.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And is comfortable to them. And now they have to, we all have to recognize it and step out of it. Yes. And try to reach out of our tribe and grab and and hold on to the things that we do have in common because outside of tribalism, outs when you have a tribe, you can all have the same, all these things, but I still think you have more in common with other people than you do with the people uh with that that are the specific cultural or or social or whatever construct of your tribe.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah. Absolutely. You do, you do. Now, I I I know, so I'm gonna be very clear. There are people who do very bad things. Correct. Um, and what I'm saying is it's out of fear. And and maybe for some people it's pure hatred. I you know, there are some just awful people. Let me not let me not take take that off the table. Correct. My thought is just that if I could say, you know what, I don't want white people at the cookout, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Does that make me a bad person? No, it makes you because you're comfortable and you want to be able to be yourself and have all the the things that make your group of people and culture and friend group and family or whatever, you you feel safe. And you want to let it out and be safe. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Absolutely, right? And I can still be very happy and excited about a barbecue, yeah. Which is a white thing, which is a white thing. I can still like, hey, yeah, we can have a barbecue where we're all come together. That is cool too. Yeah. And also being in my tribe does not give me permission or the okay to demean, degrade, or minimize you. Exactly. Like, I don't need to attack you. Correct. Because it's not, it's not a better than. It's not a I'm my tribe is better than your tribe. I my people are more valuable than your people.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

No, we are equal. Yeah, I I kind of liken it to I wish it could be a little bit more like uh sports, right? Where people are like, I'm a like like I am a diehard Yankees fan, or I'm a diehard, you know, Giants fan, whatever, right? And they have their fun and they are who they are, and they wear paint on their chest and they write and they like this is their people. But then they leave the game and then they're going out and they still have drinks with the people on the other side, right? Like you that's good sportsmanship. That's good sportsmanship, yeah. Like, but that and I feel like it's that kind of thing. It's it's okay to be with and comfortable with your group of people. Absolutely. Um, it's why women love having groups of women and having, you know, girls' nights. Girls' nights, exactly, because you're comfortable. It's just you. You're not your your your goal is to be with each other, not to. I mean, depending on some girls' nights, they do want to go out and attract other men, right? But but you know, many times a girl's night is just all about you just want to be with your girls.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

You want to celebrate what it is to be uh a woman, exactly like about all those things that come along with it. Yeah, and yeah, sometimes it's male bashing depends if somebody's on a breakup or something, but typically it's just it's that connection, it's just wanting to sit with someone of like mind and someone who has experienced some of the same life experiences that you have had. That does not make it bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Um, yeah, I don't know. I'm just like, could it, could we what would happen if we looked at this totally different? Like, this is this is in our DNA. This is in our DNA. We can do this, we can we can have this affinity for our tribes, and we can also have respect and and and I don't want to say um not having the need to attack or

Othering At School And At Work

SPEAKER_01 12:20

degrade or diminish someone else. We don't have to other people. Correct. I read that the other day. Othering. Like what is othering? You just were talking, we're gonna talk about the video games next. Yeah. The othering that happens sometimes with your son.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, oh no, like I I was just yeah, it's it happens all the time in school, right? So, and because children are really good at being cruel, right? Kids are like they they've they know it because they haven't developed enough of that understanding that you know, when they behave in a certain way, how it's gonna affect other children, right? Like as you get older, you you kind of have a general understanding of how it should be and how you should be behaving, and and and you tend to tone it down. I think about some of the kids that were mean to me when I was a kid, and I met them like at my high school reunion 20 years after we graduated, and they were super kind to me. And you know, they don't apologize, no, I'm sure they totally didn't even remember. Yeah. So um, because you're a kid and you don't, you know, you're you could be totally mean to a kid and not even register and didn't even think about it, and it destroyed that child.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Absolutely, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Like absolutely destroyed them, and it was a Tuesday for you. Like you didn't even think about it, right? You just moved on. And so um, I and and we can do that as adults too, but I think kids even more so do that. Um, but boys in particular, sports is such a huge identity for them. For are you good at sports? Are you not good at sports? Do you like sports? And that's because men have a very, if a friend and I were talking about this the other day, men have a very narrow identity allowance. This is who you're gonna be when it comes to things that you're gonna like, things that you're gonna, women can do all kinds of things. They can be artists, and now they're allowed to be tomboys, right? Like girls can do all kinds of things. They can sew, they can paint, they can color, they can be doctors. You you too. You know, like there's so many things that girls can do. Soci like society has the the bandwidth is huge, I think, for girls. For boys, socially, yeah, there's jobs that they can do. Right. But who can they be? What types of uh things can they like? Are they allowed to want to sew? Are they allowed to want to quilt? Are they allowed to want to to um grow, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Like not without some getting some side eyebrows. Correct. And some raised eyebrows. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

That's what I'm saying. It's you, you, you get looked at it, and so where no one's gonna look at a woman if she does that. No, yeah, if a if a woman becomes a mechanic, she probably is gonna get, but then people are gonna celebrate her as being like a cool badass chick who also, right? Right. It's different for men when they step outside the line. Interesting, their masculinity is questioned. And for women, it's not. So I think it's um it's just challenging for boys. And it's that's one of the other things that led into the whole mammosphere thing. Like it's it's all, it's all, that's how they're so they're they're they're so vulnerable to it, is because when they don't meet the masculine definition of like this is an alpha male man, then you're you're in for a hard road. And you have to have a lot of support and adult, adult love and support and understanding to help guide you through that. So my son is one of those. He he doesn't even know how to play baseball. Literally, he doesn't understand the rules, doesn't know how, like he just doesn't play because he doesn't like sports at all. He does not want to watch it, doesn't want to play it, nothing, hates it. So he likes to do video games, but it's always been an other thing. Like so he's he gets othered by the boys because he's the nerdy, non-sportsy boy. But this happens all the time. It happens in workplaces. We have tribes amongst if you in large organizations, especially when you have special, like you're the IT guys, you're the sales people, right? Like it's they have different identities, different types of people, and then different levels of sometimes inherent value based on the determined value from the company, right? And that contributes.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

I think we do that to each other. We do I think we do that to each other. Like, you know, doctor has more value than nurse, you know, nurse practitioner has more value than you know, nurse. Yep. And and I'm just using the medical field, but we do that just throughout life. Absolutely. We other people and we elevate people and and determine a person's value on what they do, how much money they have, and how much education they have, um, even what they look like. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

The higher echelon of people that look good, that have nice clothes, you know, all that stuff. And so I I think that this whole concept of looking at the way that we behave um as tribalism and not an inherent character flaw would be incredibly constructive because I think that we are where we are because we didn't do that for so long and we told people they were bad.

unknown 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And when you tell people you're bad for something you believe, if you believe in the right in in pro if you are pro-life and that is a sacred thing to you, that is your right to. I mean, fine, that's your belief. I don't agree with it, but that is your uh opinion, right? Right. That doesn't make you a bad person to me.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

No, no, it's it's separating that from the human being. Exactly. Like first and foremost, we are interconnected, we are human beings, we are species, we are one, we're one. Yeah, everything else is secondary to that. Yep. So it's an opinion, it's a belief system. Um the I think that the the greatest challenge is acknowledging that and not uh disliking you for not believing as I believe, yeah, and not having the values that I have, saying my values are much more important than yours. Um, my belief system is is the right belief system. I mean, we've been doing this forever. Oh, yeah. We've just been doing it forever. Knowing that, hey, this is something that is just in my DNA. Yeah, exactly. Something in my DNA gives, I feel like it's very empowering because it's giving you the chance to change it. Yeah, you don't have to be a slave to it. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You

How Power Uses Fear To Divide

SPEAKER_00 19:10

can evolve from that. Now, the thing that is scary and that drives tribalism as a weapon is when you are made to feel like one of the tribes is going to get something more than another tribe, or that one being stoked, fires being stoked by politicians, by media, by whatever. A thousand percent. A thousand percent that your tribe is a is being threatened by another tribe. And that is what is happening right now. And that is intentional. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

That is 100% intentional.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

That is what divides us. How are we more powerful? We are powerful when we are together.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

We're unstoppable.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Unstoppable. Um, and and I think America has done amazing things when we have stepped up and done things together. Yes. Um, and right now, the intent to divide us is there because you keep us divided, you keep us down. And who ends up winning out? We high the uh the upper echelon. Yeah, those are the top, top 1% bajillionaires making hundreds of billions of dollars. Bajillionaires. Those are the people that are currently pulling the puppet strings and making things better.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

That is nothing new, though. If you if you study history, you know that this is not a new game. They've been playing this game forever, not just in America. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. That's the game. You keep the masses at each other's throat, you distract them, and while we just fill our pots of gold, that's it. It's been happening forever. We can I like we have the power. We have the people always have the power. Yeah. The pe the multitude, the people, the population have the power.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

If you don't let them manipulate you into fighting for them instead of fighting against them. Exactly. And and when I say fight, I'm not saying we gotta like get guns and go out into the street. We do not have to do that. In fact, that is probably what's going to happen if we continue letting them divide us. Yes. That is what's gonna happen because they're making it even more and more and more um uh impassioned and you know, just in violent in general and stoking that.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

I I saw a little light, a little light peek through the the dark tinted windows. I get a sense that people are waking up.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

I get a sense that people are saying, Oh my gosh, wow, this is not what I thought it was. Yeah. You know, I've been I've been duped.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah, because I think the tribal. Aspect was there when strongly at the beginning when they were like, Look, I can't pay the bills, I can't,

When Tribalism Turns Inhumane

SPEAKER_00 22:08

whatever. And someone is giving me an other person cause of the problem.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Othering.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah. That's that othering thing. And so the other person, what the and so this person was going to take care of that other person. And we're going to crack down on immigration. We're going to do all this. And um, now that we're seeing what removal of others looks like in the cruelest and most inhumane sense of the word. Um I I just I read an article the other day about a woman who was removed from the country without her um toddler. And uh, because her toddler was born here, and she left him with uh the in-laws and um the boyfriend or whatever of the she left him with her, like sister-in-law or something, and her boyfriend or whatever murdered him. Just hot murdered the little three-year-old. And so fortunately, a judge led her back into the country so she could see his body and see him be buried.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Oh my gosh, it's insane.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

But like these are the things that are happening, folks. Like, this is happening every day. What people kids are that they were here getting treatment for medical conditions are getting sent back with in the middle of cancer treatment for a brain tumor. In the middle, you know what I mean? Like, that is disrupting the treatment. Like, let them at least get their treatment before you send them back. Let them finish what they what we started. That's inhumane. It's inhumane, absolutely. Um, but it's it's happening every single day. So the people that you thought they were gonna send back, all the rapists and the murderers, there weren't that many of them. So, yeah, sure. They sent them back first, and they all got on their buses to or the planes straight to whatever prison somewhere. But the people that they're attacking and taking now are not, but this is what tribalism leads to. I think it's if it's at its extreme form.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yes, at it, and and and the the it's not even the hope, the power is in we have the power, we have the power to change that as we change our mind and become more aware of what is really happening. I do have one question for you.

Global Health, Ebola, And Vaccine Risk

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah. Now, the Ebola outbreak, does that have something to do with us canceling USA? Oh, absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

When when the United States is not at the forefront of making sure that these countries that are economically disadvantaged and don't have the infrastructure needed and this and the funding to keep these viruses at bay, when we aren't like we have a responsibility to do this because we are one of the richest countries in the world. Should China be doing this too? Absolutely. Should all the European nations be doing this too? Absolutely. Like, if you are a country that has an abundance of wealth, yeah, you need to be funneling money into this because one rogue virus from the cradle of America, like the cradle of uh this is where new things are born. And and that's what's happened because it's the Spanish influenza wiped out one-fifth of the world's population. One fifth back in the 20s. That could happen again anytime. We didn't lose one-fifth of the world's population with COVID, but we lost a lot of people. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. And that in an Ebola is no joke. No, the reason why COVID was so crazy was because it was spread so easily and people were asymptomatic for a long period of time. And so that's how Ebola, fortunately, is such a high death rate. Say on I say fortunately, it kills its host so quickly that it can't spread as well. Whereas COVID didn't kill your host as quickly and it allowed it to spread quickly. So, but imagine an Ebola that gets COVID-like ability. That's the scariest virus ever. A virus that kills after a at a late, late, late period. Like you're able to expose more a ton of people. So an Ebola virus with a measles type of spread, which measles is the most uh um easily spread virus in the world. It has the highest exposure, it has the highest, what's called R0, which means one person will expose X number of people. So the R0 for um uh for measles is 12. So one person has measles. If you walk into a room, you will give 12 people in that room measles.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

But fortunately, we have a vaccine, so that won't happen. Well, it's happening unless you stop vaccinating your population. And then guess what? You start having breakouts of a disease that was completely eradicated. But that's another podcast episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Anyway, okay.

Final Takeaway And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Um, last thing is I'm just um footnote is that um the the least the to me the least America could do is um provide aid to those companies, those countries, because they have raped and pillaged their resources for eons. Okay. Um as always, live your life on 10, your 10. Bye bye.