Tribes

Sadly, I didn’t post yesterday. Not that I had something exciting to write about but I’m trying to get back to writing every day, even if the entry is short. I even talked about that in therapy. Then I didn’t do it. I did get out to go shopping. I was disappointed to find that my Aldi did not carry the fluffernutter cookies. I should just buy some fluff or just marshmallows. I always have the peanut butter in the house. I didn’t find anything exiting at Aldi. I dislike shopping but it is fun to discover a new item. I had to pay for the bus for the first time since COVID-19. They just started charging again as they have protected the drivers so people can enter the bus from the front. I was disappointed that neither bus had OMNY working and I had to pay with my MetroCard. Part of my therapy homework is applying for the reduced transit fare. I qualify but the application is exactly the kind of thing that gives me anxiety. I did other homework. I read my email from the New York Board of elections. I applied to work the polls on both Election Day and early voting. If I get assigned to my district for early voting I’ll do that rather than the absentee ballot. It’s not like I’m taking any added risk. I’ll be there anyway. They are short of poll workers so if you feel safe, apply. We want this election to go as smoothly as possible. This is especially important if you live in a swing state.

I need a new word for a concept that could be included under racism and sexism, but they give the wrong connotation. It’s the idea that the divisions of humanity that bigots, racists, sexists, and xenophobes, are legitimate ways of judging people. I’ll try calling it tribist. The idea that we can judge people by what group they are in. We have all seen it, the people that turn the usual bigotries on their head and vent their judgments on those of the dominant groups. They think it’s terrible to judge a black person by their color, but valid to judge a white person on theirs. It’s wrong to lump all Jews together, but fine to talk as if all Gentiles are the same. They will rant against, men, straights, and Christians, and not think twice about it. The irony is that the people that this hurts the most, is the members of the out-groups, the oppressed. People get defensive. If you attack whites, a white person that was not an overt racist, feels attacked and feels more of a group attachment to whites. Think about gays, they are not a self-sustaining community, they weren’t brought up as part of gay culture. Why do we think of gays as a group? They became a tribe in response to being attacked. It’s what people do. We seek protection from our tribe. When pressed, people will usually, not always, support us, over them, no matter the justice of the situation.

I cringe every time I hear people voicing tribism, especially when they are in one of my tribes, especially when I hear it from progressives. There are people that I love that will complain about Cis men. I’m a Cis man and they love me. What’s going on? I also have a friend that says anti-Semitic things, who loves me and that I love. It’s the same thing, and it gets to the problem with tribalist thinking. Statements of the form, “All people in group A are X;” are inaccurate if X is not a defining feature of A. All Italian Americans can trace their ancestry to Italy is true. “All Italians are mobsters,” is not. Neither is, “All Italians are good cooks.” We are individuals and the only way to judge a person is as an individual.  I love how I feel that many people that are different from me in every conventional grouping,  are just like me. There are also Jewish straight male New Yorkers, who might as well be from another planet.

I had a strange day today. For no good reason I slept until 12:17. Until COVID-19 I’d say I never done that, but it’s happened a few times now on days when I didn’t stay up late or had a bad night’s sleep. I woke up around 7:00, went to the bathroom, and then went back to bed. I woke up for a moment several times but fell back asleep each time, each time I woke up from a dream. I suspect that’s not a coincidence. Perhaps my sleep apnea prevented me from dreaming enough during the night and I needed to compensate. The experience was pleasant, and I had nothing urgent to do today so it’s not a problem. The only thing I missed out on was taking a walk in the beautiful weather.

I didn’t plan on watching much streaming music today, but the Rhythm & Roots Festival is on and I love what they are playing. I’m not watching but I’m listening. In half an hour I’m going to switch to the Passim Campfire at 7:00 because Karen Dahlstrom and Jake Blount are playing in the round with two others. I know I’ll love at least half the lineup.