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Writer's pictureEric Tangumonkem, Ph.D.

Racism, Tribalism, and Ethnocentrism, any difference?




When words no longer mean what they originally meant. This is an unfortunate reality, and it makes it difficult to have any meaningful conversation and come up with solutions. Each time you think you have nailed down the problem, the meaning of the words is changed into something else.


For example, the word racism the way it is being used by some in the United States of America right now is synonymous with being a member of the Republican Party. The term has even been expanded to include anybody that voted for President Donald Trump and also those who did not vote for him but have a slight inclination to support any of his policies. Is this the new definition of racism?


Or are people invoking this word to keep stoking the flames of hate and animosity among the different people in the country?

While it is understood that the United States of America has had a history filled with a lot of abuse of the African Americans because of hate, prejudices, and all sorts of discrimination and maltreatment, it will be limiting to forget that the country has residents that originally came from every nation under the sun.

Therefore, any attempt to address the issue of racism must incorporate the experiences of all the other nationalities and ethnic groups currently residing in the US because they bring a unique perspective to this issue.

The focus is not on trying to assess the gravity of whatever these people have been through, but on the similarities between these experiences and what drives all of them. We are not going to deny what happened in the past and is still happening, but we should not allow the past to prevent us from paving a new path that will liberate society from the clutches of racism.


From this point forward, racism is going to be used as a broad term that explains all the unfavorable interactions between all humans.

Maybe a new word needs to be coined to describe the feeling of superiority that other people have towards their fellow humans, especially when this feeling is expressed in undesirable ways that cause harm to other people. This can be emotional, physical, economical, and psychological harm.


While one would assume that based on all the research that refutes the division of the human race into different races, this idea that there are different human races is still prevalent maybe because of ignorance, for the lack of a better term.


This is obviously a common trait among all humans: the desire to take advantage of others and to feel that one is superior to other people.

We all hope that more and more people will realize that there is one race: the human race. We also all know that the human race is flawed because of what our first ancestors Adam and Eve did. They disobeyed God, and this unleashed a circle of death and destruction that has been with us since then.


Therefore, trying to understand racial relationships or interactions between different people without factoring in the propensity for any one of us to succumb to treating others in ways that are not kind is refusing the obvious reality that can lead us to better and more permanent solutions.

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