I saw a tweet that talked about how the word "tribalism" is racist.

A short on my cognitive process that may be helpful for some:

My first internal reaction was defensiveness:

"I've used that word before. And I don't think I'm particularly racist"

My second internal reaction was logic, to justify its use:

"There is a precedent for that word to be used regarding white people groups, such as the Celts, Germanic peoples, the Gauls, etc. Therefore, it's not explicitly denigrating African or Indigenous tribes"

My third and final internal reaction was empathy:

"Based on the responses I read, Black and Indigenous people have been harmed by this term and there are better words that have less racial overtones, so I should be compelled by compassion to not use a word that may cause harm"

Just a friendly reminder, firstly to me, and then to my white peers that sometimes when our temptation is to whitesplain something, we should listened to the heart and the hurt of what is actually being said.

Credit to @ToriGlass for inspiring this and forcing me to dig deeper wells of empathy rather than white defensiveness.