A question about race and double standards in Humans

[Ben Davis]

This brings up an interesting question - Is tribalism itself bad?

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We do try to protect our tribes, whether it is an ethnic, religious or friends group - I do protect my family and my girlfriend as much as I can whenever possible, and I consider that a natural expression of tribalism, even if it isn't based on race or ethnicity, it is certainly based on the fact we share the same bloodline (and as for my girlfriend we simply love each other). I am not using race as a biological concept, rather as an identity/cultural/historic concept. I seriously doubt we can create one single race within a generation because (1) Intraracial marriages are still the norm, at least because most people marry people of the same social class (2) the far-right will most likely grow in some European countries and nationalism can possibly take over again, even if this is not the case for the UK

Isn't racism essentially one form of discriminating people for being different than us, just like we do with pretty much many other characteristics? Usually racism is done by the majority, native race against minority, weaker/powerless groups of unprotected people that no one cares about. 

Usually with race comes culture, and people have a tendency to prefer those with similar cultural, national origin and background. It is only natural. If I am an amateur intellectual atheist who comes from a middle class family, I would love to marry someone with more or less similar cultural backgrounds - Usually, this equals the same ethnic background, but there's exceptions.

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I assume you mean 'in a contemporary context' rather than trying to pass value-judgments on historic tribalism with contemporary value-systems?

Depends on where you live. Many natural and social environments require tribalism for survival. That makes it 'good', right? Maybe not 'optimal' but definitely 'not bad'.