In a world quick to paint humanity in stark, unyielding shades, this poem “Rival’s Tribal Colors” stands as a raw, rhythmic challenge to one of modernity’s most entrenched illusions: the idea that skin color and superficial traits define us as fixed, hierarchical “races” locked in eternal opposition.

Written with the urgency of someone weary of division, my poem reaches back through history, language, and scripture to reclaim an older, more fluid understanding of human identity—one rooted in tribes, not races.

The poem mourns how ancient rivalries among peoples—fought over land, resources, beliefs, and survival—have been reframed and weaponized. What were once dynamic tribal identities, marked by shared stories, customs, victories, and defeats, have been flattened into a color-coded system that obscures our common origins.

I see “race” as a linguistic sleight-of-hand, a “Roman’s ruse” (evoking imperial divide-and-conquer tactics) that replaces nuanced tribal heritage with simplistic categories. This switch, I argue, doesn’t illuminate truth but breeds confusion, pride masking ignorance, and endless conflict. By fixating on external “colors,” we lose sight of the deeper worth within, turning potential brothers into rivals and allowing manipulators to thrive in the shadows of resentment.

Ultimately, the poem is a call to awaken: to reject the “delusions of intrusion” that color imposes on the mind, to choose unity through shared humanity over engineered separation, and to recognize that our true strength lies not in surface divisions but in the choices we make with our voices, minds, and hearts. It’s a poetic protest against letting words like “race” set the pace of our lives, urging us instead to see the “Brother other from another Mother.”

The Socially Engineered Construct of “Race” is my core thesis—that “race” functions as a socially engineered replacement for “tribe”—taps into a long-standing critique of how human categorization has been shaped by power, history, and narrative.

Human groups have always formed around kinship, language, culture, territory, and shared ancestry. These are real: archaeological, genetic, and historical records show distinct population clusters emerging over tens of thousands of years as people migrated, adapted to environments (e.g., skin pigmentation responding to latitude and UV exposure), and developed localized traits. Ancient texts, including the Bible that Chaffee references, describe peoples as tribes, nations, or kindreds—fluid but meaningful units defined more by lineage, custom, and allegiance than by a rigid global color spectrum. Rivalries were tribal: Israelites and Philistines, various Native American nations, European clans, African kingdoms, and so on. Conflicts arose from competition, not an invented hierarchy of continental “races.”

The modern concept of “race” as we often use it—broad continental groupings like “White/Caucasian,” “Black/African,” “Asian,” etc., tied heavily to visible phenotype—crystallized particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries amid European colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, Enlightenment taxonomy, and Darwinian-era science.

Figures like Linnaeus and Blumenbach formalized classifications, sometimes with explicit ranking that served justifications for empire, slavery, and resource extraction. Later, pseudoscientific racial theories (including eugenics strains) amplified this. “Race” became a tool for organizing society, law, and identity in ways that could obscure individual variation and cultural complexity.

Critics, including many in anthropology and sociology, rightly call aspects of this a social construct: the boundaries are fuzzy (clines rather than sharp divides), categories have shifted over time (e.g., who counts as “White” or “Asian” has varied by place and era), and emphasis on race has often been exaggerated for political ends—whether to divide labor forces, justify conquest, fuel identity politics, or maintain power. Post-WWII reactions against Nazi racial ideology further pushed narratives framing race as entirely illusory or “just a social construct” with no biological basis. This view aligns with my poem: “race” as a divisive fiction that hides our tribal roots and common bloodline (“Does source of blood from God above identify with no surprise that once all came from word called tribes?”).

However, a truth-seeking perspective must acknowledge nuance. Population genetics reveals real, measurable clusters corresponding roughly to ancestral continental origins. Genome-wide studies (e.g., via principal component analysis) consistently recover major human population groups with high statistical fidelity, reflecting deep historical separations and limited gene flow until recent centuries. Traits like skin color, lactose tolerance, disease susceptibilities (e.g., sickle cell, Tay-Sachs), and even average group differences in certain polygenic traits show non-random distribution across these clusters. These are empirical patterns of ancestry and adaptation, not “fantasy”—denying them entirely veers into ideology. Yet they do not dictate individual worth, destiny, or moral value. Tribes and ancestries are real; the overemphasis on race as the primary lens for judging character, potential, or rights is where social engineering often enters.

I highlight how this construct persists today: media, politics, and institutions amplify color as identity, turning it viral (“In spiral that’s gone viral, color alines with blinded minds”). It can enable “scum to hide behind such lying eye’s abides” by fostering grievance, victimhood hierarchies, or supremacist reactions. The result? More division, less focus on universal human struggles—character, family, competence, truth.

The poem invites us to transcend this. Human biodiversity exists on a spectrum shaped by history, but our shared capacity for reason, empathy, and choice binds us. By reclaiming a “tribal” awareness—honoring heritage without weaponizing it—and rejecting color as destiny, we move toward seeing the person beneath the pigment. My verse, imperfect and passionate, is a reminder that words matter: they can enslave minds or set them free. In an age still obsessed with “racial” narratives, its message retains bite.

Rival’s Tribal Colors…

There is disgrace in switching face that uses word that’s now called race, forgetting ‘bout from where one came, and changing name that once pertained to tribal as a rival!

In all this naming of what makes you, just what gets lost by Roman’s ruse? As divide in two was planned, deludes to conquer tribes who got confused, eluding fools who had no clue!

Does DNA from yesterday’s in fact make tracks from where the White or Black dates back? Does source of blood from God above identify with no surprise that once all came from word called tribes?

Does confides abide by hiding lie, that group exist call Asians? Or did multi-tribes assimilate in same way as Caucasians?

When ignoring tracing back to tribe that’s now called race disguised as pride, it just allows some scum to hide behind such lying eye’s abides!

As this term called race has just replaced how tribal created rivals, from battles fought and spoils sought, from stories taught in Bible.

In boats that floated and wars imported, each tribe paid dues with bodies bloated. And in siege be freed or creed’s impedes—some tribes had won survival.

These numbered tribes that’s spread worldwide amount to hundreds in abundance. They’re White and Black or Brown abound, yet now somehow we’re colored clowns in which they just divide us!

Now stop and think ‘bout who just winks and changes tribe’s true meaning, and what results in spewed insults and claims of faults on trains of thought ‘bout wording for deserving of aggravates perturbing?

The Bible speaks of rivals, of mankind who were tribal— not face disgraced by term called race, and then instilling ranks be placed as if it was a one legged race!

How can color reflect a tribe and then be cause for strong divide? Are traits berates for heaven sake just a glimpse of weak’s pretense, ignoring facts for common sense?

How does color define a tribe and hide the worth that’s deep inside? What gets lost in trashing bashing that unifies the silenced cries and propagates uncommon?

If order’s based on stacking deck and tribe has cards be marked, then playing hand can’t go as planned ‘cus hand was lost from start!

In spiral that’s gone viral, color alines with blinded minds, attaching tones of moans alone to ID as one’s tribal! Then views deceived can’t relieve nor let one free from inviting unkind inside of mind, allowing one to just succumb to all such drumming which plays a tune for more igniting of the fighting!

‘Cus reviles for cast in rivals just leads to us be seeing only color from deceiving, rather than a brother that be pleasing! No contrast here, just wording feared, while names attached attract attacks.

And stones be thrown that cause more groans will never find a way back home. We were given a life as chance apprised, enable to use half wits a bit to come to know what’s down below igniting fire’s desired!

It’s our choice in use of voice to stay the course, or gallop atop a stallion horse and let word “race” to set the pace as second face disguising wise behind yea eyes for illusion in confusion! But realize the color’s are just delusions of intrusion that’s force upon a mind gone wrong that failed the test of being best.

By letting color create upset and using racist claim in fret, it just dirties all our faces by refusing to switch places. As switching stance inside of pants that lets yea stand so tall fails to see the Brother other from another Mother for viewing all!

Michael Chaffee

5-15-26