I mostly use Facebook just to follow a few groups. Two of the groups I'm in have the word "tribe" in the title. One of them is quite a small group related to women working in my industry, the other one is huge and connected to a big business. One of the black members of the smaller group posted last week that they found the use of the word "tribe" offensive and shared this article explaining why:
www.rewire.org/cultural-appropriation/
There was a bit of controversy and debate about it in the group (with the push back being mostly from white people) but the group admin agreed to change the title. Since then I've been wondering if I should share the same article in the bigger group. The business has put out several statements recently about supporting BLM and the steps they plan to take to educate and diversify their organisation, and even this has caused some push back from white people in the group. Most people have supported their statements, but there have been several posts from people saying the business (or at least the fb group) should stay politically neutral. The issue of cultural appropriation often seems to attract controversy anyway because people tend to see it as a trivial issue, but it obviously mattered enough to this woman to mention it in my other group. Im almost completely inactive on social media and hardly ever post in these groups, so the idea of posting something politically charged and potentially drawing down a pile on of people calling me a professionally offended snowflake isn't appealing. But then I also believe that white people have a responsibility to speak up when they can. So, would you make a post about this? If you are black then does the use of the word "tribe" offend you? Would a white person bringing this up when none of the black group members have be tone deaf? Please help me navigate this minefield!