In February 2021, one of the darkest periods of the Covid pandemic, I took part in an online literary festival. Each of the featured speakers was given an hour to present his or her work. When my turn came, I read passages from my book The Way of Imagination, and I spoke about the role that imagination plays in social reform, science, art, and ethics. I emphasized how, by nurturing compassion, this mental power may help us to overcome the many forces that divide us.

By the time I finished my presentation, the online audience had posted dozens of questions. The first person called on by the moderator was one of my fellow speakers, a writer of Penobscot lineage who denounced me for using the word “tribal” in my talk, which she took as an insult toward Native Americans. I tried to explain that the word “tribe” could be traced back to the ancient Romans, and that I used “tribalism” to mean the human impulse to create divisions between Us and Them, between those inside and those outside our moral regard. Refusing to listen, she talked over me, called me insensitive, accused me of reinforcing stereotypes about indigenous people as savages. I tried to point out that I had referred to racists and partisan politicians, not to indigenous people, but she continued her diatribe without giving me a chance to respond, and used up half of the time allotted to Q&A. I chose not to argue with her, so that others might have a chance to pose questions or make comments. Next, the moderator called on another of my fellow speakers, a poet, who used up the remainder of the Q&A time to attack me for using the word “we” when talking about artists, because she was convinced that my collective pronoun would not include her, an immigrant from Taiwan, and she resented always being marginalized, forever a victim of colonial contempt from people like me. Again, I had no chance to reply. Having run out of time, I said a brisk goodbye to the audience and logged off the Zoom link. It took me an hour, and a long walk in the park, to calm down.

Each of these attacks had been triggered by a single word—“tribal” and “we”—and by assumptions about my attitudes for which the two writers had no evidence aside from what they saw on the screen. What they saw was a seventy-something, white-bearded, pale-skinned male, who they felt certain must be hostile toward them as individuals and toward those with whom they identified. In short, they saw me as belonging to an alien tribe, someone to fear and despise.

This was not the first time I had been given a taste of what it feels like to be profiled, to be judged by my outward appearance, nor would it be the last. White guys have it coming. I get that. But this experience of being stereotyped, while instructive, was also disturbing, which is why I am mulling over the event a year later. If we had met in person instead of onscreen, if we had sat at a table and learned about one another's lives over cups of coffee, would my fellow writers have been so quick to assume the worst about me? If they had read any of my books, would they have realized that I treat with respect both immigrants and indigenous people? Would they have discovered that I am an ally rather than an enemy?

What most troubles me is the possibility that these two writers, and many other bearers of personal as well as historical grievances, need to see me—and people who look like me—as irredeemably Other. If this is so, they will never believe that when I say “we” I include them and all the rest of humankind, and when they say “we” they will never include a great many people who care about their suffering and their heritage. So we must listen to one another, patiently, forever open to the possibility of kinship.