I recall a college class where the noted scholar of identity, Erik Erikson, asked, with a note of despairing resignation, why we humans divide ourselves into what he called “pseudo-species.” By this term, he referred to lineages, clans, tribes, ethnicities, peoples, nation states, in-groups of all sorts – all the identity collectives we invent for ourselves.
In answer, I suppose, there is the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, where our being divided into rival groups was a punishment for our hubris in seeking to rival God, who alone should organize the cosmos.
But in the U.S., the month of February is dedicated to crossing barriers of race, given our history of slavery, Jim Crow segregation and racist disaggregating and disalignment, one with another. February is Black History Month, an opportunity to learn about the isolating history of some Americans.
A notable response to the harsh experience of African Americans was written by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune as her last will and testament. She, thereby, left us all the gift of pointing to our moral sense as a good way (Dao) of living.
The Caux Round Table Principles for moral capitalism and moral government rely on the very principles of moral thinking which Dr. Bethune recommended.
You may read her last will and testament here.