I spend time with middle school students and I see a LOT of in group/out group issues, a few of which are about race, religion, or class, but most are about friend groups. This is in a predominately middle/owning class urban private school. Some of the friend group stuff is also unawarely about race/class/etc. - the rich kids tend to have more in common and it is hard for a scholarship kid to break in. But this is not always the case. Race is a place that in group/out group stuff attaches. I think about "school spirit" as trying to override the underlying landscape of in group / out group. On the societal level, we see professional sports filling a similar role. Anyone can be a Packers fan. I still think racism is still a worthy place to put attention, because that is where society has attached a lot of the in group/out group tribalism, and because of the accumulated benefits/and disadvantages over the years, but if we want to move forward we might want to look at how we educate adolescents. Specifically, this is where in group and out group definitions are most changeable. Thanks for your essay.