"Quick, everyone! There has been an event in the time line that causes derision between the masses, let's assign derogatory phrases to blindly label individuals on each side -- we'll call them slurs -- according to the corresponding biases before any kind of human oneness or organization can take place, otherwise we risk human relations improving!"

or, another route : every single step need not be 'us or them'.

... on another hand, 'gargoyle' is kind of cool.

How about "human beings?"