Basically, I had to take an Uber ride, and the driver was an Egyptian man who told me about an Egyptian doctor.

I am not going to say the name of the doctor, and I am not going to go into the details, but apparently, this doctor was a strong advocate for the people. He basically went up against the establishment, and they found this doctor dead. I thought to myself that it is so interesting that I, as an American, never heard this story.

I thought about how certain kinds of news are suppressed. That seems like a really important story—cross-culturally, how individuals try to stand up to the establishment and speak out for the people, using their well-earned credentials for good, and the ways in which these people are smeared, marginalized, and sometimes even lose their lives in very suspicious ways.

So anyway, I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about how we are constantly getting the same drumbeat of news. It is like the same old stories—Middle East problems, Jews versus Muslims, some minority stirring up trouble, and everybody freaking out. It is such a distraction from what I see in the real world amongst real people. I just do not see it. It is the same thing that they said about Black people when they called them “super predators.” It is like now the focus is not on Black people; they have moved the target.

There was a time they talked about feminists and how feminists were causing all the problems and ruining families. Then they talked about white Christian veteran nationalists and how they were the problem. It just seems like if we are wise, we could learn to step back and see how badly people are being manipulated by distraction propaganda, and how the establishment always seems to stay in place and unquestioned.

You know, I just really want to encourage people to challenge things—not for its own sake, right, but to challenge dominant narratives when things do not seem to make sense, and to find commonality with other people who you may not think you have anything in common with. Just look beyond the superficial and the fear porn that is constantly being peddled. Because if we do make those bonds, I think we can achieve real progress, and we do not have to put labels on it.