That’s when it clicked for me:

Some people aren’t afraid because of experience. They’re afraid because they’ve been taught to be. Fear is being sold. And a lot of people are buying it.

— What is the most illogical, media-manufactured fear you see dominating conversation right now?

Then she said that as a white woman in America she lives in imminent daily fear.

As a Black man who has actually lived 41 years here, that floored me. I asked for examples. She cited a bus stabbing in Charlotte and “Somalis in Minnesota” — neither connected to her life at all.

But in that same conversation, a white Christian nationalist told me the U.S. occupation was “necessary to keep America safe.”

When I asked what she meant, she suddenly brought up “radical Islam in America.” Out of nowhere. Different topic. Different continent.