Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who lived together in paradise. They had a mansion on an island in the Pacific and both worked hard for what they had in jobs they both loved. They were both born on the island, and they had never seen any reason to leave it. The island had snow-capped mountains they could climb on the weekends and the best beaches the world had ever seen that you could walk to any time you wanted. The couple never argued and never had any disagreements between themselves or their neighbors because the family and friends they were surrounded by all looked just like them and believed just like them.
News from outside the island came in waves, just like the ones rolling onto the beach - steady, strong and from the same place. But the news rarely concerned them because it came from sources that looked like them and believed like them, and at the end of the day, the news from the rest of the world rarely ever effected their own island, which was far, far away from any other large landmass with people on it.
One day, the man and the woman had a child - a child with its father’s eyes and its mother’s drive. The child grew up on the island, just like the mother and father, and it went all the same places its parents went and did all the same things its parents did, much like any child. The child grew up happy. How could it not? It was surrounded by mountains, beaches, a loving family and more friends than it could keep up with that all looked like him and believed like him and his family. The child was smart and gifted, and but not in a way that would make it stand out or appear anything but normal by the island’s standards. It was destined to be on the island for a lifetime and to thrive and build a life there. But one day, when the child grew up, two questions arose after watching the same news, with the same people, in the same place: Why does the man on the news not look like me, and why does everyone hate him?
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: We’re all on different islands. Good thing there are boats.