Right now, many people are emotionally invested in wars happening thousands of miles away. International conflicts dominate the news cycle, social media, and public debate.
But while attention is pulled overseas, many of the battles shaping everyday life are happening much closer to home.
The writer Toni Morrison once explained something important about power. She said:
“The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work.”
Her point wasn’t only about prejudice.
It was about attention.
If your energy is constantly redirected, you spend less time solving the problems that directly affect your community.
And those problems are not theoretical.
For example, the racial wealth gap in the United States remains enormous. The median white household still holds several times more wealth than the median Black household. That gap affects housing, business ownership, education, and generational stability.
Employment disparities still exist as well. Black workers often earn significantly less on average than white workers even when education levels increase.
Housing tells a similar story. Black homeownership rates remain far below national averages, limiting the primary way American families build wealth.
These are not distant geopolitical conflicts.
These are structural battles happening inside the same cities people live in every day.
The philosopher Antonio Gramsci described something similar when he wrote about what he called the “war of position.”
Gramsci argued that power is rarely won through one dramatic confrontation. Instead, it develops slowly through control of institutions, schools, media, economics, and culture.
Each of these forces influences whether a community can build wealth, institutions, and long-term stability.
Communities that want real influence must first strengthen their position inside those structures.
In other words:
You must understand the terrain you are fighting on.
None of this means global events are irrelevant.
But strategy requires priorities.
History shows that communities gain influence in the world only after they stabilize themselves internally.
Economic strength is needed.
Institutional ownership is needed.
Political organization is definitely needed.
Without those foundations, outrage alone rarely produces lasting change.
You cannot fight every war at once.
And you cannot meaningfully intervene in someone else’s struggle while your own position remains unstable.
That’s why thinkers from Morrison to Gramsci emphasized the same principle in different ways:
Focus your energy where power can actually be built.
Attention is one of the most valuable resources a society has.
Where people place their attention shapes what problems get solved and what problems quietly continue.
So the real question is not whether people should care about events around the world.
The real question is whether they remember where their own battlefield is.
Because if a community loses the struggle for economic stability, education, and institutional power at home…
it will not have the strength to influence any battlefield anywhere else.