The central theme seems to be getting to know any person past their public persona. This can be seen because the author writes from two self-proclaimed different points of view about how the other person didn't turn out to be who the person speaking thought they would be. After a couple weeks of interaction with these people from different social groups Mariah says "That kind of attitude was about as far from her actual personality as it gets" refering to what she thought of Jordyn, who in turn says "I realized I actually liked Mariah a lot more than I’d expected to"; these two statements coupled with the title indicate that we mmust get to learn people to rid ourselves of the image we have of them and form an informed opinion of who they really are.
Locke is trying to say that tyranny is the exercise of power for the wrong reason, basically meaning that it is abusing ones power over someone or something
