Tuesday night Mesa County residents heard from an important voice in our national media, former op-ed editor at both The Wall Street Journal and New York Times Bari Weiss, who shared her thoughts and experiences on antisemitism.

Weiss was featured in a panel discussion at Colorado Mesa University’s Moss Performing Arts Center as part of the school’s Holocaust Awareness Week, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Nathan Deal. What she said is important for us all to hear.

“…the far right says, as people did in Hitler’s Germany, ‘You’re sub-human, you’re the greatest trick the devil has ever played because you appear to be white, but in fact, you’re loyal to Black people and brown people and Muslims,’… and yet, at the very same time, the far left is saying, ‘Wait, you Jews say you’re a minority, but look how successful you are! Look how much power you have! Look at the way you’re adjacent to or uphold white supremacy. Look at the way you support Israel?’ You see how, in the very same moment, the Jews are targeted by neo-Nazis and they’re accused of being neo-Nazis.”

She’s right that attacks on Jewish people can come from all sides. She made the point that antisemitism often arises when the “immune system of a society is weakened” by many factors such as political polarization and misinformation. That seems to be the case in America today and is something we all must fight against.

Weiss famously resigned from The New York Times in 2020 over an editorial direction that bowed to orthodoxy instead of fairly airing contradicting ideas, something that leads to the political polarization that is weakening our country. She was essentially arguing against so-called “cancel culture,” which seeks to silence those with unpopular opinions. The last straw was the termination of her superior for having printed an op-ed from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton who argued that the national guard should be deployed to put down violent riots during the summer of 2020.

In the years since, the situation hasn’t seemed to improve much in the country as a whole. On the left, there are still movements to silence people they don’t agree with, who they say hold racist, sexist or homophobic views. On the right, there are calls and movements to ban books and silence people in the LGBT community. The closing paragraph of Weiss’ resignation letter to the Times spells out her view on this issue eloquently. “…I’ve always comforted myself with the notion that the best ideas win out. But ideas cannot win on their own. They need a voice. They need a hearing. Above all, they must be backed by people willing to live by them.”

We couldn’t agree more. The answer to a bad idea isn’t to bury it, but to beat it with better ideas. We exist because of the First Amendment. We labor under its protection every day. Discourse is a back and forth. When you express an idea, especially one that may be controversial, you should expect a volley of speech in return. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

In her presentation, Weiss stressed that we need to tone down our rhetoric, across the board on politics, race and religion. We agree. Those things only divide people.

Ultimately she explained that people are nuanced. We aren’t good or bad. We’re both. We need to remember that when we engage with people we disagree with. It’s too easy to demonize someone on the other side of, for example, the political aisle. Demonization of others is how social cancers like antisemitism gain a foothold.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board