I always thought there would be glory in being quoted by a major publication. But when an American Spectator blog reposted the opening paragraph of my article last week (“Anti-Semitism is real”) in their own coverage of McGill’s threatening tweets affair, I was disheartened—though not terribly surprised—to see that readers in the comments section had chosen to respond to one form of racism with another.

The barrage of xenophobic and Islamophobic statements really don’t deserve rebroadcasting here, or anywhere. But for understanding’s sake, the gist of a remarkably uniform sentiment expressed over 16 reader responses was that universities need to tighten restrictions on who gets student visas. Add to that a barrage of disparaging remarks about Muslims—with writers only sometimes remembering to put “radical” in front—and it made for a pretty sickening display of intolerance in the name of acceptance and security.

None of this, of course, is new. But that makes it no less frightening. And it adds a new perspective to exactly what I tried to emphasize in my last article: prejudice in our society is deeply political. For some reason, anti-Semitism is given a pass by many on the far left and denounced primarily by conservatives. And for some reason, it tends to be mainly the left who denounce the Muslim-bashing that is so prominent on the far right. Instead, everyone should condemn both—alongside all other forms prejudice—as totally unacceptable; as issues of human decency, not politics.

The thing about prejudice is that it so often takes the same form no matter whom it targets. Accusations of not being properly loyal to their country but instead belonging to a worldwide faith-based conspiracy have been lobbed at Jews and Muslims in equal proportion, and often by each other. That girl from UCLA ranting on YouTube against Asians could have substituted any tight-knit ethnic community as the target of her tirade; many of the witch hunts against leftists supposedly sympathetic to radical Islam evoke images of Jews targeted for being socialists and supposedly projecting their values through liberal Hollywood in the McCarthyite 1950s.

It seems the catchphrase of the day is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Jews have a proud tradition of being on the far left. Israel was founded as a socialist country. Most Jews still vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party and many continue to send their kids to labour Zionist camps. A Jew co-founded the NAACP, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was drafted inside the headquarters of a Jewish lobby group. How could anti-Muslim extreme right-wingers be their natural allies?

And how could the far left apologize for militant groups abroad? Many who fight tooth and nail for equality and fundamental freedoms in the West apologize for or ignore groups and governments who—in addition to spouting anti-Semitism­—violently oppress others. Meanwhile, many of the same people who work to curb abortion rights, affirmative action, and gay marriage praise Israel for being the most pluralistic and open state in the Middle East. So the left favours progressive causes and religious freedom in North America, and the right vaunts them for people across the sea. The world is, indeed, a topsy-turvy place.

Obviously, this is a generalized, not rigorous, analysis. It refers to extremes, and takes for granted neat categories of left and right that rarely exist outside of party platforms and writings of people at each pole. But the fact that most people would not identify wholesale with either of these positions makes it even more disconcerting that discriminatory rhetoric is so prevalent and widespread.  

More important than foreign policy is how we treat people here at home. In a society that prides itself on its protection of civil liberties—not the least important of which is the assumption of innocence—we shouldn’t be targeting people based on their faith, ethnicity, or anything else. The left should not be letting anti-Semitism run free in the name of tolerance. The right should not be ignoring that contemptible form of hatred called Islamophobia (or homophobia, their other favourite form of intolerance). The comments on the original Tribune story were disturbing, but the comments on American Spectator are scary in their own right. Racism cannot be fought with racism, and we should rebuke all those who think it can.