Cancel culture’s flip side: Gen Zers befriend political foes
Iyleah Hernandez was slightly hesitant last year when a Muslim student leader asked her to speak at the next interfaith coffeehouse on campus.
A self-described agnostic at the time, Ms. Hernandez wasn’t sure what she’d have to say to interfaith discussion group attendees at Dominican University, a Catholic institution just outside Chicago. Many were devout Roman Catholics, observant Muslims, or others with sincerely held religious beliefs.
What’s more, her political points of view weren’t exactly popular among her peers. “I’m a Republican, and a Republican in very liberal schools? They don’t mix – oil and water,” says Ms. Hernandez.
She’s had a firsthand view of aspects of what many are calling “cancel culture,” a phenomenon in which mostly left-leaning young people shun or socially isolate their right-leaning peers. Former President Barack Obama and others have decried this emerging trend, even as younger thinkers on the left have defended “canceling” those believed to have oppression-sustaining views.
But a growing number of students like Ms. Hernandez, members of a Generation Z who are coming of age within a burgeoning demographic diversity even greater than that of Millennials, have begun
Making the effortOne friend leads to anotherAn openness to different beliefs“Common good”In U.S., religious libertiesTo a new depth of faith
