If someone offered you a $10 Swig gift card to come to an hour-long Zoom meeting with people you disagree with on a sensitive subject, would you do it?
Joanna Brooks made that offer to fellow Latter-day Saints after her social media post supporting anti-ICE protests at her alma mater, Brigham Young University, got a big reaction. Her sister was worried about her safety, but Brooks did it anyway.
“I strongly feel it is very important right now to be as human as possible with one another,” she said. “I don't like living in a world where we are afraid of each other.”
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and author of several books about the church, she hoped people on the call could use their shared faith to have a respectful conversation.
“I have found that Mormons will show up with good hearts for each other, even when we disagree,” she said. “This has always been possible. I worry that it is becoming less and less possible now.”
Five Latter-day Saint strangers showed up to the video call. What happened was uncomfortable — but ultimately uplifting.
After the Zoom gathering, one person who came told Brooks that he reflected on the dynamic during the discussion and then wrote a handwritten letter to his cousin. They had broken up on Facebook over a political argument, and he sought to restore the relationship.
“All of this gives me great hope that small steps towards being less afraid of one another, even when it is uncomfortable, are not only necessary but they're rewarding,” Brooks said.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Ciara Hulet: What stood out to you when five people you didn't know popped up on the screen, and you asked: “What do you wish other people understood?”
Joanna Brooks: There was a gentleman who spoke very tenderly about how he missed the Republican Party that he'd grown up with. And I was very moved by his tenderness, and I miss it too.
And there was one gentleman who definitely disagreed with me and definitely wanted, I think, to argue. I was so grateful he showed up, and I just wanted to be with him in that room as long as possible, to have a moment of shared humanity. He got pretty frustrated, but give him some credit, he has five kids, and it was bedtime. So he hopped off the Zoom at 45 minutes, kind of in a heightened mood of frustration. But I want you to know, the next morning, he sent me a Facebook message apologizing for leaving in a heightened state of emotion. And that meant everything to me and affirmed my belief in our shared responsibility to each other as LDS people.
CH: Did your viewpoints change at all by the end?
JB: So it wasn't ever really about my viewpoints. It was about, is this possible? It was an act of faith, right? And, oh, that was an uncomfortable hour. I felt so out of my depth. That stretched me, but it made me hunger for more as well.
CH: How did your experience differ from what you saw online, to actually seeing these people?
JB: When I'm online, there's like, hundreds of comments, and I'm personally engaging everybody I can before the meeting, saying, “I will give you a gift card. Do you want to actually talk to me?” The first learning point is that a lot of us, when we get online, when we write so vociferously into those spaces, we're not actually looking to connect with other people. So that begs the question, “What are we doing when we're shouting into the wind in these internet spaces?” So that definitely was a learning experience for me. And then, you know, the folks who did show up, I just had a lot of honor for their courage, right? That's what I learned. I have honor for the courage of anyone who is willing to show up and be uncomfortable.
CH: Do you have any advice for those who want to connect with others they disagree with?
JB: I try to not give advice. But I will say, and especially as someone who has studied language and culture for my entire adult life, that we are all saturated as we have never been before in the history of this species with digital inputs. The algorithms are no joke, and they are training us to crave hits of fear, hits of righteous anger, hits of adrenaline, aggression, and that does not lead to shared, sustainable futures. If we want to pass down our beautiful humanity to coming generations, we have to actively practice it. We have to nourish it.
It is critical, as we face generative artificial intelligence, that we remember the deep, unshakable, humane intelligence and consciousness, you know, upon which we depend for our survival.
CH: You had a closing song on your agenda. Why?
JB: We didn't actually sing. I posted the agenda so people would know what to expect. It would feel safe, right? So I said, well, maybe we sing “Popcorn Popping,” this, like, LDS favorite, or maybe we sing “School Thy Feelings,” which is this old-school classic hymn from LDS settings. And “Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words” has been in my mind a lot lately, and these classic LDS hymns reminds us that our 19th century and early 20th century LDS forebears also argued. But then they got together on Sundays in a room and sang totally dorky hymns. And that's worth all of us remembering in these moments, especially.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
