Ensuring Freedom of Speech and Safety for All with Sharon McMahon

We are back for Part 2 of our conversation with Sharon McMahon (@sharonsaysso). In this episode, we dive deep on Sharon's recent experiences here in our home state of Utah with the highly publicized cancellation of her speaking engagement at Utah Valley University. With a goal to understand what happened, what's next, and how we all move forward together to strengthen our democracy, preserve freedom of speech, and ensure safety for ALL, we know you'll be fascinated by this conversation. We can't wait for you to listen!

For more, join us on Instagram @letstalk_sis.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Let's talk about race, diversity, human connection. It's complicated, but it is 100% worth the effort, and that is what we're all about.

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Welcome to the Let's Talk Swiss Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

We started in 2020 and we were having conversations about a lot of the racial tension in America. We're black biracial. Our mom is white, blonde hair, green eyes, our dad is black. So we grew up in these kind of in between these different worlds and hearing a lot of conversation within a lot of different groups of people. And I feel like it helped us have understanding. And also, I think that our whole life we kind of wanted to be able to say, hey, let us help you in some of these feelings about different groups of people. And I remember that we got a direct message during this time. It was like shortly after George Floyd. There were so many feelings, so much tension. We had police families that are grieving, we have black families, we have all of these feelings of different Americans, and it was just so hard to talk about. And we got a message from an older woman saying, I've been watching the news and my heart is broken. And then she was able to really feel what some of these different groups might have been feeling. And she said, I worry about my black brothers and sisters. I worry about the fears, the things that they have to worry about to keep chill their children safe. And she just sat with that. And then she also talked about family that she has that are part of the police and the fear and the concerns and all of just the nuance around all of that. And she said, I didn't know what to do. So I went and I checked on my neighbors and I took them dinner and I went down and took food to the police station and I spoke to them and just said, Thank you for what you're doing. And some of these things matter to me. And I hope that you can sit with that and feel that in your job and in your role. And she was received in both different groups so well. And I remember sitting there and reading this and being like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe she did that. Because the fear of, well, what if I go down to the police station and I make them mad because I'm talking about this? Or what if I show up and check on family members or friends that are black and then they're offended? But yet she was brave enough to do, and I don't know truly what these people felt because I'm only hearing her side of the story. But I truly was so surprised in her desire to humanize, to feel, and then to act. And I feel like in those moments where Harriet Tubman, like, who in the world would have thought, like, to even have that idea and think, I can help. I don't know how much I can do, but maybe I'll try bringing these few people. Oh, okay, I'm gonna do it again now. And so I think that that example, because I am a person that does feel overwhelmed and I'm in empath, and I feel so deeply that it is. It is about being able to focus it just enough to say what can I personally do as an individual? And I think this desire for the future, like what you were saying, is what are we creating for the future? And even our parents, I believe, were probably a little more maybe civically aware than maybe we are. And I feel like even our generation, what I hear is, hey, I'm really worried. I don't know if I really align with this political party or this political party. What does that mean for me? And I think so many people are feeling that way. And I'm really curious because I know that you get to see so much of this in your job, is what do you say to people that are so worried about what they are seeing with our different political parties right now and where to find a place and still stay civically engaged, even if maybe you don't feel like you totally fit within a political party.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Gosh, that's a really common way to feel right now. That's uh I know I personally know so many people who who feel that way for a huge variety of reasons. I don't I we don't even have time to articulate all of the reasons why people are feel like I used to be ex, but I can't do that anymore. Or I used to be Y, and that doesn't work. Um, there's just a million, a million possible reasons for that. And so feeling politically homeless is something that many, many Americans, I I would even estimate that um the majority of Americans don't feel particularly well represented by the two-party system. They, for example, um perhaps if you have been, you know, a lifelong Republican voter, maybe you don't feel like the current iteration of the Republican Party, this is just one example, represents your current views. You'd like to see a different version of a conservative party that has some different priorities. Or on the left end of the spectrum, maybe you are, you know, you're slightly left of center and you want to see more spending on some, you know, government programs that help the poor, but you're not ready to go like, let's do, you know, let's abolish gas-powered cars. You know what I mean? That's a silly example, but you know what I'm saying. Like you don't feel like you can go all the way to the left. There's a huge number of Americans that exist in this end of the middle of the spectrum right here that don't feel like the current iterations of the Republican and the Democratic parties, which are sort of by nature at this point, um uh slightly more um extreme than some people feel comfortable with. Yes. Um especially when it comes to like um language and rhetoric and ways that people are conducting themselves in public, like it doesn't necessarily align with what they would like to see happening in the discourse. Um this group of people here does not feel well represented. And this isn't uh and like they constantly feel like I have to hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils, and I don't like feeling that way. Uh and that's one reason, as you mentioned earlier, getting involved in um be being civically involved at a local level can feel far more satisfying because it tends to be less hyperpartisan. Yes, it tends to be less about like screw you, you know, Democrats or Republicans, and it tends to be more about like, do we want a data center?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

That's a good question, Sharon.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

We can spend the rest of the time talking about data. Do we want a data center? Which, you know, these are issues that cross partisan boundaries, right? Like I'm sure you know plenty of um, you know, conservatives who don't want a data center or you know, yeah, vice versa. Um so I would argue that we need more than two political parties. I would argue that the two-party system is not benefiting the majority of Americans. And most Americans want to see more options, they don't want to exist in this extremely polarized binary. And the healthiest democracies, and by that I mean um these are things that political scientists study people that are democracies in which people do feel well represented. Legislation is passed that uh that represents um positive things for the majority of people. People are not spending all of their time um lobbying you know, Molotov cocktails at each other on the internet, and they're actually engaged in the work of running the country. Most of the healthiest democracies have four to five political parties.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Interesting. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

And then you are forced. If you have five political parties represented in Congress, you are forced to work with other people. Yeah. You have to be able to put together a coalition just using this hot button issue in Utah of a data center. Let's say we're talking about that nationally, you are forced. If you are a far right party who's like, we don't, we want to get the we live in the country for a reason. We're not trying to live next to a data center. You know, like we we want the government to leave us alone. Like you that might be your reason for hating the data center. On the on the left, you might be like, you're polluting our water. Yeah. You are you're you know, destroying our environment. These are actually groups that could work together on an issue without necessarily agreeing on everything, but they could form a coalition to make forward progress on something that the majority of people might want or might benefit from. Um, I live in the country where I don't even have broadband internet. Okay, there is no broadband at my house in northern Minnesota. Really? No. And I think that's silly. I think it's silly that there are millions of Americans without broadband internet. Yeah. I think that's silly. And I and I would agree. I I mean, I think most Americans would be like, yeah, we should you should have the option to have broadband at your house. Totally. Just like you have the option to have a telephone at your house, you have the option to have electricity at your house. Like these are public utilities at this point. You know, um, that's something that we don't need to be a Democrat or a Republican to have to make progress on those kinds of things. So if we had four or five political parties, um what would happen is people would be required to work together because no one single party would be able to um have enough of a you know a numbers game in Congress to be able to shove through their preferred legislation without cooperation from other people.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So I know that sounds like um, I would imagine a lot of people are listening to this and be like, yeah, I could I could do that. I I would be down for that. And but it seems like this big insurmountable obstacle of like, how do we get more parties then? If that's the That was going to be my next question. Um you know, there are some structural issues in the United States that keep us entrenched in this two-party system. And there's actually a couple of simple steps that I think we actually could take that don't require us to do things like amend the Constitution, and that would get us at least started on a good path towards um broadening our representation. One of the things that I think would be actually pretty easy to do is have a national uh primary day, especially when it comes to like presidential elections. We don't have a national primary day, everybody sets their own. And what ends up happening is if you're saying in South Dakota that has a late primary in the election cycle, by the time um the primary runs comes around in your state, everyone has dropped out because they have lost in so many other states. They're like, my can't my campaign's not viable. I've lost in eight states. You have nobody to vote for. So you feel very disenfranchised from the process, right? Like, why isn't my voice as valuable as the voice of somebody from Iowa? Why can't we all have equal say in who the candidates are? Why do a small number of states get to control this process? You know, like that's most Americans, I think, would agree with that. We should all have equal say on who the candidates are for the presidency. That that's something Congress could actually just make a law about that. Like we don't need to amend anything. They just we we have a national uh general election day, we can have a national primary election day. We can make election days holidays, we can make it easier for people to access the polls by creating a national holiday on these days. This is what most other democracies do.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Uh and they make it easier to when when facilities are closed because it's a holiday, they expand the number of places that can be polling stations. You you know, if the schools are closed, the schools can be used. If you know banks are closed, I mean there there's just a variety of ways in which it makes it easier for people to vote. Um, I would also argue for changing the way that we run the electoral college. A lot of people would say get rid of the electoral college. I think that's a conversation we can have, but that is that will require changing the constitution. What we can do without changing the constitution is uh move away from winner take all. Winner take in the electoral college was not part of the design of the framers. We did not have winner take all in the electoral college for the first 40 years of the republic. There was there the concept of winner take all is not in the constitution. That is just something that people uh an idea that people came up with over time as they realized that they could consolidate their power uh into a in in the party system. So if you look at the uh election results, the electoral college election results for say, like the the election of 1796, there's like five, six different candidates on the ballot, and all of them are getting votes in the electoral college. Um we did not develop this whoever wins the popular vote will get all of the electoral college votes in a state. We did not develop that until the 19th century, you know, moving into the you know 1820s or so. Yes. And there are two states that don't do winner take all. Okay. Maine and Nebraska don't do winner take all. We could easily just change at the state level how we allocate our electoral college votes. And what this would do is it would force candidates to start earning the votes of everyone.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Right now, if you live in California, it's kind of a foregone conclusion that the Democratic presidential candidate is going to win win the electoral college in California. Yeah. Even though California, the most populated state, has millions of Republicans. Millions of Republicans live in California. Um they've elected Republican governors before. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a Republican. Yes. Um the same is true, uh, you know, in Utah. Even though Utah is a is a strongly lean right state, there are still many Democrats in Utah. Uh what happens is that candidates feel like if you're a Republican candidate, you spend zero time campaigning in Utah. You do not need to pay any attention to what the people of Utah need or want because it is a foregone conclusion that you have already earned their vote. You have them, right? And the same is true if you're a Republican, or I'm sorry, if you're a Democrat, you're not campaigning in Utah. If you're a Republican, you're not campaigning in California. Yeah. It's a waste of your time and money as a candidate because they're not voting for me anyway. So consequently, you're not paying attention to the needs of the people of California. And the and so they spend all of their time campaigning only in swing states. And if you live in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, you know, if you live in one of those swing states, you feel uh absolutely bombarded and inundated by political advertising. Every single commercial is a political advertising. Oh my goodness. You get a a stick, a stack of mailers an inch thick in the mail every single day. And so um all they're doing is campaigning for the votes of the people in the swing states, and they are just assuming everybody, the rest of the map is gonna fall the way it's gonna fall.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Uh if we actually had to start earning the votes of everybody, that would change political rhetoric in the United States. You wouldn't be able to call, you know, XYZ state a crappy state, or like, oh, I'm not gonna help the people in that state because they didn't vote for me. You wouldn't have be able to have that attitude. You wouldn't have the luxury of having that attitude if you had to earn the votes of every of every state.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

So there's a lot of arguments to make for eliminating the electoral college, but that will require amending the constitution. But it would not require a constitutional amendment to just proportionally allocate electoral college votes based on okay, well, candidate candidate A um got 40% of the vote in my state, and candidate B got 60%. So candidate A is gonna get approximately 40% of the electoral college votes. It doesn't work out perfectly, but and candidate B is gonna get 60%. Uh you would want that 40% of votes because that's gonna stack up in your total. Yes. If your goal is to get 270 electoral college votes, you need every single one that you can get. So you would so you would want the the even the one electoral college vote from a from a small state, you would work to get those votes because there is a path to the presidency by gaining as many little pockets of voters in every single state as you can.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

Oh my word. Sharon, I could talk to you all day.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

I feel like I Well now. I'm sitting here, I'm like, okay, this is important, and knowledge is power. Yes. And when you understand these things, you can make better decisions, you can engage with people with different opinions. Like, all of this is so important. And I'm also like, how do we make this interesting to younger people? I'm sitting here thinking about my kids. Yeah. Because I feel like we got a lesser version in school, and I think they're getting less than what we did. And so, even for me as a mom, I'm like, I need to understand this better because I need to teach my kids. And I think there's so many other places I show up that I think this is important to understand and to know.

SPEAKER_04 17:49

I mean, I think that's why so many of us are leaning into accounts like you have, because we're trying to teach our kids to, you know, use their voices, be a part of community, all of that. Okay, we're getting short on time, so I need to deep dive something here and kind of shake the ears a little bit because, you know, we've talked about really being a part of community. What is our responsibility? And I I have watched you for years use your time and your talents to educate us. And when you put yourself out there, there's room for criticism, always. And so recently we've seen that happen really big and really loud when you were answering questions that your community posed to you specifically on some of um the late Charlie Kirk's words, and that has come around to me being more than just a consequence, but people are kind of actively pushing against that. So, just for our community, could you kind of give us just a little like summary of what that that was?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah. So uh after, well, first of all, the day that Charlie Kirk was horrifically assassinated, I was actually live on the internet when it happened. And I was watching my phone start to blow up with notifications while I am live on the internet. Uh and there were, you know, hundreds of people who were maybe thousands of people who are watching this happen in real time while I was live on the internet. And I was so horrified and shaken and um just heartbroken, not you know, for heartbroken for his family, heartbroken for the school community where he was where he was killed, because I've spoken at that school twice before. I know the school administration there. Um I I know that they would never want something like this to happen on their campus. No, but and those students did not deserve to watch that happen. Truly like I felt so upset about the whole situation and also very upset that this is a way that we have apparently decided we solve problems in the United States. And I strongly reject that idea that we solve problems with political violence. I strongly reject that idea. So that was sort of like my the the initial um the initial post that I made was uh basically saying, like, I don't want to live in an America that does this. Yeah, this is a terrible thing. And a lot of some people on the left were really mad at me for that, and they were like, I don't follow you to watch you cry over Charlie Kirk, I don't follow you to watch you get upset about a racist man who blah blah blah, you know, like they were mad that I was upset about it.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Uh and then one of the things that I discovered, because this was a national uproar and a horrible, you know, like a horrible high-profile assassination like this has not happened in the United States in many, many decades, right? Um I I did not realize how many people had never heard of Charlie Kirk.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yes, I was one of those people. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I because I work in this circle and I has per had personally witnessed his incredible impact in terms of like the number of people that he reached, the number of people who listen to his podcast. He had 20 million podcast listeners a month. As podcasters, you know what those numbers are, right? That is an enormous impact. Whether you like his impact or not, his impact is undeniable. Absolutely. So I was surprised at the number of people who were saying to me, like, what is going on? I don't even know who this man is. Why would anyone want to kill him? So this is one group of people, and then there's this other sort of group of people who uh loved him so much, truly loved him, and felt like he, to use some of their language, uh, that he was the best of us, that he was spreading the gospel, that he was engaging in free speech debates with people, uh, that he was showing people how to communicate peacefully, and they could not understand. This group over here could not understand why anyone would either not know who. He is, or not be sad that he had passed away. Uh, this was very perplexing to this group over here. So both of these groups were coming to me, you know, by many thousands of people over the course of a couple of days, being like, Can you contextualize what is going on?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

So uh what I did after that was I took the time to uh watch, you know, full podcast episodes of his, to watch like full debates that he was having, um, full speeches that he was having, and uh attempted to contextualize why some of his words were perceived as harmful to some people. Um, you don't have to agree with that. You can look at those words and think those words are fine with me. Um, but you know, for just to give one example, this happened a few days before he passed away. He said something I'm paraphrasing here. Um, that Islam is uh the tool that the left is using to slit the throat of America. And those are strong words, um, especially if you are from a Muslim community. Um many I heard from many people who felt like those words were harmful to me as a Muslim in America. That Islam, I I don't intend to slit the throat of America with that. And I'm just using this as one example. Um, and so I did. I watched the whole uh the whole uh context of how did he arrive at that uh those words and to make sure that I was not taking them out of context. To take something out of context would be um to mischaracterize what somebody is saying, and if you listened to the whole context, it would change what they were saying. Absolutely. It would change what they were saying. Um so just to give one small example, if you're talking to your friend about, you know, your house burning down, um, and you say something along the lines of, um, I just can't believe that I, you know, I let my house burn down like this. If somebody had listened to your whole conversation, they would know that you were actually very upset about it, uh, that you were actually like you would never want your house to burn down. But if I took a tiny clip of it, you could make it sound like you were the cause of your house burning down. That's what it means to take something out of context, right? Like where a clip clip changes the meaning when it's put into context. So when I put up this post, um lots of people loved it. Lots of people felt like, you know, thank you for taking the time to do this. Uh was basically, you know, doing what I said, contextualizing who he is and explaining why some of his words were viewed by some communities, particularly minority communities, religious, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ minorities felt harmed. Um, I I eventually over time, there this post had over 200,000 likes on it. It was extremely viral.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

I remember it. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Um tens of millions of views on this post. Uh, and then of course, there were some people who were very angry about it. Yeah. They did not like seeing words that people perceived as harmful being attributed to somebody that they deeply cared about. Um and I do think there's something sort of psychologically about when you like somebody, they can say things to you that somebody else can't say. And so when when the words were removed from Charlie Kirk's mouth by this person that they liked, when they when he was not the one saying them and they were just typed on an Instagram slide, it hit different than hearing it come out of his mouth. That doesn't mean that that the words that he's not responsible for what he said, right? But it just hit some people differently. It does. Yeah. So um, you know, the these posts uh came, you know, I put them up um in the immediate the days immediately after he passed away. I also put up a post, by the way, about um something else that made people mad, which is that um if you believe in the concept of loving your neighbor, which I do, that also includes loving your enemies. And because your neighbor, your enemy is your neighbor.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah. And I remember this post- I do too.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yes. And uh, you know, again, some people loved it, some people didn't love it, some people were like, stop asking me to care about people that are harming me. I I get where they're coming from, I I genuinely do. And I'm not advocating for like let them sleep over at your house, give them all your money. Like, I'm not I'm not advocating for that. But I do believe that. I do believe that loving your neighbor means loving your enemies. Yeah, and and loving really like it's humanizing them, it's seeing them as a person. It's not yeah, it's wanting for them the same good things that you would want for your own families. Yeah, it is that's what it is. It's not about like come over and let me, you know, put makeup on you and we can eat and roast marshmallows. Right, yeah. That doesn't have to be what it means, but it just means I want all of the good things for you that I would want for my own children. Yes. But that's that's to me the simplest way to contextualize that, right? So anyway, these posts lived on my feed for a long time, and um I received an invitation to be the commencement speaker at uh UVU in Utah in December. And these curiously, these posts continued to gain traction. They were still circulating, you know, in like February, March, people were still commenting on them and and still um they were still gaining me followers. And then things started to take a sort of a darker turn where um people were figuring out where my children went to school and were mailing me pictures of the outside of my children's school. And they like had figured out my home address and were mailing me these kinds of pictures. People, there was a coordinated campaign from a group of people to call where my son works and try to get my son fired from his job by you know making insinuations that like he secretly works for Sharon McMahon. He doesn't, he does not work for me, he has a an actual grown-up job. Um those are just two examples of you know, that's not including any of the myriad of death threats, the people who have showed up at my house, which you can't see from the road, right? As we've established, um, you know, and the the many, many names I've been called, etc. That's just part and parcel of the job. But eventually um I decided that I was gonna archive those posts because I was tired of people figuring out where my kids went to school. Totally. And it was not worth the number of followers I was gaining from these posts, from all the Charlie Kirk haters who were like, oh, she hates him, which is not the case. I did not hate Charlie Kirk. I had never one time mentioned him before. Right, never one time.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Um I was st you know, thousands of people were still following me from them, but it that was not worth my children's safety at all. I don't care if you're following me, if it also results in harm to my children.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

So I archived those posts a couple of months ago. Um then there, you know, these posts uh began to recirculate amongst certain elected officials.

unknown 29:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Um state and federal elected officials from Utah.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

And that was really how this whole sort of commotion came came about. Was um not students at the university who were like, we don't want her to speak here, but it elected officials who didn't want me to speak at UVU, even though again I've spoken there twice before. Um and everything that I've ever talked about there has been uh very well received. My commencement speech said nothing about anything remotely controversial. I don't think you could read it and and find it objectionable in the slightest. It's not controversial, it's very encouraging. Um but that then, this this uproar that was caused on social media and and in the media, like on certain cable news channels, et cetera, um, created a security situation that was just untenable for the university. Uh it was not just threats against me, it was threats against the university administration, threats against the university president, the board of trustees, and it just, you know, like the situation just continued to snowball and it did not appear as though there was going to be um a safe way to have me participate in commencement, unfortunately. And understandably, the university administration wants to keep students safe. Of course, yeah. Nobody should be unsafe because I am the commencement speaker. I would never want that ever.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Um, but we were legitimately having security meetings that had, you know, a dozen people involved in these security meetings where we were having to discuss, you know, like when you're the commencement speaker, you wear a commencement graduation robe, right? We were legitimately having to discuss whether or not I would need to wear a bulletproof vest underneath my commencement rope. That was a topic of discussion. Would it be visible? Does it send the wrong message? You know, like we kind of were, we had not reached a decision yet because we were still a couple weeks out from commencement. Um we were kind of like, well, the room, the robe is roomy. Like it'll probably hide it. But like the idea that we have to have a conversation about um about that topic is deeply concerning. And again, it speaks to the bigger issue that I have a problem with, which is um the notion that we solve problems by killing people, right, or threatening people. Yeah. Um, and it's not about my right to speak at a university. It's to me, it's about the much larger principles of the matter that we have this one. Of using violence to solve problems is I don't agree with that. And another problem of elected officials um attempting to silence disfavored speech.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

And that's concerning.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

That's also concerning because today it's just me. Um, you know, and you can get a different commencement speaker. Uh, but tomorrow it's um a Christian author that another group doesn't want to speak at the university, or it's an LGBTQ group, or it's a pro-Palestinian group, or it's a Jewish student group, or any number of groups that somebody else opposes.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

I don't like that person. Um if I raise a big enough ruckus, I can I can ensure that their speech on campus is silenced. And it is a very slippery slope, especially coming from government officials. Yes, it's one thing if it's coming from students who are like, this person doesn't represent our student body. That is a different situation constitutionally, because the First Amendment says that it is not it the government can make no laws restricting your freedom of speech and religion and assembly and press. Not that students can't protest you. Right. Students have the right to do that. They have that right as well. Yes, yes, right. Yes. But that's not what was happening. That's not what was happening. No. Uh, in fact, news, news um uh stations went to the campus and did kind of like, you know, man on the street with a microphone. Um, they couldn't find any students who were like, This is a terrible idea. Either they didn't know who I was, and they were like, Yeah, sure. I don't know. You know, like I'm not graduating, I'm not paying attention to this. Or they were like, I think that's great. Like they they could not find this like student uproar because it simply didn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Um, so again, I fully agree that students have the right to protest, and I was prepared that there were probably gonna be some students who would protest me, and that's just kind of the nature of the beast for any commencement speaker.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Um I respect their right to do that. I because I believe in the principles of the constitution more than my own, you know, ego of like you gotta agree with me.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

I I I care more about you exercising your your uh First Amendment rights. Um but the slippery slope is the government officials. Um not only is there a constitutional problem with that, there's also a Utah state law problem with that.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

There is.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

There is and some of the people who were involved in trying to get me removed as the speaker are some of the people who championed this 2024 law that's in the state of Utah that says that speakers cannot be disinvited based on their political viewpoint.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

There's a contradiction there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

And also that speakers from a diverse uh background viewpoint background must be invited to campuses so that students can learn from a variety of people. Uh the law says both of those things. And some of the people who were involved in trying to make sure that I couldn't speak on campus were the people who were some of the law's biggest champions.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

So that's just one other little piece of the puzzle. It's not about me feeling like, oh, I have the right to speak here. Uh it's about the larger principle of government silencing disfavored speech, which is always a very slippery slope.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

And it it's kind of twofold here because I see that portion of the government, the silencing, and also this giant disconnect of humanity where people were were feeling protective of someone they loved, that you put words out that maybe stressed them, they had feelings, emotions. And so the lack of the connection of this circle of humanity to now come back with death threats. And that's really that's a really bitter pill to swallow when we look at just our communities in general.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

You know? I know. I know. I feel I feel sad that this whole thing has happened. I really do. I feel this is not the outcome I would have preferred by any stretch of stretch of the imagination. Like I had worked hard on that speech and listen, I was working on my outfits. Yes, you were.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Yes, well, you have so many friends in Utah that were excited to see you. So I know there's there's so many layers to it.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

And yeah, again, it's not about me, but I uh the only reason I bring up the outfits is not because that because it really matters, but just because I would it it it's because I was putting so much into it. Like I really wanted it to be a memorable, good experience for students. You know, I was like, is this green close enough to the school color green? You know, like the school color is like emerald. It is. So I was like, I should get an emerald green dress, or what about emerald green shoes? Like again, these are inconsequential things in the grand scheme of things, but it just is it it illustrates how much I actually cared about doing a good job.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you had relationships too at the school and administrators, and and I think that it's interesting to hear because being a part of that community, and we have taken some time to really listen to some of the feelings that people have had, and some really truly feel hurt still by the Charlie Kirk situation, their mourning, their love for turning point, how they felt like so many of their views are represented. And then there are so many people too that are saying, Well, we want a place where Charlie and Sharon can come safely. And to share Charlie, yes, yes, and that is I think the bigger the bigger hope is that we can have a community where we can get different perspectives, lived experiences, thoughts, and that makes us better.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I totally agree. I totally agree that campuses should be a place where Charlie Kirk can speak safely. Yes. And and also I can speak safely. But I totally agree that the the goal should be a place where um that both speakers can be welcomed.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Right? Like that's I 100% agree with that.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

And and I hope that most people, I know I know that they're outliers, but I hope that that's at the core of all of our beliefs. Yes. That we want safety, we want to be inclusive and have a place where we can hear different perspectives, and that's a good thing. It is. That's an invited thing.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

So as we end up. I have one really one thought really quick for you. So I want to touch on this. So it is interesting because as you were talking earlier, I feel like I just want to set up a couple things and just reminders for people that are listening to this, no matter what their background or their algorithm might look like. But just in those moments of the tragedy of Charlie Kirk, I I knew someone was coming to talk. And I had some people I knew that were going, some people that disagreed with this person that were going, and I knew there was something happening, but I didn't fully understand. And so I want to kind of walk through that day to also just show how so many people were seeking information. Um, and I was actually in the middle of a busy work day, and I get a call from my son who's in high school, and his high school is close to Utah Valley University. And um, I get a call from him, and I'm kind of like, What is he calling for? It's he should be in class or lunch or something. And I hear his voice and he's terrified, and he's like, Mom, mom, someone got shot.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

And I said, What's going on? Where are you? And he was like, I'm across the street right now from UVU, and people are running away from the school terrified. And I could feel like this is a teenage boy who's, you know, wanting to be perceived as an adult. Yeah. And I can feel the quiver in his voice. And he's like, Mom, someone got shot. And he said, Charlie Kirk. And I said, Oh my goodness. And I was just panicking, but I didn't know who it was. So in that moment, I said, You need to get away from the school, you need to go somewhere safe, even just come home. And I could feel like I could hear the commotion behind him, the fear in his voice, and the emotion. And I asked him, I said, Who's Charlie Kirk? And he started explaining to me, just in this quick little, this guy that talks on college campuses, a lot of my friends were there, and they're still there, and I don't know if they're okay. So it's just this moment. And then I go online and I start Googling who is Charlie Kirk, why would someone want to hurt him? And just trying to understand quickly, and I'm starting to see exactly what you described. People who love him and care deeply about him, his family, his work, and people who have very different feelings. And I was surprised by the intensity of those different feelings. And then, as I'm trying to understand and with the work that we do, then we're called into, we're starting to write statements and we're starting to write information, trying to get clarity. We can see that people are mourning this loss. This is devastating to our community. And I was not prepared to see the extreme feelings and even people that were justifying something so horrific happening. And we were getting questions also where people were saying, Hey, you guys talk about these things. Some of them that you some of the things that you shared maybe don't align with some of Charlie's messages, and some of the things you shared do align. What do you think? Help us find clarity in this moment. And I think that it's so interesting because we can always look back and we can see things differently and bigger pictures. But I feel like it's so important because when I'm going to my algorithm and what I'm seeing and what is being portrayed online, I was seeking clarity. I was like, help me quickly understand what why people have these feelings. And I started deep diving, listening to podcasts, messages, trying to understand, and I think that that is the hope with even people right now that have very angry feelings about very many people that are speaking politically right now, and to try to understand, to take the time to get closer, to try to understand their message fully. And I think that in that moment, when I saw what you shared that day, what you shared in the coming days, and then that post, I was one that felt it gave me clarity. I can see and understand. And with so much of the work that we do with communities that feel the impact when these words are shared. And as little girls that grew up in a community, where sometimes the things that we heard that were said to us or that are said to my children, I can track back those messages often to public figures that people in my community listen to and value their opinion, and then sometimes it's used as retaliation or words on even children and children that are practicing different religions that maybe is different than the norm in the community, and that are feeling a different experience, maybe not feeling like they have a big part of a community that they are a part of, and they are in a minority group. And so it's it's if I could say one message and have. You here and understanding your day and what happened, and also your compassion for Charlie and his family, and seeing that moment of clarity. I think so many of us online have moments like that. We're we're sharing based on what is coming in and being asked of us, and then that's maybe not how it's viewed later. And that information that's being shared, I personally felt like it was helpful for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

And I think that many people did. And I think that all three of us can sit in this room and say, oh my goodness, to know someone and love someone and hear their words, to feel a connection to their family, feel like their views represent yours, and then to lose that person in such a violent act, there it's hard to sometimes see anything beyond that.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Right, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

And so I do feel like when it comes down to it, and this is something that I think is so important to us, is we are so thankful for the work that you're doing online.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

And it has helped the work that we do. And when we've had to tap out, we're so thankful that there's someone that is teaching simple ways to understand and engage and can share these connections to history in a way that also doesn't feel like it can be hurtful or harmful to maybe communities that didn't feel like we were represented even in the founding of our country. But we are a part of this country and this America. Yes. And I just to have you here in this room and to be able to talk about these things that are so important to our country, to our families, to the future is an honor. And for your work that you continue to do, and I can see that the cost is high.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Thank you. Yes. And we are so just we're grateful and something I love so much that you continually share is that hope is a choice. So if you have just we have like one minute left, if you have one little nugget on hope that we can kind of seal this up with, we would love to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yeah, I you know, I keep coming back to the idea that a hard time uh is not a hopeless time. And that we don't um we don't uh we don't know the future, uh, but that doesn't diminish our ability to impact it. And that we can't uh let go of our ability to impact the future because things are hard right now, right? Um and I really, really believe that the best way to sort of hold on to hope is to uh reframe how you think about it. That it is not a feeling that you experience when the sky is blue and the birds are chirping and you're certain your team's gonna win the football game. Um that it is um a choice that we make, and it that choice is demonstrated through our actions. It's demonstrated through our daily actions, what we choose to do when we get up in the morning, who we choose to speak, who we choose to lift up instead of put down, uh, how we choose to interact with our the people in our communities, the people online, uh that hope doesn't need to feel like a feeling we're experiencing. It is a choice that we are making on a daily basis. And uh it's just this belief that um, you know, things might be hard right now, but that doesn't mean that's how they have to stay. And we can impact how things develop in the future.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

That was perfect. Sharon, thank you for being here with us. Thank you. We admire you and your work, and we're just grateful for this conversation. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

Let's talk sis is produced by Ross Booth. For more, join us on Instagram at let's talk underscore sis.