Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 791

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking the Donate button on the top right side of the page. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. It is September 1, 2017. I'm your host John Dehlin and I am so excited to interview someone I've been wanting to interview for many, many years, ever since I saw her I'm a Mormon video. Her name is Mehrsa Baradaran and there's so many cool things about Mehrsa. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Iran when she was 9. Her mother was an activist there. We could talk a bit about that. After joining the Mormon Church, Mehrsa graduated from Brigham Young University magna cum laude, went on to get a law degree from New York University, became law school faculty at byu, then University of Georgia, where she now works as faculty there. In the law school, she is the author of two books. The first one is how the Other Half Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy. In that book she discussed the idea of sort of integrating banks with post offices, and this is mostly for sort of developing countries. She's given TED talks about this idea. Her ideas have been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and others, which is really exciting. Elizabeth Warren, and she's coming out with a new book called the Color of Black Banking and the Racial Wealth Gap from Harvard University Press. So super successful in so many ways. But in addition to her successful career, she is the mother of three children. She identifies as an immigrant, liberal, Mormon Muslim feminist lawyer mother who generally dislikes labels. And we'll talk a lot about that as well. We're going to cover several topics in today's episode. Race and Mormonism, Mormons and Social Justice, Tribalism and Mormon identity. It's going to be what I think kind of a really important, epic interview with an important voice far beyond Mormonism in the broad intellectual and academic communities. So I'm super excited. Before we actually dive into the interview, I will just make a few very, very quick announcements. As you know, we have a Facebook page. MormonStroys podcast has a Facebook page. Please like us on Facebook. It's helpful. If you want to also help us, you can give us A positive review on Facebook @MormonStories podcast. It takes just a few seconds, and it really makes a difference in terms of helping get the word out there. We have accounts now on Instagram and on Twitter, and if you want, you can give us a positive review on itunes. All those things are really, really helpful. As you know, we do workshops and retreats for people who are experiencing Mormon faith transitions. We have a workshop September 14th and 15th in Seattle, Washington. We're going to Sydney, Australia, October 20th through 22nd. We're going to the San Francisco Bay Area November 9th through 10th, and we're taking nominations for events in 2018. You can email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you want to bring a workshop or retreat to your area. You can go to mormonstories.org events to see all the events there. And of course, we've got a cruise plan to the Bahamas October 24th through 28th. As something we're doing for fun. Those are our announcements. We try and make them really, really quick and fast because we want to get to the purpose of today's interview, which is Mehrsa. So without any further ado, mehrsa, I'm so thrilled to have you on Mormon Stories Podcast for the first time. Thanks for joining us.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:04:29] I'm happy to be here. I'm a big fan.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] All right. And you're joining us from uga, your office at UGA Law School, is that right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:04:37] Yeah. Go Dogs. We're playing somebody tomorrow in a football game is what I hear.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] Are you an SEC football fan?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:04:47] It is impossible to avoid being one here. So, yes, I think the answer is yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:52] You've been to games and everything?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:04:54] I've been to two games. One was oppressively hot and I had to leave, and the other, we won. But, you know, I don't know much about football, so.

John Dehlin [00:05:04] All right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:05:04] It's hard.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] Well, it's fun to. It's so fun to have you on. All right. So there's so many cool things to cover. I was a political science major, international relations, and I studied a little bit about the Iran revolution. It was a really important moment growing up in the 80s with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. I just remember a lot of talk about Iran, including a song that came out when I was in middle school called Bomb Iran. It was a parody to the Beach Boys song Barbara Ann. It would go, bomb, bomb, bomb. I didn't want to sing it, but Iran was a really important fixture of our consciousness in the 70s and 80s. And you were born during the Iranian revolution. So I think It'd be fun to start with you talking about your parents and their ancestry and give us a little bit of an education about Iran, about what it was like before the revolution, what the revolution was about and how your family maybe even played a role in it. Do you want to start there or you can start with whatever introduction you want to start with.

Growing Up in Revolutionary Iran

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:06:15] Oh, absolutely. No. So I was born the year of the revolution. So my dad's family is from the south of Iran and he was born literally on the Silk Road. So, you know, the Silk Road passes from the Orient up until up to Europe. And my father was from this town on the Iran Iraq border as the traders were coming in. And he lived in a trading town. And my grandfather lived, it's called Kasser Shirin, which is Suite Castle. It's where the Shah, one of the earlier shahs, had a castle that was on the Silk Road. And my grandfather actually had a silk factory on the Silk Road and sold sort of silk turbans to Kurds. And my dad tells me, I mean, the town that he grew up in was very, it was a trading town, it was multicultural. So there was, you know, Iranians were Muslims, but they were, in his town there were Jews and Kurds and Arabs and, you know, we're Persian. And so there were Persians. And so there was a real sort of open mindedness in the town that he grew up. And I think that sort of infects my family. My mom was from the north, so my mom was both. My dad was a surgeon and he worked for the Shah in the police and then he as a doctor and then he worked later on for Khomeini as a transition. My mother was a revolutionary. She was an activist. She was in college, was what you would call a Muslim socialist, not communist in the way we think, but sort of egalitarian. They wanted a democratic government. She was a university student, so she'd go to these rallies and this is, you know, in the lead up to the revolution. And the Shah was, you know, he's an oligarch. He was your, you know, took Iran's money and gave it to the west and really pushed down the rights of the peasants and the farmers and the common people. And so the revolution was a bunch of different forces in Iran joining together to oust the Shah. And my mom's was an, you know, intellectual sort of, we need an egalitarian democracy. So she would go out on the streets and revolt and, you know, actually lost her first baby at one point in 1977. She was out you know, protesting the regime and the shots that they shot out at the crowd. And my mom ran and, you know, that night delivered a baby who couldn't live, you know, because he was too young. And then I was the next. So I was her first child, but, you know, the second born. And so I was born that year, you know, the year that the Shah is pushed out of Iran. And really, I mean, there's what was

John Dehlin [00:08:41] wrong with the Shah? Like, he was kind of an ally to the United States, wasn't he?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:08:47] Yeah, I mean, he was a puppet, Right? Puppet ally to the US And Russia. I mean, if you can. Russia and the US were sort of playing the Shah for their own favors. And Great Britain. And to understand the revolution, you've got to go back to 1953. Right. So Americans, sorry, Iranians, elected a democratically elected leader. Let's call him our Bernie Sanders. But Iranians would say he was our George Washington. Right. He was committed to a democracy and not a monarchy. Iran had lived under monarchies. His name was Mossadegh. And what he does is he wants to make a democracy, tries to make it parliamentary, and he nationalizes Iran's oil. And this pisses off Great Britain and the U.S. and that's because they need

John Dehlin [00:09:28] the revenue to be able to function as a society. And at that time, imperialist countries were siphoning the wealth out of Iran in Iran, and that would keep them from being able to prosper. Is that right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:09:39] Yeah. And Iran was strategically important, right? It was in the route to where they needed to be. They wanted to pass a railroad through. They wanted to get the oil out. And so when Mossadegh nationalizes the oil, they don't like it. So what they do is they stage a coup. They pretend like Iranians are throwing him out of office. And the CIA has since admitted this, but it was the Dulles brothers who were going around changing a lot of leaders at the time. A lot of third World leaders who were notoriously awful people that they would put in as these democratically elected leaders are out.

John Dehlin [00:10:11] Guatemala, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina. All over the place.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:10:14] Exactly. And so Iran was, you know, and Iranians remember this, and they sort of sowed the seeds of this anti Westernism and this suspicion of the West. And so when Khomeini comes in, so the Shah is the puppet that America sort of replaces Mossadegh with, right? So the Shah leaves, Mossadegh is ousted by the CIA and the Brits, and then they bring in the Shah and put him back in. And so the Iranians don't like this. And the Shah is just notorious. He's like a spendthrift, a playboy. He has these huge parties and, you know, spends $500,000 on like caviar and wine. Meanwhile, there are people who are impoverished in Iran, right? So Iranians, there's this discontent brewing and a bunch of different forces come together, right? There are the religious people that want him out because he's going around tearing off headscarves off people. There are that.

John Dehlin [00:11:02] So he was secular. He was secular.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:04] He was secular, yes, he was secular. So that, you know, now looking at what Iran has become, people say, oh, that was good. But he was intolerant of religion also, right? So he was not letting Muslims practice their religion there. And so there was that discontent. There was the merchants discontent and then there was this, the people who wanted Mossadegh and democracy's discontent. My mom was in that latter sort. And so talk really quickly.

John Dehlin [00:11:29] This is just going to be basic Iranian 101. What's a lot of people think Iranians are? Arabs talk. What does it mean to be Persian versus Arab? Or can we even really describe the difference?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:40] I mean, it used to be a world of difference. I mean, and now we're all sort of, you know, like the other, the scary other people, but to Iranians were Persians. So we, you know, this is ancient Persia. Arabs were, you know, Persians and Arabs are different races. And so. Or however. I mean, race. What does race even mean? But like, the language was very different, the cultures were very different. Persia has been sort of a civilization for a long time. This is Rumi and Hafiz. And we had our own, you know, when it was the Greeks, we were the Persians and there was fights and the Greeks won. So they got to write history. But the Persians had their own history at the time, which is longer and deeper. And, you know, not to be, you know, not to put down the Greeks, but I've been to, you know, their ruins and Iranian ruins are bigger and better. So, you know, we ruled the world at one point. We're a fallen empire. And, you know, we had, you know, Cyrus and Darius and Alexander the Great, who was an intruder but ended up, you know, ruling Persia. So we have a long, rich history of, you know, poets and mathematicians and all this stuff. And so do the Arabs, right? But Islam came later to Iran. And so Persians sort of adopted Islam but were never quite Muslim fully.

John Dehlin [00:12:58] Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:12:58] So Iranians have a lot of our own holidays and traditions. And, you know, this is like Nowruz, right? It's our Persian New Year, and it comes from a Zoroastrian tradition and not a Muslim. So we have a lot of our own Zoroastrian Baha', I, you know, Jewish. Like, there's a lot of these multicultural things in Iran, which, you know, the Arab world sort of developed through Islam. And so there is a clash, and there is a lot of racism there, too. And we'll talk about tribalism later, but everyone has their tribes. And for Persians, even within Iran, there are various tribes of people who were Kurds from before Turks or whatever. But as Persians, we've been Persians for, like, a thousand years, and we see ourselves very differently than Arabs. And so when President Bush comes out and says, oh, the axis of evil is like Iran and Iraq, we're like, wait, we're not even. We're nothing like Iraq. When we fought Iraq for, you know, 10 years. For a long time. Yeah. So I guess going back to the revolution, it was this, you know, hotbed of discontent, and the Shah just kept pushing and pushing. Then it erupted, you know, and my mom. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:14:04] Does she remember what she. What. What was really motivating her to become activated as a. As a revolutionary? Like, what was really getting under your mom's skin?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:14:15] Right. Really? Good question. I think it was. It was. It was feminism. It was democracy. I mean, they. They wanted. They. They wanted to be part of the Western world, and they wanted not to be American, but they wanted to feel that sort of the democratic spirit. Right. He was an oppressive tyrant, you know, and so they wanted to. This was the 70s. Right. So there's a global revolution happening, and Iran, I think, was infected by part of that. She read Shariati. Is this scholar there who was writing sort of socialist, not, I want to be very clear, not communist. So we hated Russia just as much as we hated America, but, you know, egalitarian tomes. And so my mom was intellectually sort of involved in the revolution, and it was university thing, so that she was sort of, you know, it was at university where she got to be involved as an activist or not at some, like, you know, guerrilla warfare thing and not, you know, as part of some, you know, group of proletariats. She was a university student.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] Got it. Okay. And so your early years, I'm sure, were kind of scary or exciting or tragic at times. Can you remember what it was like to have a mom who's a revolutionary?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:15:39] Sure. I mean, she was a revolutionary when, you know, when I was born, and then she was part of, you know, some revolutionary movements, and then she was in prison Right. So she went to Evin, which is Iran's notorious prison. This is Khomeini. That put her there. Right? So she was against the Shah, but then she went against the Khomeini because he was not what they wanted, Right? So she was put in prison for several years. And that was my childhood. And so during my childhood, I was back and forth. They would let her take us to prison because she was one of the only mothers in prison. A lot of them were girls, and a lot of other people were killed. And so she was kept alive. And this is because my dad had a really. He was one of the only neurosurgeons left in Iran, and he was doing these surgeries on the Iran, Iraq border. And so they weren't about to kill his wife, and so kept her alive several years that we were back and forth in prison. So I remember that all very vividly. We would go to Tehran, and here, those were Saddam Hussein's bombs that were raining in on us all, you know, all every night, right? So we'd sleep in the basement, gas mask, and then we'd go up and stay with my mom in prison and back to Tehran. And so, you know, it was. It was tumultuous. There wasn't food often, not because we didn't. You know, we just. People weren't shipping in food to Iran, right? You're at a war zone. And so everything was, you know, insecure, right? We were very, very scared. But at the same time, it was my. It was all I knew, right? I didn't have any other thing to compare it to. And so that was life. And I do. I live sometimes like a refugee. You know, I have this mentality of when my kids complain, I'm like, you have no idea how lucky you are. You know what I can really say? Like, you know, we had bombs and we didn't have stuff, and my mom,

John Dehlin [00:17:15] they're like, where's my XBO controller? Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:17:20] You have food, you have shoes. Shut up. And my. You know, and even as a mom, you know, parenting, I think a lot of people. I hear my fellow moms, like, put a lot of pressure on themselves. And I feel like, look, I turned out fine. And my mom was, like, never there, right? Like, she was locked up as I was growing up. And. And we managed, you know, between the family and the school system, we just kind of did it, you know, so that was my life. And then. And then, you know, my mom had her own struggles with Islam, and my dad was, you know, an atheist, I think for most of that. And they were, they were angry Islam, you know. And so we were able to come as refugees here to America in 1986.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] So how was. She was let out of prison.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:18:05] So this is an awesome story too. My dad got a call one night. It was one of the high ranking mullahs up in the north of Tehran. And he got on a helicopter plane in the dead of night, went over there, operated on. And then the second he did, he's like, you know, his sons came to him and said, thank you, saving his life. What do you want? And he's. And my dad says, I want an appointment with Rafsanjani, who ends up who's ahead of Iran right now. So he sits in front of Rafsanjani and he's like, get my wife out of prison. And that day he sort of signed her out. And she had served three years and got out. And then after that, my dad was able to, you know, hook up something at UCLA so we could come out here and got miraculously, truly, I mean, really got lucky to get visas to come for one year to America. And then we were able to plead asylum once we got here.

John Dehlin [00:18:52] Got it. Wow. Such drama. And that was 86ish when you got here?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:18:56] 86, yeah. I was gonna say thank you, Ronald Reagan for.

John Dehlin [00:18:59] Do you mean that sincerely?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:19:01] I do, absolutely. I mean, he, you know, he had an administration that was tolerant. Iranian immigrants were not welcome, you know, as, you know.

John Dehlin [00:19:09] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:19:09] We were. And I did when I was in elementary school, every morning and during recess and after school, I would shout, death to America. Death to Israel. You know, this was the country that I grew up in. This was the, this is who we were. At the time, I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't know what America was. And if you'd asked me at the end of the day, like, hey, do you want to go to America? I'd be like, when can we leave?

John Dehlin [00:19:29] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:19:29] I mean, it was like, I didn't hate anybody, but this is the image of Iran, you know, and it was a purposeful propaganda by the regime. Right. And so, you know, nobody was really accepting Iranian immigrants. And we lucked out at the time. So most Iranian immigrants came in 78. We were very different from that sort. We came with nothing. My dad had skills, obviously, but we didn't have money when we, when we came here. And so my parents worked in, you know, just hard labor. My mom was utter dry cleaners. My dad was driving trucks, just kind of scrapping it together. He did eventually take all the tests again and become a doctor when I was in high school. So. But most of my life here was, you know, poor immigrant kids living in real life, poor areas. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. But that, you know, I had a different sort of childhood than most people. I, you know, wasn't really playing much, didn't have much, and again, I'm grateful for it.

Immigrating to America as an Outsider

Converting to Mormonism and Early Church Life

John Dehlin [00:20:28] How were you treated by your classmates being darker skinned from a different country? Did you have an accent at the time?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:20:36] Like, you know, I got here in third grade and I learned English in like three months. And part of it, I think was psychological, like, get me out of that country. Like, I hated it. Like, I'm gonna be an American. And so I learned very, very fast. And I think I slipped in, in that window where I didn't have an accent. I was dark skinned, right? And in California, where we first landed, I was just Mexican. And I've had to make.

John Dehlin [00:20:58] Oh my gosh, that's terrible. Well, it was fine not to be Mexican. Being Mexican is not terrible. But being just assumed you're a completely different culture, that the first week they

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:21:09] put us in that, in the just Spanish classroom, you know, and it took them a while to figure out, like, you know, these guys don't know what they're doing. They don't even speak Spanish.

John Dehlin [00:21:17] And you spoke Farsi, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:21:18] Farsi, yeah. And so there was no, you know, Farsi transition at the time. So we just had to learn it like kind of cold turkey. And we did, and we kind of threw ourselves into it. So, you know, in California it wasn't a problem. But when we were in sort of wider districts, of course, you know, I just. We didn't have friends. And it wasn't just the race, although that was huge part of it. But it was also. We just, you know, didn't have the right clothes and we weren't watching the right stuff. We were, we were weird and different and, you know, so it really was. We were heavy, heavy outsiders. And then we kept moving, so it wasn't like we could make friends. We were moving every year around. And so, you know, I said this before, you know, variety of times, but I don't know what it's like to have a tribe. You know, I don't have a home or group of people. Even in Iran, we were. It was so such a tumultuous time that there was. I don't have any place in the world right now or any people right now where I can say, these are My people, you know, and honestly the closest I have to that is the Mormon Church, which is crazy because I think, you know, I don't think a lot of Mormons see me as like, oh, she's our people, you know, I'm so different from everything that is Mormonism. But the Mormons, you know, kind of got us right off the gate. Right. We kind of, we came to LA and the missionaries is two sisters who were lovely, knocked on our door and my dad was working at the hospital there at ucla doing an internship and

John Dehlin [00:22:42] he met first year was that first year you're there, missionaries are knocking on your door.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:22:47] Knocking on our door. And they were sent by this woman who was Iranian and LDS at my dad's work. And so they came and these, these sisters were like, we couldn't have lucked out with better sisters. I mean, they were both like liberal and open minded and kind of like hippie dippy. So they were just like playing guitar with us and watching movies with us. And you know, my mom was like, I want to learn English and these guys are great. And my mom, you know, was not religiously minded, but she's a very spiritual person and she felt good with them. And she also was grasping for some sort of American religion. She was very fearful of what would happen to her three daughters in this like, you know, terrible country that ruins women in her eyes, you know. And so she was very drawn to the no alcohol, no sex before marriage, like the structure of the Mormon church, which she could relate with coming from a Shiite tradition. Right. There's just a lot more in common here as far as like raising of women, you know. Yes, she was a feminist, so she had issues here and there. But as far as like what, what made her comfortable, it really made her comfortable. And so we got baptized, you know, right away. And so 1986, right when we got here or seven, and you know, my mom wore her headscarf to her baptism, so and wouldn't take it off for, you know, months afterwards. It took her some like, you know, explaining and her just kind of getting used to not being Muslim. And then we, we went to church. My dad never really converted and then my mom has since sort of left and it's gone back. I mean, I think she's much more comfortable in the Muslim faith, although she's sort of, she's just a spiritual person and she reads everything and she's as much Buddhist and Hindu and Muslim as she is anything else. So she just, she's all over and my dad is Kind of like, no, thanks, but, but very accepting. I mean, they're both very, very open minded. I mean, you have to be if you're an immigrant here. You take it as it, as it comes.

John Dehlin [00:24:37] A couple quick comments from our listeners. Matt writes, it's all about perspective. Hearing stories like this definitely makes me appreciate my life more.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:24:46] You should.

John Dehlin [00:24:47] And then, and then Kyle writes, wow, this makes America's problems seem juvenile. Anyway, I want to encourage listeners to feel free to share comments or questions for Mehrsa Niles, me, my old BYU roommate. Niles writes, did your mom wear the headscarf for cultural or religious reasons?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:09] I think both. I think, you know, both. I think she felt comfortable with the headscarf.

John Dehlin [00:25:15] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:15] When you're told that this is the thing that you need, you know, it's hard to sort of change your mindset at that age, you know, and it's tough. I mean, religion, I think, really there is that guilt sort of thing built in there. And so when you were to say, like, for those of your listeners who took off their garments, like, how did that feel? Right. How long did it take to do that? I think for my mom it was the same thing. Like, okay, maybe I'm, yes, I'm part of this new religion now, but this is this thing that I wear every day and how do I. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:25:49] Yeah, that makes sense. Now, in, in modern sort of times, there's this idea that if you could, that converting from Islam to another religion is dangerous. But it doesn't sound like that was for your mom. So how do we make sense of that perception versus your mom's experience?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:26:06] I think it was always dangerous. I mean, I think there's different Islams just like there's different cultures. I mean, Iranian, Shiite were, despite what it seems, much more of a liberal brand of Islam than others. There is no, you know, Sharia law that's strictly enforced, although it's gotten. It did get worse for a while. We, you know, Iranians tend to be pretty tolerant. And like, you know, we were talking about before the Islamic regime, the Iran that my parents grew up in was, you know, very Western and secular and cosmopolitan. So, you know, the hardcore Muslim regime is new. And so we were worried, but not that we weren't going to get stoned to death or anything.

John Dehlin [00:26:49] Got it. Okay. So what was your experience like in the church as a teen?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:26:57] Lovely. I mean, it was great. I mean, depending on what ward we were in. But more or less we were accepted and not, you know, part of, like, the cool Kids in church, but definitely had friends. I went to girls camp, you know, and I was in New York. And so it was. We worked and we were never. I mean, because we were part member family and we were converts, you know, we were never part of the hardcore Mormon Right. Groups, but we were often the sort of like, service family in the ward. Right. And we were poor, but also, you know, different.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] And so it must have been hard to be poor relatively to everyone else and so educated. Was that hard?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:27:49] My parents are really humble people, and so they. They were just. They felt like I. Oh. The sense I always got was that they were just. They felt lucky to be here. And we were, you know, and my dad, he just doesn't have errors. Like, yes, he's educated, but he was fine not making money. And. And he knew that he. What? He knew. And he's still like this. He's just one of these people who just doesn't put on air. Like, if people mistake him for the gardener, he just goes with it, you know, he's this short, dark man who is a highly educated brain brain surgeon, one of the smartest people I know. But he would never show you that. So it was. I mean, I think we were more prideful, but we didn't know status really, and it didn't matter to us as much. It was. I mean, in college, it got to be annoying to always be like, the, you know, again, like the Mexican friend or the, you know, it was. It was. I mean, it was funny at byu. I joke. Like, I. I was like the salsa club girl, right? So I would walk around campus and some return missionary would come up to me, like, did I see you at salsa club?

John Dehlin [00:28:51] Oh, gosh.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:28:53] And it was, you know, they saw someone that looked like me at salsa club. But, you know, so it was hard, I should say. I mean, and this is. Will sound trivial, but it wasn't. It was an issue of identity at byu, which was that I wasn't. Nobody asked you out. And I don't mean this to sound like I complaining about not going out on dates and stuff, but my first semester at byu, I went into my big Book of Mormon class. Like, I can't remember who the teacher was, but huge auditorium. And it was in the days of, like, overhead projectors, and the teacher would have a quote every day. And the first or second week of class, the quote was like, thou shalt not date between races, you know, or some sort of like, interracial dating thing and. Or marriage. And I just got red in the face. I was Front row. And I'm like, who am I supposed to date, right? Like, there are no other Iranian Mormons. There were actually, like, one. And I tried with that guy, I really did, but it was. I felt like I was told a lot by friends, like, you know, you're great, but I could never take you home. I could never marry you, you know, and it felt like a doctrine, you know, And I know not all men felt this way, but it became a thing. And I was also, you know, I was pre med. I was a feminist. I was, you know, there's a lot. It wasn't just race, you know, so. But it felt like I felt like a pariah at byu. I mean, maybe everyone feels, you know, outside, but I felt, you know, so I just kind of. And it was fine. I just spent four years inside of a library and I studied hard and I got four O's every semester. And so maybe it worked out, but I didn't have much of a social life there. And a lot of it was race, race. And a certain bit of this, what you were talking about, like, feeling a little bit resentful that I wasn't taken seriously anywhere. You know, I felt like people didn't. They wanted to put me in this. Like, you are a mission field person. And those. There were some elders that came back who wanted to date the salsa club girls, and then the rest of them weren't. And that could have just been the story that I heard, but I did feel a little bit of resentment just at byu. But before then, no, I mean, BYU was very, very white in that time. This is the 90s. Very white, very conservative. I remember there was one campus wide poll of how is Bill Clinton doing as president, right? So I walked by, it's like freshman year, and I was like, great, I love him, right? And I got a call that night and it was like the campus, whatever Republicans had put out the survey and of like 2000 responses. I was the only person who approved of Bill Clinton as a president at the time. And they were like, can you come to a debate? And I was like, I'm like a freshman. I'm not even a poli science major, so there's no way I'm going to a debate. But, you know, it was. That's how it felt like. It felt like you. You're the only one with your set of beliefs that looks like you. And so it was certainly an alienating experience. For the first time in the Mormon Church, I think I felt like, oh, like we are different. This is not I'm not part of this clan like I thought I was.

John Dehlin [00:32:03] Did all those differences drive you to work harder and to achieve more?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:32:07] Do you think I was gonna drive hard and achieve anyway?

John Dehlin [00:32:12] Is that just you, or is that what you. Your family?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:32:15] Yeah, I think it's growing up in a war zone and being an immigrant and knowing poverty and alienation. And part of it is it could be genetic. I mean, I had two parents that were hard drivers. Who knows? You know, I don't credit myself here. I think, like, you know, looking at my family, we're all this way and. So.

Spiritual Life, BYU, and Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Okay, what was your. What was your spiritual life like? Kind of high school into byu. Did you. Did you kind of seek to get the traditional testimony? Did you get the burning in the bosom? Did you read the Book of Mormon? Were you a doctrinal Mormon? Was it more of a cultural thing? Talk about your religious, spiritual life during that time?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:32:55] Yeah, good question. I mean, look, I was growing up in a family, that one. You know, my mom believes anyone who tells her that they see God. She's like, I believe you. You know, and then my dad, who is like, it's a seizure, you know, So I was, you know, between these. And I think I was closer to my dad than my mom here. And I had. I have always had a doubting mind. You know, I've always been like, prove it to me, because I can't. You know, I remember, you know, high school, seminary. We went out, like, in the yard, and we. We, like, tracked out what Noah's ark would look like. And it was like, okay, someone stand there. And then someone stand over there. And this is how big the ark was. I'm sitting there and was like, there is no way, like, didn't happen, you know, and, you know, we went to. I went to the Sacred Grove when I was, you know, 14 or whatever and passed by, and it was. Everyone was having this, like, I know it. Experience. And I was like, ah. You know, and I just was impervious to those kind of, like, I couldn't cry during testimony. Meeting at girls camp, which is just like. That's being a pariah in and of itself. Right? You can't muster the tears to cry during testimony. So I just. I never. I never really had that kind of relationship with the church. But that was just who I am. It wasn't the church. I think that any religious upbringing I'd had, I was gonna be sort of like, touch and go. I did. You know, I. My main struggle has been, like, you know, between being an agnostic or an atheist about God. So I was never a literal believer in any of it, But I loved the Mormon community and I felt. Felt good in it. And so I have wavered on and off in my life about what is God and what does that look like? And I'm not even close to that. And I went on a mission, right? So. But I had bouts of atheism. You know, I should say bouts of atheism as though it's like a disease. But, like, I had been out, you know, I read. I'm a reader. I read constantly. I've always read. And so I was reading a lot of philosophy and a lot of science in high school and in college and a lot of this, you know, racial history. And I just. I couldn't sort of summon the God that I was told to believe in with what I knew of world history and facts and evolutionary theory and all of this stuff. And so I struggled. The summer before my mission, I was fairly certain there wasn't a God, and I was kind of went on a mission, on a lark. Like, I'm just gonna see this through and see what happens and see what is sort of revealed to me. Or I was open to it. And I think I had mixed experiences on a mission, you know, I was really good missionary, you know.

John Dehlin [00:35:28] Where'd you go?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:35:28] I went to Houston, actually.

John Dehlin [00:35:30] Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Do you serve in Katy? My old. My old hometown?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:35:35] No, I was always in the city. I was. Because it was Spanish speaking, so I was always with an undocumented immigrant.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] Oh, you fit right in. You spoke Spanish. I did.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:35:42] I knew. And they're actually surprised. They're like, why is your accent so funny? Like, are you from Columbia? It was always like some other country, like, surely. So, yeah, I fit right in and it was a great experience and I would do it again. But, yeah, you know, I taught on my mission. I taught what I knew and what I thought would be helpful. I didn't stick to the dogmas and the beliefs that I just didn't hold dear. But, you know, I still feel like I was trying to do a service there. And I, you know, it was good. And again, it was mixed as far as, like, beliefs. And I've always had, I think, a more slippery relationship with belief and doubt. And there was a lot of times in my experience, I think would be. I hoped that there was stuff, but I didn't know and I didn't need to know. And one of my favorite writers is Alain de Botton, who says one of the most boring questions you can ask of a religion is, is it true? And I believe that. I think it's about community and tribe and what is true. How do we know? I mean, I think I know what is true, but, you know, I don't know if it's helpful to me in my life.

John Dehlin [00:36:59] Did you ever feel just like, I gotta talk to someone, I gotta talk to the bishop or my mission president or my mom, because I can't, I'm not like everybody else. Or did you just sort of accept who you were and kind of own it and feel comfortable in it?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:37:13] I wish I. Yeah, that's a good question, because why didn't I. But I. I was so sure that there wouldn't be anyone that could relate that I didn't bother, you know, I know I didn't think, you know, and I guess I've always been very, very independent too. Like, I'm sure I'll figure this out on my own, you know, and that's a weakness, I think. So I never went to authority. I have a hard time with authority anyway, so I never really relied on authority.

John Dehlin [00:37:43] It's in your history.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:37:45] It is, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:37:46] Okay, so how did you. Was there a point where you were sort of looking around at the role of women in the church and thinking about your feminism? Did you ever have sort of a feminist crisis as a, let's just say, a young adult Mormon?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:38:04] Absolutely. I mean, that was the big. And this is where my dad. I mean, my dad was just like, do not let them. Because they're like, we brought you to America. We have three daughters. Do not let them convince you that you can't have a career. Do not let them tell you that your role is to be a wife and a mother. You know, and my dad was very, very clear on this because here, again, my dad is like, I came here, did all this sacrifice, and it's for you guys to get your education and have a career. That was very, very clear. And my first year at byu, I came back and I was like, dad, like, I think I want to just be a wife and a mother. And he's like, no. You know, and so that really was my struggle at BYU is I did, I think, struggle a lot with that. Right. Because there was a lot of pressure on women at by to not have careers. I was in my pre med classes and I was one of the only women in there. And I. And I remember, you know, my organic chemistry, I aced it. Right. And my teacher brought me out after class, really great guy. And he was like, don't let anyone tell you that you can't be a doctor. I was getting like number one grades and it was all blind, you know, and I wasn't getting treated nicely by my classmates and colleagues just fine, but, but he felt like he had to pull me out and tell me that. And I was involved in voice BYU, which was the feminist group at the time. I was very involved in that and that was my refuge. And there's where all the gay students were and all the sort of misfits and broken toys. And I was there for the feminism and that was, I guess, as much community as I could find there. But that was a huge struggle at BYU because it felt like, I can't believe that I'm fighting these battles, but it's hard not to get swept up in, oh well, maybe I'm wrong, right? That was, I think, where I wavered most in my, what I was, what I came in with in this idea of like female value. And that was a real struggle because I felt like it was really, it was in the water at byu. I mean, all of my friends, I think, were, you know, just preparing for marriage. And here I was, you know, I gotta go to med school or law school or something. And it was, it was very important to me and I wanted to, you know, be involved in these groups and I just, again, I think I was so, I felt so different. And now I think it's a bit different now. Right, but in the church.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] In the church now.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:40:28] In the church and at byu. But at the time there was, there were few of us who were dead certain that we were going to have careers and not be stay home moms.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] Did you just write that off as like a cultural artifact, you know, or, or did you try and reconcile it religiously or spiritually at all?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:40:43] I did, I tried religiously, I didn't. That's where I wasn't sure about what God, if there was a God, wanted of me. I really did feel a lot of guilt. Still do. I mean, I still feel somewhere in my psyche, am I doing the right thing? And maybe that's religious, maybe that's cultural. But being a working mom and then being one who grew up in a Mormon church, I think that's tough, tough for anyone.

John Dehlin [00:41:09] And then I have to ask, on the one hand, you weren't Hispanic or from Latin America and you weren't of African descent. So even though I think you self describe as a person of color, I wonder how those messages about Race in the Book of Mormon and the church's history with African Americans. I wonder how you process that, given your background.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:41:35] Oh, I mean, I felt like a person of color. I felt closer to being, you know, African or Mexican than I did being white. I'm obviously not white. I was not seen as white. And it was on my mini. I did a mini mission in the Bronx and went out with the sisters, and this gentleman came up to us, African American, and he was like, your church didn't baptize Black people until 1978. I was like, no, that cannot be true.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Oh, you didn't know that until your mission?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:41:59] Mini mission.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] Oh, mini mission.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:42:00] Yeah, yeah. So 16. And I was like, that cannot be true. There's no way, like, wrong. You know, and the sister had to be like, no, that's true. And I, like, my heart just sank. I couldn't believe it, you know, and it was one of those, like, you know, it just. It all fell apart for me at that moment. Like, I was like, how can I. What. What are you talking. You know, so that was a huge, huge moment. And, you know, at byu, I knew Eugene, England. I went to London. I study abroad. And we had a lot of conversations there about blacks in the priesthood and talked very openly about how this was wrong. I mean, I was always sure that this was wrong, this something that God could have wanted. But I struggled a lot with the church and race at byu. Again, that was another factor. It was like the feminism and the race. I mean, it's not easy to be a person of color in the Mormon Church. I mean, you feel like, you know, I mean, just one example, my mom's patriarchal blessing, right? Mine was like, Ephraim, right? Whatever. My mom, the patriarch, said that she was from the tribe of Esau, which is not one of the chosen tribes. Okay? Esau is like the cursed Esau. Esau. So it got. So she went. She was like, are you sure? And then it actually got kicked up several notches, like, Esau. Like, that's not a promise, right? That's not Joseph. And it's certainly. It's not even like, you know, he, like, sold his birthright. And so they were like, just leave it. You know, but so you grew up.

John Dehlin [00:43:25] That's so weird.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:43:27] It was weird.

John Dehlin [00:43:27] You know, Esau wasn't one of the 12 tribes, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:43:30] No, it was a Jacob and Esau. Yeah. So it was. You know, we always felt like, you know, we were adopted in. And, you know, even, like, I was in a Sunday school class and someone was you know, talking about. Like, we talk about Babylon, right? I mean, that's my country. Like, Babylon. I mean, it's Iraq, but it's also Iran. And so when you talk about Babylon in the historical sense, like, it's hard not to feel that. And Americans are so. Mormons are so into that. Like, you know, where Jerusalem and Israel is the. Is the promised land, like, geographically, which means necessarily that Babylon is the cursed land geographically. Right. And so we don't think about that other half, but those are the people that I descended from. I'm Babylonian. Right. And so I felt that a lot. And just the way that. And again, I think for me, the interracial marriage thing was where it hit home the most. Like, I. You know, that's what you care about in college, is who are you dating? And, you know, that's part of it. You know, it wasn't, like, as supremely important to me as it may have been for other people, but it was important enough that it was. It was so clear to me that I wasn't gonna be accepted as a marriage partner, and it was because of these myths of race. And you weren't gonna take me home, right? Like, you weren't gonna marry an Iranian into your, like, big Mormon family. And so that's when I first felt like, oh, like, I'm never gonna be accepted as such.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] And so if you think about your profile, you know, feminist, intellectual, person of color, struggling with racism, atheist dad. Somebody could imagine that you graduate from BYU and you're just out of the church, but that's not what happened. But before, necessarily, at least not immediately, or we could talk about that. But what made you choose law school over med school?

Law School, Marriage, and Early Career

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:24] School. You know what? I think it was this pressure of. Not of wanting a more flexible job, because I thought that if I went to med school, I would be taking too much for my kids, you know, and it was. I was set for med school. Like, I had the grades. I had all of this stuff, and it was just this last minute, like. Like, it's too much, and I need to be home for my kids and all this stuff. And, you know, I don't regret it at all, but it was a decision rooted in that.

John Dehlin [00:45:53] Was your dad a little bummed?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:54] Oh, yeah, A lot bummed. I mean, totally bummed. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, I should say, like, the person that I did marry who, you know, I'm still head over heels in love with is half Mexican or half Mexican, half white Mormon at byu. I met him, but had a different idea of race, you know, and was a liberal. And so he was like the, you know, the one guy who was like, I don't care what race you are. You know, he says, like, he used to date across the racial spectrum, you

John Dehlin [00:46:20] know, so was he from the colonies in Mexico?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:23] No, Mexican. Like, from Mexico. Mexico. His mother's side was Mexican and. But old Mormon Mexican. So his great, great grandparents were like Mexican Mormons. Not. Not having been sent there into the colonies.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Got it. So you guys met while you were still in your undergraduate.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:41] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:46:42] Okay. And then you go to NYU Law School.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:45] Yes. Yeah, and we both went there, and he got into NYU as well. And we, you know, both in law

John Dehlin [00:46:51] school at the same time.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:52] Law school at the same time.

John Dehlin [00:46:53] Oh, and you got married as an undergraduate, then?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:56] We got married as undergraduates, yeah. After my mission. After his mission.

John Dehlin [00:46:59] In the temple.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:00] In the temple. Louisiana Temple.

John Dehlin [00:47:01] And your dad couldn't go.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:03] Could not go.

John Dehlin [00:47:04] Well, and your sisters, could they go? I guess.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:06] Yeah, my sisters could go. I guess. They weren't endowed at the. No, no. Yeah, one of my sisters was, but the others.

John Dehlin [00:47:12] Yeah, but what was that like, not having your dad at your wedding?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:16] You know? Hard. Yeah, hard. But, you know, I had always known that.

John Dehlin [00:47:20] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:21] And I go. Growing up, like, I'd always known that my dad was not part of this thing that we did, you know, so it wasn't a surprise. It was hard. We also. We had two weddings, right. So we had that wedding, and then the big one was this Iranian wedding that we had. And so we did, like, the act, which is the Iranian cultural thing, and we had this huge party. And so it was kind of like you do both, you know.

John Dehlin [00:47:42] Oh, well, that's. That's okay. That's not too bad.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we went to byu, to nyu. And, you know, my husband was, you know, again, like, totally okay with us. Me having a career. And that was always understood. And so we both went to New York, stayed in the church, because in New York, you know, you. You can have. You can be a misfit, not sort of an insider and have a church community. And so we. I, you know, basically grew into an adult there. Lived there for a decade, had all my children in New York. York, and had, you know, a thriving church community there. And was part of that.

John Dehlin [00:48:16] Was it Brooklyn? What part of New York?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:18] No, we lived downtown and then we lived in Harlem.

John Dehlin [00:48:21] Okay, and what types of jobs did you have while you were living in New York?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:25] So I went to Finnish Law School and I worked on Wall street, at a big law firm. And then I stayed home for two years as I wrote, and then I got recruited by BYU to teach at the law school there.

John Dehlin [00:48:37] Okay, so you go to BYU Law. What was that like going back. Going back to byu?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:44] Yeah, you know, it was. It's different going as a professor than as a student.

John Dehlin [00:48:48] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:48] So, you know, and it's a mixed bag. I was a new teacher, so I, you know, struggled teaching, but it was a good experience. It was hard in some ways. It was rewarding in other ways. You know, I felt like I could be a female mentor to my female students and that nothing could be more rewarding. I mean, they came up to me and they're like, you can do this, right? You know, and several of them told me that I was the first female professor that they'd ever had who, you know, had children or was managing both. I had male students who told me that I was their first professor that was female ever. And I also had male students who didn't respect me. You know, I had a lot of that as well, you know, so, you know, it really. I mean, it's a patriarchal, It's a male dominated place. And so you deal with that as a woman, as a woman of color, as a junior scholar. I was appreciated there, though. I felt like the faculty liked me and I was not pushed out. I left, you know, on my own. You know, it has a lot of room for improvement institutionally and how it treats women. A lot of room for improvement and, you know, how the students perceive of their female professors. You know, I'm. I walk into rooms here, my students disrespect me. I have been teaching this for eight years. I'm a, you know, scholar, and they assume that, you know, and at byu, I felt like they never did. They never took me seriously. There's, you know, rumors, and my students would just, I heard, you know, that, oh, you know, she only got the job because she's a woman of color. And that's just like, like, how do you know, you know, and I wasn't. I was a productive scholar, you know, and more productive than other white male faculty members. But you couldn't convince that it's not a war you're going to win by convincing someone.

John Dehlin [00:50:37] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:50:37] And so there was a. There was a little bit of that that I heard that kind of got under your skin.

John Dehlin [00:50:44] So you only say there are two years. If I read your info correctly. Was that partly because of just success you were having or was that partly because of dissatisfaction to what do you attribute that short stay at byu?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:50:57] Both. I got recruited from other schools.

John Dehlin [00:51:03] Georgia is certainly a step up, I would say. Yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:51:06] I mean, for a lot of reasons. It was a good move for us, and it was a good move for me. And my career could flourish here and I could. You know, I felt like there I was always going to be like the person who got hired because she was a woman of color. And BYU desperately needed her. And I needed to. Maybe I needed to show that I didn't. I wasn't. I was marketable on the broader market. And not. Not just that it was just to make a case, but I also fell in love with Athens, and I love it here, and I didn't have any. I loved living in Utah, you know, loved it, and I hated it. But I also loved it. But it was a positive move, I think.

John Dehlin [00:51:47] What years were you at at BYU? What years?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:51:51] I think 2010 to 2012.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Okay. All right. So that's when the Mormon Internet starts really heating up. But we don't need to go there. What I want to talk about next, I think, is your scholarship, your career. So the two books that you've written, I'm going to read the titles again. One is how the Other Half Banks, Exclusion, Exploitation and Threat to Democracy. The other is the Color of Money, Black Banking and the Racial Wealth Gap. Talk, if you don't mind, about how you ended up going into those sorts of areas. Describe the area, what led you to that field and then how it developed over time.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:52:39] Yeah, So I worked on. I worked on Wall street in the banking house at a law firm. Right. So I was in the banking group and doing banking regulation. And this was, you know, during the financial Crisis. So from 2005 until 2010 when I went to BYU, I was in the middle of like.

John Dehlin [00:52:54] So the big short stuff.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:52:55] The big short stuff, exactly. And I was at one of the two law firms in Manhattan that had a big banking department. So we represented everybody. I mean, the New York Fed, we represented aig, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Bear Stars. We were on one side or the other. And so in the hot seat seeing it all. And so I got a really interesting perspective and knowledge of the banking system and how that works. And, you know, I've always. And I wrote a bunch of articles when I got to BYU about that. And then the books really came out. I mean, kind of melded my. I've always been, you know, progressive, you know, believe in equality and social justice, especially for poverty.

John Dehlin [00:53:30] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:53:31] Like, I've seen poverty from both sides you know, and I think there's the system as I saw it from the Wall street side, and then I see it from the people I know who are poor, who struggle. Right. I mean, as someone who was poor, I've served with undocumented people. I know the struggles of poverty, and I know that the system doesn't help those people. And so I've taken sort of my knowledge of banking and my desire to have a more equal society, and these two books are reflections of that. So how the Other Half bank is about that. Right. Just we've got an unequal, divided banking system, and poor pay a lot more for loans than rich people do. And part of that is a government policy decision. And so that was the first book. This book was a racial history of race and capitalism and how that plays out in banks. And it's. I love this book. I hope that, you know, I hope that the people that I want to read it will read it. And people who are interested in racial history in the US I did a lot of research for this book. I spent all this time in the Nixon archives and in bank history, I've looked at tons of bank balance sheets. And what I'm saying here is that, you know, the systems of segregation and racism, this is for the black community, was impeding this growth of wealth. And I've shown that through the way the balance sheets of these banks worked. And it's not a technical book. It's a broad history. I think it's very readable, and I've been lucky that policymakers have read my books and listened to some of the solutions that I have. And I think as an outsider, and I constantly consider myself an outsider to everything. And as an outsider, I think I've been able to see these systems and say, hey, here are some problems, here are some possibilities, and here are some ways that they can improve.

John Dehlin [00:55:18] So if it's okay, I want to go back and kind of dig into both books just a little bit. Is that okay?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:55:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:24] So first of all, you're not a trained historian, but it sounds like you're doing history. Is that right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:55:28] Yeah, I'm doing legal. Legal history. And so I'm not, you know, trying to go into archives just to say something new. But then, you know, you end up, like, doing this history that no one's done. And so you have to go into the archives. Right. I wish that some historian had looked into, you know, what Nixon did with black capitalism, but nobody has done it. And so you go in there and you try to dig up the sources. And I'm, you know, offering it as a way to show the legal arc of this. But yeah, so I've had to do some history.

Banking Reform, Postal Banking, and Financial Exclusion

John Dehlin [00:55:54] Okay, so if you can take us, take us into the mind and life of, let's just say a poor person or someone in the third world and what their life is like as it relates to how banking should or should not or is or isn't a resource for them so that we can get into the mindset of what led to your idea of integrating banks with post offices. So talk about the life of that person.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:56:26] Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, I actually take things from a system approach and not from an individual approach. So it's all, it's a American. I don't actually focus abroad. I mean postal banking did start abroad, but my books focus on America. And so what I'm showing is, look, we've got banking and governments, banks and governments work together, right? This is not some like private market thing. Banks are a, is a government enterprise. Right. I mean the way the money works, the, you know, soft sort of cushion of the banking system is the Federal Reserve and monetary policy and you know, the FDIC and the FHA and the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, all of these systems that the puts in place so the banks can run so that, you know, that system wide approach allows for most of us to get our mortgage credit, our student loans, et cetera. And then there's this whole, you know, 40% of the country has no access to that credit. Right. Or if they do, they have to pay a lot more for it. They're just left out of this excess. Right. So part of it is a racial story and that's what I've told.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] So you're saying they can't get student loans, they can't get car loans, they can't get mortgages, is that what doing you're saying?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:57:30] Yeah, yeah. So they don't a lot, you know, something like 30 something million people don't have a bank account. Right. The banks just won't give them a bank account. So that's part of the story. Right. So the postal banking idea, we actually had postal banking in America from 1910 until 1966 as a way for small savers to save, you know, and actually it was Wallace Bennett of Utah who was opposed to that. They were banking. Utah has a really fascinating banking history. Right. They're, we have Fed chairs from Utah, we've got the banking commissioners. The head of the Senate Banking Committee is Wallace Bennett and then his son Bob Bennett. So they have some good and bad policies, but a very strong banking state. So it ends in 1966. The postal banking Service.

John Dehlin [00:58:14] How would someone have used postal banking back in that time period?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:19] You're poor, you have $500 to save. You go and you put it in a postal banking account. You get a, you know, bond and you. That's your savings account, right.

John Dehlin [00:58:28] You keep that piece of paper somewhere.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:30] You keep it, it's, it's logged somewhere. You can give it as a gift.

John Dehlin [00:58:35] It appreciates. It appreciates over time. Yeah, yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:37] They give you 2%, 3% return, just like a deposit. We used to meet deposits, used to give interest. Now they don't. But it used to be that you could, you know, make money by saving it.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] And did banks get rid of that? Did banks not want the competition? So. So they got rid of it or what?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:52] Yes, the postal banking system died at the hand of bank lobbies in the 60s. And, you know, in the 60s, things were more equal then. Right. People could get bank accounts. Even if you had just a little bit to save. There was enough, you know, there were enough community banks that served you. And now we don't have that system anymore. And so what I propose is, hey, let's bring this back. We have a post office in these disenfranchised locations that don't have banks anymore. Banks have since left that area. So past 10 years, we've had banks close up where they're not profitable. And so saying those places are still served by the post office.

John Dehlin [00:59:24] And so has anybody kind of taken you up on the idea? Has it been integrated at all?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:31] Yeah, I mean, we, Senator Warren has endorsed it. Bernie Sanders. It was in the Democratic national platform. I've talked with.

John Dehlin [00:59:39] That's amazing, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:40] I know, I know. It was amazing. So we have talked with Treasury. We were in the works. We were in the process of, was, you know, the highest level of the treasury to get it a pilot started and get it going. And we were talking and then, you

John Dehlin [00:59:52] know, someone else got elected.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:55] We've now, we've bigger fish to fry. We're now just trying to protect the banking system from, you know, who knows what sort of deregulatory efforts they're trying to. I mean, really, it's like we're back to square one. I can't even, you know, it was tough. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:12] Election night must not have been fun for you from that perspective.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:00:15] It wasn't, you know, and there was, you know, career wise, it was rough, I think, because there was a lot going on for me, and I was in talks, but I think more personally, I felt it like a punch in the gut that night. I mean, I felt like it really. I mean, it was. It was traumatic as a Muslim immigrant refugee. Right. Like, I felt like this was America telling me, like, we don't want you. And it's still. I mean, it's still like, go between anger and just depression. And it was hard. It was hard to be told that, no, America's better without you, you know, And I obviously know not everyone was saying that with their vote, but they were voting for a man who was saying that. So.

John Dehlin [01:00:55] Yeah, and we do have Donald Trump supporters as listeners, and we don't want people to feel like they're not welcome here. And I think it's important for people to be able to share how they experience, you know, these sorts of things.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:01:08] So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of Donald Trump supporters who are part of my family, you know, not by immediate, but, you know, and they, you know, will tell me that they didn't vote. They, you know, they saw it as a better of two options they didn't have. And I get it. I get it. I'm empathetic about why people might have voted for him. That I don't take personally.

John Dehlin [01:01:28] Joanna. Joanna's listening. So shout out from Joanna. She writes, hello, beautiful. Learning something new every time I listen to you. So shout out to Joanna.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:01:36] Hi, Joanna.

John Dehlin [01:01:37] She's a friend of a dear friend of mine. Okay, so I guess Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders aren't going away. So, I mean, I guess these ideas are not dead. They just may be dormant for a few more years.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:01:51] I hope so. I hope so. Yeah.

The Racial Wealth Gap and Black Banking History

John Dehlin [01:01:53] Talk about that second book. Give us some of the background, you know, black communities. Tell us sort of what the situations were that led to you strategizing about black banking and the racial wealth gap.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:02:08] Yeah, so I started discovering, you know, as I was looking in this postal banking history, and I looked at the history of credit unions and thrifts, and I started noticing that there's all these black banks. I was like, what is this?

John Dehlin [01:02:16] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:02:16] So I dug into this history, and I wanted, you know, I asked the librarian. This is way back at byu. I started this research years ago.

John Dehlin [01:02:23] Really? While you're at byu?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:02:25] Yeah, I started this research years ago, and I asked the librarian, hey, can you get me me a book on black banks? You know, he was like, no one's written about this. Like what? Like, we have this history of black bank. I mean, thriving black banks. We have the Freedman's Bank. We've got, you know, all the time of Jim Crow and segregation, there was a black banking sector going on. And so why has no one covered this? And so I started doing the research then, so that, that has been a longer term project. This postal banking book came out because it had to, because the moment was hot and I needed to push it out. But this is a long burn that I've been working on for years. And really it's, you know, we've got these systems of segregation here. And the assumption was that, oh well, black communities will just pool their resources and they will, you know, fix the wealth gap and inequality through the same ways that the white community does. And what I'm showing in the book is when you have, you know, credit policies that have, you know, that draw red lines around the ghetto, not don't lend it, not only that, but like all sorts of barriers of finance and credit, right? The way that Americans build generational wealth is through government supported credit. And when that doesn't flow into the black communities, we're going to create a wealth gap. And that wealth gap is self perpetuating. So even when those policies stop, that wealth gap is going to persist. Right? So this is not a, oh, black people are culturally inferior. They don't work hard enough. We have, the game is rigged against them. They're not going to be able to build wealth insofar as we have a segregated, unequal system. And once, you know, you need wealth to create more wealth, right? And so this is one of the tricks of capitalism is you need capital to grow it. And so I think, you know, that I show how it was that the capital shortfall started and how it kept perpetuating and what can be done. And part of it is we've got to fix some of the problems that we have refused to fix. Right. We refuse to talk about the legacy of slavery, we refuse to talk about the legacy of Jim Crow, we refuse to talk about the legacy of redlining. And these are fairly recent things. And we just kind of said, okay, well, you know, there's a free market, good luck, you know, where that's not how segregation was created. Segregation was not a free market enterprise. Right. That was a government policy. And so we have some double talk here on race. And I try to show some of that in the book through a history that is, you know, carefully analytical. I'm not, you know, I don't talk about, you know, white privilege and today I just talk about how it is that we have different systems and what that means for the races.

John Dehlin [01:04:58] Were there a couple, like, I know you mentioned, I think you mentioned Nixon. Were there a couple policies or administrations that struck really hard blows to black banking?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:05:09] All of them. I mean, you know, it's funny because even the heroes, like fda, right, As a progressive hero, struck the hardest blow to the black community, right. In cutting them out of the New Deal. You know, Nixon also.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] How did he cut them out of the New Deal?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:05:27] He created a federal government credit policy through the FHA and the HOLC that drew red lines and didn't lend into the black communities. He cut them off of the big sort of supportive, you know, domestic aid workers and farm workers who were black Southerners were, you know, eliminated. They couldn't get the protection. And this is all because the south, he needed the south to pass the New Deal. And the south was heavily invested in Jim Crow, and they needed black economic subjugation. And so you don't, you know, you don't pass the Senate. And there's, you know, there's politics that goes here. And so FDR chooses to pass the New Deal instead of dealing in black. Right. So he left them out.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] Right. Okay. And any of the other major historical sort of Nixon.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:06:18] Yeah, Nixon diverts, you know, chooses Southern strategy, and he kind of does double talk here, right. Instead of the civil rights sort of toward the tail end of the civil rights regime. And, you know, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, all of these civil rights leaders are pushing hard for economic equality, Right? Martin Luther King's whole message has been, look, even these laws are going to be empty if we're poor. So from the beginning, he had this consistent message that we need economic parity. And toward the tail end of it, that becomes a much stronger message. The last movement he's gonna make before he's assassinated is that he's gonna do a poor march on Washington, bring in these issues to Washington. And then Nixon gets elected in 68 and really subverts that, right? So there's this black power movement. Black power, meaning we want to control the economy of the ghetto, Right? Fine, we'll take separatism, but we need some capital. And so what he does is he flips that and says, okay, black capitalism, what black capitalism means, that was his big election promise, was black capitalism instead of civil rights. He says, we're past civil rights. We're beyond that. We'll talk black capitalism. And so the thing he says is free markets. Free markets are gonna work for you, and we'll give some money to these black banks. And so he supports black banks by putting deposits into them, but refuses to fix integration. And here this is an interesting story with George Romney.

John Dehlin [01:07:38] Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:38] George Romney is Nixon's HUD president, and Romney is a real race hero here. He pushes hard within this very political Southern Strategy administration, pushes hard for integration, starts going behind Nixon's back to integrate Warren, Michigan, and really gets backlash. Nixon keeps trying to push him out and to get him to resign. And finally he does resign in his resignation letter, he sends to Nixon. And like, you've taught me a lot about politics, you know, and.

John Dehlin [01:08:09] And this is Mitt Romney's dad, former governor, governor of Michigan, I guess. George Romney, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:14] Yeah. And, you know, and everything I read about him says, you know, his Mormon faith, like, led him to believe in doing what's right and, like, not what's politically right. He wouldn't stump for Goldwater. You know, he's like, Goldwater is not the way. And Nixon stumped for Goldwater. Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:27] He also. Did he oppose the church's policy on blacks in the priesthood? Sure.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:31] I mean, he really. Yes, he did. You know, so really, the church and the country take these pivots, right? Because it's George Romney versus Ezra Taft Benson. And we went with, you know, the church is now ERA Taft Benson. But. And it was George Romney and Nixon, right? I mean, George Romney has a stupid gaffe about Vietnam and doesn't get president, but if it had been George Romney as a Republican, it would have been a different country. I mean, I really think he was right on, more right than any Democrat that has come after him. More right than Carter, more right than Clinton. I mean, Romney got the inequalities. He talked about the white ghetto, the white neighborhoods putting a noose around the black ghettos. I mean, he really, his language is like, am I listening to Cornel West? Am I listening to George Romney? I mean, really had this very striking language. And he was just pushed out of that administration in two years and sidelined, you know, and then since then, no,

John Dehlin [01:09:23] you think he would be a Mormon hero, but I'm sure the apostles that remained probably thought ill of him. And so he really hasn't been mentioned in Mormon circles for as long as I've been around.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:09:35] I don't know. I don't know what happened behind the scenes in the Mormon den, but I want someone to write a biography of George Romney here because I think George Romney is one of the unsung heroes, and surely there's something there to object to. But really, I mean, he was even more forward than Johnson I think, I mean, Johnson, Johnson is a complicated figure, you know, and if you've read the Robert Caro series on Johnson, which I would recommend to everybody.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] I have, I have. Master of the Senate. It's one of the best books ever.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:02] One of the best books ever. Robert Caro, best writer America has ever.

John Dehlin [01:10:05] Absolutely, absolutely.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:07] So, you know, Johnson's a complicated guy, as you know, and so. And Nixon, I think, is a politically calculating guy, but Romney was a zealot and a moral, you know, clear moral thinker and who knows what the presidency would have done to him. But I really think it's a missed vote for the Republican Party and for the church. You know, we really, I think Benson was, you know, obviously wrote a lot of things anti. And this is before he was prophet, but, you know, equated Martin Luther King with communism and, you know, it was John Bircher. And so this is the, this is the Republican Party's choice at the time. And Nixon wasn't quite out there with. He ran Mezra taf Benson, I think, ran with George Wallace right before he was prophet. So I don't, you know, it could have tempered his view afterwards, but very politically on the right on race issues in the Mormon Church. And so I think that doesn't help. I think, you know, as we're seeing the legacy of that kind of play out, doesn't help.

John Dehlin [01:11:03] Are you saying there's no biography of George Romney?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:11:06] Not a good one that I know. Not one that relates. I mean, you really have to bring it to the present.

John Dehlin [01:11:12] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:11:13] Because I think part of reading George Romney and Goldwater in 1964 is looking at what the Republican Party is today. Right. That was a fork in the road, a path not taken. And I think Trump is the end result of where the Republican Party flipped from the sort of Rockefeller Romney Republicans to the Goldwater Nixon Republicans. So Southern strategy, sort of the racial dog whistling. And Trump is the embodiment of that. You know, Nixon was not Trump, but Nixon paved the way, you know, and Reagan paved some more. Bush was a little bit of, you know, different. But this is sort of Nixon coming home. Truth. This is Goldwater. I mean, Goldwater, Goldwater made the playbook that Trump is following now. And he, you know, was the intellectual leader of that right wing sort of race stuff.

John Dehlin [01:12:02] I have to say, when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, I had this optimism that he would follow in the footsteps of his dad and was super disappointed when he pragmatically so felt like he had to retrench into conservatism. To win the primaries.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:21] And part of that is, like, what the Republican Party is. I mean, I saw every primary debate, and you just felt like, gosh, this is a race to the bottom. I mean, really, like you saw John McCain sell his soul. I mean, you see every. I mean, you have to pedal to this race space, you know, And I think it was unfortunate. And I think Romney. Gosh, like, I mean, who wouldn't give an arm and a leg to have Romney as president now?

John Dehlin [01:12:45] Absolutely, Absolutely. Have you seen the movie 13th?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:49] Yes. Very good.

John Dehlin [01:12:51] So important. I can't do a podcast without mentioning it. It's a great movie.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:54] Yeah, it's very good.

John Dehlin [01:12:55] Okay, so Nixon supported black banking, but in reality didn't give them the support they needed. Anything else you want to mention about black banking and its history that just to give us a primer?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:13:09] Yeah, I mean, really, this is a history. It's not of black banks. This is a history of capitalism and racism and how that sort of barriers to banking, barriers to wealth creation, you know, And I use banks as a model. Of what? Of showing this. So it's not a book about banks, but I bring in banks to show the reality.

John Dehlin [01:13:35] Okay, well, that's fascinating. Those are two really cool books. What's it like and. Yeah. What's it like to write books that are so timely, so important to what we're experiencing in the intersection of politics and race? And you really can't avoid religion when you talk about race and politics. It must be kind of rewarding to be a scholar in these areas.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:14:05] It is. You know, it is. It's rewarding, but it's also, you know, it's hard. I mean, we don't read as much anymore. I mean, people don't. I mean, I love reading.

John Dehlin [01:14:18] Reading.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:14:18] I just always been a reader, but. But, you know, I see the books on the bestseller list, and every time I get so depressed because I'll read them and I'm like, this is not a work of scholarship. So I, you know, I'm always putting a plug in for, like, read books that are well researched. Read books that have footnotes. Read books that are, you know, saying something. And so I, you know, my books don't. Aren't super popular. They're not bestsellers. I'm not writing bestsellers. But I do wish that we would engage in. Didn't you have to read my book? But read books that are. That have a big historical scope, that aren't just these, like, polemics, you know, And I do. I'll read everything that's on the New York Times bestseller list. And I'm always disappointed by how narrow our thinking is. And I think we really. I mean, if we're talking about race, we've got to broaden the scope, you know, And I have. I had a lot of negative things to say about the right. I don't want to leave the left out of it here. Right. Like, I think the left is, you know, we have become tribalistic. We have become. We eat our own. We don't. Like, there's this sense of, like, the progressive. Like, no one's progressive enough, you know, And I'm worried, you know, I consider myself a solid member of the left, you know, and I think we just. But I'm increasingly concerned about the language that we're using, the people that were ostracizing, the way that we're talking about the other side, you know, And I don't. This is not like some message of, like, Kumbaya, like, let's love everybody, but, like, really, like, it's, you know, I think we have to look at structures and not feelings. This is not about, you know, identity. And this is, again, like, I think we have to get away from this feeling of, like, if I am hurt, that means that you are bad. You know, I think, you know, think thinking more broadly, thinking historically, thinking structurally, what are the structural problems and how can I be involved and who can join me to fight these structural problems as opposed to. To, like, you know, how do I feel about this person saying this thing about me? And I see this, you know, a lot in these forums that sometimes I go on and I, you know, I don't want to be a crank here, but it's hard, you know, it's hard to see some of it.

John Dehlin [01:16:25] You want practical solutions, not, you know, politically correct wars and, you know, politics of derision and exclusion, except, et cetera. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber at mormonstories.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:16:46] Org.

John Dehlin [01:16:47] Thank you very much.

Race and Racism Within the Mormon Church

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 792

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking the donate button on the top right side of the page. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support. Okay, so I think it'd be fun to now shift to some of your observations around the church. And there were three topics that you wanted to talk about. The first is race and Mormonism. The second is Mormons and social justice. And then the third is tribalism and Mormon identity. And let's just take each one at a time and have a chance for you to talk about some of your thoughts. Would that work? Sure. Okay, so race and Mormonism, where are we

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:01:17] broadly speaking? You know, I think there is of late, and maybe this is the forums I'm in. There's a growing awakening that, you know, we're not good on this, you know, and again, I don't know about, but we. I mean, I think we're forming two camps. Right. And generally, I think we are, as a country and as a church, starting to identify more on issues of race. And I think there are some positive things here is that people are saying, like, oh, I. I am white, and maybe that means I have these privileges. I've never seen race before, and maybe I'm seeing it now. So that's good, right? I think, like, oh, maybe you have a different experience than me. You know, I've had friends of mine say, it never occurred to me that it would have been different for you. Right. So that, I think is a good awakening that's happening as we're having all these dialogues across race. And the Internet is great for this, right? Like someone just sharing an experience and other people observing it and being like, oh, like, you know, now I know a little bit more about what that perspective is. I think there's also. And this is.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] Do you mean in progressive Mormonism, do you mean in the church broadly, or do you mean in American culture?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:02:27] I mean in progressive Mormonism in that way.

John Dehlin [00:02:28] Okay, so you're talking about blogs, Facebook groups, podcasts that are for kind of liberal, thinky, progressive or post Mormonism.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:02:35] Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a good. I think.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] But, you know, are you. Do you agree with me that that's probably a really small percentage of the church, I think.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:02:42] So I was gonna say, I think broadly in Mormonism, I think I've seen also backlash and hostility toward people who say, you know, I grew up in a church that I didn't see, like, out and out over racism, and I'm seeing that more now. And part of that is where we're at as a country. I think the racists are emboldened. It's not just Trump, but this is recent. And so I've seen a lot of disconcerting things in the church generally about, you know, the other. And Muslim immigrants, you know, and this is where, you know, yes, the Trump thing, but, like, Utah going for Trump, you know, and Mormons that I know, just saying all these things. Well, you know, the refugees and how can Mormons. How can Mormons support a Muslim ban? You know, say what you want about this ban, but this is a ban that is religiously oriented. Right. How can the Mormon community support this? You know, and yet they do. And I think part of that, that's

John Dehlin [00:03:43] gotta strike really deep to your heart because you are former Muslim immigrant and your family was in some ways saved by your chance to immigrate, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:03:53] Absolutely. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:03:54] So this. This can't strike more personal for you.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:03:56] It cannot.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] Yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:03:58] And so this is where I, you know, I think, like, this is not. This is not who you are. You guys, like, you know, I want to, like, remember who you are. Mormon Church, you know, don't, you know, this is not. This is not the Mormon Church that I knew because growing up, it really felt like, you know, part of it is like this missionary sense of it, and, you know, there are problems there, but they're really always. I have always felt like, you know, come, you know, bring your culture and we accept anyone as long as you, you know, check these boxes. And now, immediately, I'm seeing no, you know, Muslims are a different category. And I've heard the most bigoted things from members of the church. I've never heard. I was in Relief Society once, and an older woman prayed, you know, for our soldiers to kill as many Muslims as possible because, you know, they're the devil and whatever. And it's just like, what, you know, And I think that's what it is. I think we really have divided. There are Mormons who see Muslims as evil, you know, and because religious, you know, religion tends to break people off into good and evil, I think people can slip into that. And I've seen that a lot more these days. And that's unfortunate. And it's obviously, it's post 911 sentimentality. It's partly Trump, but it really does feel like much more anti Islam than I've ever, ever felt. Yet. There were, you know, Mormon scholars, there's, you know, a group of Mormon law professors who filed a brief against the refugee ban, inciting their Mormon faith, saying, you know, these. We as Mormons oppose any sort of religious discrimination because of what we've been through. You know, so I think the church, you know, really should be a moral leader on this. And here again, circling back to Mitt Romney, he really has come out recently to some of the racism and out and out anti Islamic sentiments.

John Dehlin [00:05:58] And so in some ways it seems like we're trying to get better as a church. And in some ways it seems like it is a little bit worse than it used to be. And it's probably disorienting for someone who's trying to make sense and monitor progress. I just want to make a shout out for an interview I did just a few days ago with a man named Shawn Carter. He's a graduate. He's a black American graduate of Harvard Law School. He and his wife joined the church in Mesa, Arizona. And he recently has left the church over what he calls white supremacy. And that was a bit of a clickbaity type title. But he talks about white supremacy not in terms of sheets, you know, with holes cut out over the head. You know, KKK stuff. He talks about white supremacy as 100 apostles in a row being white men. You know, and just this idea that white is supreme, that may not even ever be explicitly said, but that is lived out in our leadership and in our discourse. Do you have any observations or thoughts about that?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:07:09] I mean, I grew up in the Mormon Church feeling like I was inferior because of my race. You know, God's white, Jesus is white, and everyone's white.

John Dehlin [00:07:22] Nephites are white.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:07:24] You know, you get cursed with dark skin. Every dark person that plays any role in any historical document is brown, Right? Or every good person is white, every bad person is brown. So it's hard not to avoid that conclusion, you know, so, yeah, white supremacy, maybe we're not lynching, we're not condoning violence, blah, blah, blah. But yes, I mean, I think deep down in anyone's heart and it's there, you know, and I think this is a racial conversation. I think that I'm seeing in the left progressive blogs coming out and saying, like, oh, I'm all of a sudden recognizing this white privilege or, you know, this white dominance, right? I mean, even like Lord of The Rings. Was that Lord of the Rings? Game of Thrones? I just started watching one episode, right? And it's, you know, these, like. I don't know if you watch Game of Thrones or not, but it's like this one, you know, all the white people, and then they, like, go, this is the first episodes. I don't know much else, but they go. And then there's like these backwards group of brown people, the only round people. They're like. They're called Dothrakis, which sounds a lot like Iraqis. And they. They're like, UGA bugga, like, killing each other, like, you know, having these crazy things. They're beasts, right? And. And, you know, these are my people, right? Like, if you're looking at Europe as a center, and then, you know, there's a Mediterranean Sea, and then the people are below it, so you can't escape. That's white supremacy, right? Like, you're watching entertainment that is based on the assumption of white superiority. And I think people just kind of take it and you. You consume it for so long, unless you're a person of color who says, wait, like, who am I in this? You know? And I think if you're a Mormon and you're looking at the histories and you're meant to take them literally, you're like, who am I in this? Like, I'm the bad guy, right? So that can't be right. So I think, you know, that's why I was never able to take it literally either. It's like, if you're taking it literally, then I'm always going to be the bad guy. And I. You know, your brain can't go there without degrading your soul, you know, as women, too. I think if you're going to be a feminist, you have to accept the premise that women are inferior. Women are. You say it like, oh, different roles, but really it's inferiority, you know, so there is male supremacy as well, you know, and this is, again, not just the Mormon Church. This is, you know, this is. The water we swim in is, you know, sexism, racism. It's. It's everywhere. But I do think again, and I'm an optimist at heart here, is that there are more people that are opening their eyes to this, and it's wonderful. You know, I feel like. And this is going back to the left, where I feel like we're cutting down allies. Like, someone will come into a group and sit and says, yeah, I'm new to feminism, and then they'll say something stupid. About race. And then they just get pounded on because they're not. They don't have the right language and they don't know about cultural appropriation. They don't know about intersectionality. And here I am saying, look, I'll take all of the allies I can get, right? If you need some time to come up with the verbiage, that's fine. But we can't be pushing these people out when there are, like, racists at the door wanting to cut us down.

John Dehlin [00:10:19] You know, something Sean said is nobody will ever get an award from a person of color for being the best ally. We shouldn't be out allying each other and shaming each other for not being as good of an ally. Is that. Do you share that sentiment? Yes.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:10:37] And I think people of color also, I think, need to be compassionate here. I mean, like, speaking to maybe like, what, five people of color that are Mormons still and active. Look, I mean, we've got to understand here that white people, you know, like, you don't know what it's like to live in someone's skin, right? And so you can expect that someone's going to be, like, on day one, right? Like, understanding everything and willing to, like, you know, shed and bow down. I mean, it's just, It's. It's human nature we're talking about, right? We got to take some humility for ourselves and compassion for other people and to understand that I don't know everything. You don't know everything. But if you want to work with me and you don't degrade me as a human being, I'm happy to work intentionally.

John Dehlin [00:11:20] Intentionally degrade.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:21] Intentionally.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] Exactly.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:22] Yeah. If I'm. And I, you know, I tell everyone, like, it's really impossible to offend me. I know. Never get offended. And part of that is because I, you know, I've never. If I live my life getting offended, it would just be like one waste of time after another because there's constantly. I'm put in positions where, gosh, that was really weird that they said that.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Microaggressions and over aggressions, constant micro and

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:45] overt aggressions, tons of racism. And I just. Not that I'm always rolling it off my back. And there's like, you know, there's definitely, like, you know, I have a hot streak, but I try not to be offended because it's. What good does that do anybody?

John Dehlin [00:12:00] I had this moment when I was doing a Mormon Stories episode on rape and sexual assault where I sort of said, we'll know. The church is making A turn, a positive turn in this area when the subject of a Sunday school lesson is on consent. Right. And the audience erupted in applause. And I just had a similar kind of thought, which is, we'll know. The church is really starting to turn the corner on issues like this when there's a Sunday school lesson on privilege, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:12:34] Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that would be awesome. And there are probably some Sunday schools out there doing this, you know, Berkeley,

John Dehlin [00:12:42] Cambridge, Brooklyn, New York.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:12:43] Yeah, part of that, but not generally. Right.

John Dehlin [00:12:49] One quick question. Is the church locked in, in the sense that the Book of Mormon is supposed to be scripture, it's supposed to be translated, God's Word, the most correct book, and yet it's got encoded explicit racist stories like, is the church trapped? Because as soon as they, you know, denounce or distance themselves from the fundamental narrative in the Book of Mormon, it's undermining its own scripture and its own spiritual authority. And so in some ways, it just feels like the church is chained to racism and can't escape racism without destroying itself. I mean, do you see that conundrum, and do you see a way out of it?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:13:35] Yeah, I see that conundrum. In, you know, in every religious text, there is this, you know, play between textual formalism and, you see, the Constitution. Right. You could say the same thing about the founding documents with were based on slavery and white supremacy and the Three Fifths and the compromise. It's the same question we're asking as a country, as religions are asking. I think it's a good question. It was based on white supremacy. It was based on patriarchy. What do we do with those texts? Do we ditch them and start new? Do we take down the Confederate documents? Do we burn them up and start over? I mean, Joseph Campbell has this great series, right? Man of a Thousand Faces and, you know, has this great Bill Moyers dialogue where he talks about, like, we are all of us.

John Dehlin [00:14:13] It's a power of myth, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:14:15] Yeah. We are all of us, at this inflection point. Like, we need new myths. Our old myths aren' quite working for us. We're in a different world. We're connected. We're global. We're, you know, you know, the gender disparities have changed, Right? We don't have the same imperatives that we did in old times, and we need new myths. And what are those myths? What are those religious understandings? What do we make of community? What do we make of tribe? Right. We're tribal by nature, and so now I think we've formed these tribes of identity and these tribes of belief and these tribes of, you know, shared interests as opposed to, like, oh, this is my tribe because this is where I was born, and this is my religion because this is what was given to me. There wasn't a thought about belief. When, you know, my. My dad, I asked them, like, what did you believe? They're like, it wasn't even a question. Like, you were Muslim because your grandma was Muslim, and you just did Muslim stuff because that's who you were, you know, and it's because where you were born and a lot of Mormons grew up that way. You're Mormon, right? And. And now I think we're in this, you know, really confusing era. Not just Mormons, Muslims too, and Buddhists and everybody. And I think we need. We need new myths and new understandings of what it's like to be a community and a tribe, because I think there's part of our d. Needs tribe. It needs other. It needs us. And I think, unfortunately, some of us are driving, putting these tribes around on issues of race, on issues of identity, and I think we really need to fight that in our nature. That says, it is us and it is them. And us means, you know, progressive. And I'm gonna have this purity test of what it means to be a progressive. And you can't be a progressive because you're a white man and you're a Mormon, or you can't be a progressive because you voted for Hillary Clinton and she's a sellout or whatever. Or I'm white and I believe in white identity, whatever the hell that means. Right? Like. Or I'm, you know, any. Any way that we're doing. I think this is part of that same malaise. It's like, we need new myths. We need new things that draw us together. And I keep going back to, like, the leaders that I admire most, right? Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and it's like, look, anyone can come on this bus. But, like, we're going down to tear down Jim Crow. We're tearing down an institution that is unjust to poor people. So whoever wants to jump on this bus, like, go ahead. I don't care who you are, but we're on a mission, right? So this is. I mean, my books and my scholarship tries to get at this. Look at the systems, right? Be soft on people, but be hard on these institutions of racism and sexism and oligarchy, right? I mean, my mom fought the shah. Oligarchy. We're entering another oligarchy, and it's five banks that control 80% of our assets. We've got lobbies that control Congress. Right. We really, we have inequal that's only growing. Right. It's hard to be poor in America now. Right. And there's more poor people. There's this, you know, 1% that's out there that controls everything. And then there's all these people that have no political access or lives are harder, our wages aren't increasing, financially insecure. And so let's, let's dismantle the system. Let's not have the infighting. Right? So anyone who wants to come and dismantle the system and doesn't mean, you know, we have to overthrow. I've. No, no, you know, I don't like revolution because I've lived through that. But like, you know, the pragmatic efforts of, like, we'll sit down with treasury and see if postal banking will work. Right. Like that's, that's rewarding. And if it means that I have to work with like, Hillary Clinton's, you know, supposed Treasury, I'll do it.

John Dehlin [00:17:31] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:17:31] And so should you. Right. Because it means that we're going to

John Dehlin [00:17:33] get progress and bring it back to religion. For just a second. I, I know from, from reading your writings that you're, you're just not a fan of literalistic thinking of even this question of whether things are true or not. I don't think you care whether or not the Book of Mormon is historical. You care about whether Mormons and others just live in a way that promotes social justice and kindness and love. Right. I think that's where your heart is. And my question to you is, do you ever sometimes look at the way society is going? And in some ways I think you would agree with me that we're kind of maybe going in the wrong direction of progress right now, that maybe we're even backtracking a little bit. And do you ever feel tempted to sort of tag religion or even sometimes Mormonism a bit as being some of the social forces that are actually prohibiting the directional progress that we want? Do you have to, do you ever see that? Do you ever feel that? And do you have to fight sort of religion as being part of the problem?

Religion as a Force for Good and for Harm

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:18:37] So I think this is complicated. I think I see religion as both a force of good and a force of backwardsness. And I think, I mean, again, taking this as a historical platform, right? So Christianity, Christ Christianity was a religion of expansion, right? So all of a sudden it's not just the Jews and Gentiles, it's everyone, right? So this is, you know, Paul takes the gospel everywhere and whatever the truth is of who, you know, what happened to Jesus or not. What you can say about Christianity is it was, it was expansive until it wasn't, until it was, you know, Crusades, us versus them, the Roman Catholic Church, Islam. Islam was expansive. I mean, Muhammad wasn't trying to make a religion. He was trying to tell Jews and Christians, hey, we have the same God, right? So the Quran builds on the Torah and the Bible and says, hey, you know, we're all trading together, right? Because Mecca was this trade hub. And he says, we all have the same God. And then later on it becomes a religion that is, you know, we're gonna go and take over these lands and become exclusive. Mormonism was also a religion of expansion, right? We're gonna send missionaries out and bring in the people and maybe now it's become more border. So I think there's both, there's this expansive sense of religion. And I think, you know, I believe there's. Robert Wright wrote this great book called non zero and Karen Armstrong talks about this in Fields of Blood. Like religion, you know, religion has been, you know, we go from non zero or zero sum interactions like us versus them. And then anytime we can find a non zero interaction, right, so we can win, win, then that's an expansive thing. And so religion, I think has been shown the way to not non zeroness, right? Christ's whole message was like expansion. We can be more tolerant, we can accept our enemies and we can, you know, make this more expansive and everybody wins, you know, and Islam started that way. So I think these memes, if you follow the memes, right, tend to be expansive. And this is what I'm saying, we need new myths because these memes maybe aren't working for us anymore. They're contracting. And so I don't know if we're going backwards or this is a momentary lapse. I think that the meme that we got to follow is are we going to a more expansive community or are we going to more restrictive? And I think we can't help but go to more expansive. We are increasingly bound with each other and we've got to deal with climate change, we've got to deal with global inequality, we've got to deal with terrorism. That's no longer contained in certain places, right? It's going to come get you wherever you are. And so increasingly we understand that we've got to rely on each other. And so religion, I think can choose to be a force for good or a force for retrenchment. And I think there are those who take religion and lead them. You know, Bryan Stevenson is one of my heroes and he was in your favorite 13th movie. He was my law professor at NYU. Bryan Stevenson is this death penalty guy and he's a Christian, right? So his Christian faith has led him to fight for death penalty, you know, convicts. And I know Mormons whose Mormon faith has led them to be social activists and go do this good work. And I know both, you know, there's evangelicals, like this Austin guy, right? Doesn't open his church. And this is prosperity gospel, right? These, you know, Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen, right. And then these Mormons who, you know, take their religion as, you know, a retraction, right? It's us and them, right? So you can use religion and there's both in the text. So I think both the Book of Mormon and the Bible have both traditions within them. And I think this is where you, you know, depending on how you are, how much fear you have in your life, right? And I think it is that it comes to fear. I think a lot of people are afraid now of the future. And I'm one of these people who are like, you know, plot me in the future. I think the future is going to be better. And I think some, some people are afraid of what's coming and what want to retain the past and are true sort of traditionalists. They want to keep what's theirs and they don't want to risk what might happen around the corner. And this is, I think the tension that every religious person goes through is do I want to just hold on to the past or do I want to accelerate toward the future? I think we're struggling with that right now.

John Dehlin [00:22:42] And as a final line of questioning, just on Mormonism and racism, as this Mormon mommy blogger comes out promoting white culture, you know, what some would say is white supremacy. The church gave an initial response and then they gave a follow up response. Do you have any sort of takeaways from that whole exchange? Was that encouraging, discouraging? What was that for you?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:23:03] I followed it all. I mean, I cannot believe that we are dealing with white supremacy. I mean, I can't. Like, you know, when I book, when I started writing my book like eight years ago, I'm like, we're talking about the wealth gap and it's gonna be this nuanced policy take, and all of a sudden it's coming out and we're dealing with like the Klan. Are you kidding me? Right? So, you know, I started. I stumbled on this woman's Twitter feed and I just, like, I couldn't believe it, right? And I couldn't, you know, I couldn't square that with what I knew. But then again, again, it's always been there. Like, I, you know, I feel that, right? Like I have preservation. And here's the thing, right? When she's saying, like, my white babies and I want to preserve my white culture. And this is why I brought up the dating issue, because I felt that at byu, I felt like, you know, this whole intermarriage thing is like, you don't want to dirty up your line by some brown race. And that wasn't explicit. It was implicit. It was felt. So that's always been there. And it's nice to feel to see the church coming out against it. I wish they would come out very strongly against interracial marriage because that I

John Dehlin [00:24:07] think is the in favor against, against

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:24:10] those who say that it is not. Dr. Of course, yes, I'm in favor of interracial marriage because I think that is a heart of white supremacy too. Like, why would you not condone that, right? Why, why would you be opposed to interracial marriage unless you believed in race? And if you believe in race and then you believe in racial purity and you believe in white supremacy. And so I think, you know, we all have to take race as a fiction. I don't believe that there's any sort of biological superiority or inferiority. I think it's what we see. And so marry who you want, have kids that are mixed race. I mean, my kids are Mexican, Iranian, whatever, and they're beautiful kids, you know, and there's, you know, nothing muddied up about their line. They're fine. Right.

John Dehlin [00:24:52] And so an explicit pronouncement in support of mixed, mixed race marriages would be a positive step for you.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:01] I would love that.

John Dehlin [00:25:02] Okay. And did the church's second response to the to the white supremacist mommy blogger 8. Was that encouraging to you at all? Was that?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:11] Yes, it was. You know, it was. And it was Harken, back to the Brother Bot thing. Do you remember Bot?

John Dehlin [00:25:17] Absolutely. Randy Bott.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:19] Yeah, Randy Bot was one of my religion professors at byu and I hated that guy. Let's be honest. Like, I was in his class dnc and it was so offensive. It was sexist, racist, you know, everyone just ate it up. And I went to the dean to complain about him and I just like, had like, it was like on a crusade to like, you know, like, tell people why this guy was Problematic. He's really problematic. And he came out early in Mitt Romney running a while back saying, you know, the blacks in the priesthood explaining it away as, like, Cain and whatever. Like, he had some, like, theory, and the church came out and slapped him on the hand with that, you know, and was like, that is not what we believe. And that made me really happy. So I love when they come out and say this stuff, and it was political at the time because I think they were, like, getting Romney's back against this, like, crazy quack. And so I think they will do that on occasion, you know, And I appreciate it, and I understand the church is a hierarchy. It's a corporation. So these statements are hard. I don't sort of hang my life on these statements. I don't. I know how hard it is for an institution to make a statement. So whatever. So I appreciate it. You know, I also think that it's important for members to just come out and say what they believe and what they don't believe. So I do, you know, as allies, appreciate that what the church says or doesn't, I think that's. I guess that's important. Right. Because there's a lot of members who just listen to what the church says, and if they don't say anything, then they don't think it's important.

John Dehlin [00:26:45] Right. Well, I guess that that's gonna be. Did the church's essay on. On blacks in the priesthood make you feel better or worse?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:26:54] Yeah. I mean, again, I wish I'd had it when I was 16 and that guy was, like, told me about blacks in the priesthood, and I was just, like, punched in the gut and not. There's nothing from the church at the time. Right. So I lived in college and we were, you know, listening to you, Eugene England, telling us about it, but, you know, had no explanation. So I guess it's more helpful now. I mean, I think we just need to be really honest and say it was a mistake. We were all racist back then, and it was not a revelation in any way, shape or form. We just screwed up and we fixed it. It was way too late to fix it. So. Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:27:27] Yeah. All right. Okay. So we can check off the box of Mormons and racism so we can move on to the next topic now. Mormons and Social Justice. Now, I'm going to just tell you, when I first started my podcast, I'm going to embarrass my mom here. She probably won't listen all the way to this because it's one of the longer ones and she's not always able to go the distance on some of my interviews, bless her heart. But I remember when I was doing Mormon stories, for me, I felt very motivated by sympathies for women, LGBT people, people of color. Like, for me, Mormon stories has pretty much always been an act of social activism, in my mind, at least in my motives. And my mom, just one time, she said to me, why would you ever want to be an activist? And I'm like, mom, that's like Martin Luther King, Gandhi. Aren't those the people we respect most? And she's like, yeah, but the life of it, like, look what happened. Look what happened to them both. Right? She's like, that's just not a life. It's just not. And it's not just that they were killed. It's just like, it's a cruddy family life. It's a life of always being angry. It's a life of always speaking out and protesting. And she's just like, that's no life. And I just think that's kind of Mormon culture. It's like, we are not. We are. You know, activism is anathema to sort of conservative, orthodox Mormonism.

Mormon Social Justice, Activism, and LGBT Policy

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:28:57] Joseph Smith was an activist.

John Dehlin [00:28:59] No, no, I know, I know. So let's talk about that. Some would say Mormonism and social justice are oxymorons. Right. They're two things that don't belong together. Talk about why you would even want to talk about it and what it means to you.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:29:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:12] And why we're not aware of our own heritage. Yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:29:15] I grew up in a very different house. Right. We were activists. Because what it meant, what activism meant, is if you see things that are wrong and you don't do it, then you're a cow. You know, you don't change things. And I gotta say, I mean, you. You really have been so instrumental in opening up this progressive conversation. So I, you know, thank you from, you know, someone who was a, you know, byu, felt alone in, you know, in these feminist groups and these pro gay groups. And we were, you know, meeting in, like, the basement. Like, we got defunded and voiced.

John Dehlin [00:29:42] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:29:42] And so all of a sudden, now you have a podcast. Like, it's global, you know, it's. It's all over. And so I appreciate that. And why weren't you around when I was in college? No, I mean, I. I mean, you've given people a platform. And I've, you know, through your position and, you know, I think onto your question, I think it's a very, very good one. I think it's there. I think if you, if you are activist minded and if you search the scriptures and if you look on my mission, I read the Book of Mormon like 15 times, right? I read the Bible, the New Testament like a bunch of times. It's all there.

John Dehlin [00:30:17] I mean, what was Jesus, if he wasn't a social justice warrior, exactly.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:30:21] Like you have not read the New Testament and right? If you don't agree with inequality, right? Like Jesus was a socialist, right? I mean, forget the political socialism, but this idea that like the poor shall be first, right? That the rich cannot enter the kingdom of God, you know, And I don't want to talk about policy here, I don't want to talk about politics. I just mean this idea that like poor people deserve dignity, right? That poor people deserve equality, right? Not that everyone gets to be rich, but some people don't get to have all the gold and then make all the rules. So that prohibits all the people, other people from having the gold, right? This is Jesus whole mission. Jesus was an activist. Jesus was a progressive activist, right? And I think these words have lost their meaning. But what Jesus I think meant of it was, you know, there are people who take their positions of power and they oppress those who are weak. And let's not do that, you know. And I think that's what being an activist is, is like who are the people right now who are abusing their power over others and, and let's join a coalition of people who can fix that, right? Because those things can be fixed, right? You, you can't maintain. This is Martin Luther King, Gandhi, right? Like power won't give unless it's taken from them, right? And the way that it can be

John Dehlin [00:31:35] taken, power never really relinquishes itself voluntarily. It must be forced.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:31:40] Exactly, exactly. So I think, you know, this is. And power, power will take unto its own power will accumulate. Capital will take more and more and more. And this is, you know, Capital by Thomas Piketty, right? Like capital is going to grow. That's all capital wants to do. So if you're rich, you're going to maintain that richness, right? There was this study that came out today, like 42% of Harvard's entering class are legacy, right? So that's, you know, people who are rich, their kids will be rich, you know, and I'm saying this now as part of the upper middle class, right? I'm make great money. My kids are going to be set up. And I think that there's some unfairness that where you're born and who you're born to that. If you're born in India, if you're born in Bangladesh, you just don't get to have the life, you know, that you do. If you're born in New York City to someone rich, you know, and not that everyone, like, has to have the same cars and same fancy stuff, but can we live without a little bit of our fancy stuff so that someone else can just feel food secure, you know, or have shelter? And I think we have just wide disparities of outcomes. And I don't like that we live in that world. And it bothers me. It hurts my soul, you know, and I think it should, you know, if you believe in God or if you don't believe in God, if you just believe in humanity, I think it's gotta hurt your soul because, you know, like the Rawlsian, you know, veil of ignorance, like, you gotta imagine that another, in another iteration, it could be you. And if you can't see that, that could be you. And through no fault of your own, you would be poor and succumb to violence and rape and whatever, then you don't have enough empathy. And I think that's a flaw. And religion should teach you at least that.

John Dehlin [00:33:17] And so when you think about, let's just say the past 10 years there, I can think of a few Mormons who have sprung up trying to sort of lead some sort of strains of activism. Ordained women comes to mind. You know, there have been several people trying to be advocates for LGBT people. And there's two things that are kind of outrageous about that. One is how the church reacted. Right. But what's also crazy is to think about how much time and money and words the church has spent on trying to prevent same sex marriage, for example.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:34:01] Unbelievable.

John Dehlin [00:34:02] And being silent on issues like war and poverty and the prison system and the inequities there. So talk about both. So first, what was it like for you to watch ordained women struck down, to watch people who tried to advocate for LGBT people be shut down? To see the November 2015 policy? What's it been like for you to see the church kind of not only not be social justice advocates, but to strike down many of those who tried to become that? What was that like for you?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:34:36] Really disheartening. I mean, really, really. I mean, of all of the issues that you could fight for, I mean, really prohibiting gay marriage, Like, I mean, I. There are. I mean, I have always believed that, you know, God loves gays as much as, if not more than he loves me. Right. Like, I mean, I think it's just, I have never, ever had an issue with it. I can't imagine having an issue with it. But putting that aside, even if you do have an issue with it, right. I can't imagine that that ranks anywhere near the top, resource wise. Like you said, to put the money and the resources to go out there and fight against this thing. Like, like you said, we have war and power. I know, right? Like, I've been there. We've got Mormons, right? People in the church who live in power poor areas and in war torn areas. Right. We've got women who can't leave their abusive, you know, spouses, right? Because they're being, you know, they're in these communities where it's okay, right? We've got tons and tons of real problems. And this is the thing you're focusing on. And the ordained women, like I was, I was blown away when Kay Kelly got. And you got excommunicated. I just couldn't believe that the church would do that. I mean, I really, it was, it was hard on me personally. Both of those, I think, and I followed them very carefully. I knew of Kate Kelly, I didn't know her personally. And same with you. And you know, believe me, there was a lot of us out there who just like wept in our homes. Not publicly. I've never really had a public Mormon Persona, per se, but it was a huge shock to my connection with the church. And that, to be honest, is when I felt like maybe this is not my community anymore. And you know, I, I wish that it could be different, but the way that the church has taken the gay marriage and the feminism stuff, I mean, ordained women, like, it seemed obvious. It was funny. My dad, I talked to him. My dad doesn't know anything about Mormonism. You know, I was kind of sitting around and talking to him and I was like, yeah, there's this group of women who are asking for the priesthood. He's like, yeah, why wouldn't they get the priesthood? And I'm just like, well, you know, not only that, but get this. Like, you know, and here's this man who grew up like Shiite Muslim in the most backward region of a backward country. And he's like, well, of course women should get the priesthood. Like, what do you mean? You know, and, you know, I want

John Dehlin [00:37:01] to meet your parents.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:37:02] Yeah, you know, they're just unassuming people, but have, you know, and to be honest, I mean, my parents are hard on gay marriage. Like, they don't, they're of a different generation. And so I think that. That I think they're not comfortable with. Right? But they're older and that's, you know, they grew up Shiite, but they're also very much like, you do whatever needs to happen, you know, And I just think they're more uncomfortable with it than our generation is. But, you know, it's one of these things where there are real evils out there and there are real problems and there's real suffering, and two men or two women getting married doesn't even come close to causing any real something.

John Dehlin [00:37:46] Give us, off the top of your head, 10 really significant problems that should be obviously a higher priority than maybe some of the other things that we're focusing on. Give us 10. I know it seems obvious to you, but let's name some. Let's name some of the biggest, okay?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:38:01] One, poverty. I mean, worldwide poverty. American poverty, Right? American poverty, right. We've got huge, huge pockets of poverty. One, Two, climate change, right? Like, we can do stuff. We can recycle. We can reduce carbon footprints. We can, you know, be lowering our carbon excess. Right? This is. If you're conservative, if you believe that the earth was created by God, then you would want to preserve it, right? You would want. You would see the environmental degradation as a worse sort of sin to God than gay marriage. 3. You know, women are still, like

John Dehlin [00:38:44] half the sky, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:38:45] Yeah, we're still getting, you know, not me personally, but, like, beaten and abused and trafficking and trafficked and this sex slavery. And like, the church could, like, eliminate that, you know, with the money that they spent on Prop 8. Like, could we just go to Thailand and rescue some of these girls from prostitution, you know, and slavery? I don't know where I was. Four or five. Five, you know, credit. Let's start a fund where members or non members, if they have an emergency that comes up, like a medical emergency, they can get $500 instead of going to a payday lender and having to pay, like, 2,000% interest, that ends up sinking them into debt. Right? 6, child care, right. For poor people. Most of my things are poverty. We don't have. Let's come up with a system of child care. So a woman who is a single mom, right? 40% of single moms are poor, right? So let's give them childcare so they can go to work. You know, that's a system of volunteers easily take care of that, right? Children who are not. They're. They're not getting fed or they're not getting fed. The right things, like come up with the lunches, like that school lunch thing in Utah, right? That woman who trucked the thing, I'm like, just, let's pay for their. Everyone gets free lunch. Like everyone gets free breakfast and free lunch. Let's take all the money because these are kids, right? Even if you're a libertarian, like, poor people deserve their fate. Like, surely that can't apply to children. Why should children be living in poverty? Like, there's just, you know, there's no system that is a philosophical or economic philosophy that should allow for that, right? Education, right? We've got people who are going to struggling schools that cannot learn. You know, we tutor some kids in Harlem who sent them to byu. Kids who got, you know, in Harlem schools straight A. So they did everything the school required them, couldn't read, so couldn't succeed in college because they had done everything the school system required of them, but they didn't have the skills to succeed in college. So we sent a couple of them to byu, Idaho and they just couldn't make it, you know. But let's put in money to these inner city schools, right? If you believe in education, if you believe in like, you know, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, let's give these kids bootstraps, right? Shelter, right. Homelessness, right. Utah's done great in this, but let's like fix it in other cities. I can't remember where else I was. I mean, like, you know, natural disasters, right? Let's just come up with a fund where we go in and Mormons do this. But there's natural disasters abroad that are constant, you know, refugees, you know, there are refugees who through no fault of their own, like my family could not live in the system that they were in. And they are now pushed into another country. And like, can we accept them? Can we bring them in and make them feel welcome? And some Mormons I think do do this. I've seen a lot of good work done here. But like, if you believe in the gospel, if you believe in the Good Samaritan story, if you believe in what Jesus said, like, you're going to open up your door to refugees. So I don't know if that's 10 or not.

John Dehlin [00:41:43] That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, I'm thinking poverty, poverty, poverty. But then I think about what was Jesus I was talking about, right? That's all Jesus talked about.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:41:52] It's like if you look at the Maslow's chart, right? Like, we can't get to self actualization without dealing with poverty, you know, And I Think, you know. You know, even though with LBGBTQ stuff, like, I think that.

John Dehlin [00:42:03] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:42:04] Like, let him do that. Forget that you guys are people who can't eat, you know, like, why are we focused on who someone is gonna love? Right? Like, who cares? I can't even summon up the energy to care about who someone loves. I just. There are no victims here. There are no victims.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] So what? Let's just say there. There's some. There's some people listening. Marisa, you're brilliant. I love this. I'm an active, believing Mormon. And what do I do in 2017? How can I be. How can I be an activist amongst my people in a way where I won't get struck down in a way where I can have a chance of making some meaningful difference? Do you have any ideas about what Mormon social justice activism might look like in 2017?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:42:51] Sure. If you're an activist Mormon. First of all, why are you listening to John Leland? I think that guy got excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:42:57] I mean, I think that we do have orthodox listeners.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:43:00] Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I consider myself, you know, was, you know, active at some point. I think, you know, just focus on. Focus on the things that matter. And you can do it at church, you know, like, raise your hand when someone says something really stupid in Sunday school. Raise your hand and say something smart and nuanced, right? When someone tries to, you know, lead the church in some way, speak up, right? It's like those people within that really do the best, best work and of shaping where the church is going to go, speak up. Don't be afraid, right? Don't be afraid of the social, you know, stigma, because what you're saying is true, right? If you are out there speaking up for the poor and disenfranchised, like, you're doing the right thing, you know, And I think. Read the New Testament. Read the New Testament a bunch of times in a row and tell me what the message of that book is. Because I think if you really, like, sit with the New Testament and read it, you cannot but come out with a message that, like, we've got to do more for injustices in society. And if you don't come out with that message, like, email me and tell me what other thing Jesus was talking about.

John Dehlin [00:44:05] If not that, I love it. This is great. All right, so we're gonna check the box on Mormons and social justice. We've solved those problems. Niles writes, I love everything about this discussion with a heart. Niles and I were buddies. His older brother was A close friend of mine for many years. Was his last name Waterson Niles Watterson? Yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:28] Oh, yeah. His wife was my BYU roommate freshman year. Brecken.

John Dehlin [00:44:33] Oh, cool. Yeah, she's Canadian, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:35] Yeah. No, Denver, Canada. Colorado. Brecken.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] They're definitely in Colorado now. Yeah, for sure.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:44] Oh, okay.

John Dehlin [00:44:45] Shaloma writes, read the New Testament, but the synoptics more than John. So that's a little tip. Sure, yeah. Shalom also writes. So, Mirsa, what's this picture of a toddler chewing on the tip of a sharp kitchen knife?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:58] It's plastic.

John Dehlin [00:45:00] Oh, it's plastic.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:01] This is my daughter Lucia when she was 2. She'd go around, she had this little pirate knife. She'd be like, this is my profile picture because it looks like I'm a negligent parent. And so that's, I guess, maybe the image my subconscious wants to send to the world. It's plastic knife.

John Dehlin [00:45:18] Al writes, the problem is that many talk about Jesus, but few follow the examples of his actions. Becca writes this chick, I hope you're okay with her referring to you as a chick. You can't be offended. So Becca says, this chick has got an awesome way of explaining how I have felt ever since I've had my own exodus from my original tribe. Love her. So love you, chick. What's that?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:43] I love her chick.

John Dehlin [00:45:45] All right. G. Fryas writes straight talk. I love it. Danielle writes, can this podcast last forever? I'm learning so much. Well, Mormon stories, podcasts do come close to lasting forever, so you're in good company, Danielle. All right, so we've got a final topic that we want to talk about before maybe we do a few wrap up questions. Thank you so much for everything so far, for your time. I know your time is precious, so this means a lot. You wanted to talk about tribalism and Mormon identity. I did read your Sunstone talk. And why tribalism? Why is this an important topic to you and what do you have to say about tribalism and Mormonism?

Tribalism, Mormon Identity, and Belonging

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:29] Yeah, so I think, look, this, I mean, goes back to what we were saying before is when people are leaving the church or they're not quite satisfied with it, they still long for this tribe of. Of people who think like that. Right. And so increasingly, I think we're identifying ourselves with these labels, like, I am a progressive post Mormon activist, whatever, and we box ourselves in with these things. Right. And I think, you know, part of, like, the solid Mormon identity, if you're going into, you know, true Mormon believer, I've always sort of, you know, as I said in my Sunstone talk, I've always envied, you know, these women. I mean, I'm a woman, so I look at women as my peers and I there's all these great Mormon women who are just so lovely and, you know, good people and who just knew what their life was going to be, right? I'm going to be a wife and a mom and I'm going to have a house and, you know, I envied them, you know, and as I've grown up and I never was able to feel that way because I just had such a scattered, different childhood and I never, you know, had anything real that I could say, well, this is what my life is going to be. Because I don't even, you know, I had never had any solid structure. And, but, but I have realized over time that these images that we create, these identities, let's call them, are, you know, we draw these circles around ourselves and we're saying, this is my identity, but everything outside of it, you end up fearing, right? So, you know, I call it, you know, in the sense when I talk, I talk about these landmines that we put in these borders around our identity. And so there's things that you can't think, you know, there's things that you can't say, there's things that you can't see, you know, and so as long as you protect yourself when you stay in, that's solid and that's comfortable and that's your identity. But don't go too close to the border and certainly don't step outside of it. And, you know, I, you know, the good thing about me never having a tribe of belonging is that I've also never had these, you know, barriers on where I could think and what I could, what kind of ideas I could harbor. And so I've always felt intellectually curious and I've always felt like I could allow my curiosity to take me to where it wanted, like, you know, questioning God or questioning religion or questioning the literal belief of anything, but also questioning like, you know, what does it mean to have a well meaning life and really letting myself, you know, scratch the boundaries and not fear what's, what lays beyond. And certainly I have fears that govern my life, right? And part of that is like, you know, being a refugee and war and all that stuff. And there are sort of those kind of fears, but the fears aren't of identity. And so this is where I think I see sometimes. And, you know, I've pissed off maybe your Trump supporters and maybe I'LL piss off the left. Now, as I see in the left, and this is the, you know, the, on the Internet sort of the progressive spheres is that we're, we're so tribalistic, we're not compassionate toward each other. We, you know, I see this in the, in, you know, the blogs that I'm part of is people just are harsh about it. And it's very much like this, you know, litmus test. And it's this, if you're not saying the right things, you're not doing the right things. If you're don't believe the right things, right? Like, if you believe this, you can't possibly be my friend. If you voted for Donald Trump, then you're dead to me. If you're a white man who doesn't have Black Lives Matter tattooed on your forehead, then you don't, you don't see me, right? And I, and look, I get it. Like, black lives matter makes sense. White lives matter doesn't make sense, right? But I'm happy to talk about that. And if you don't get that right away, like, I'm comfortable that I'm able. I'm, you know, we can talk through it and it's gonna be a fruitful conversation. I think there's a lot of fear that happens in these communities where they resort to, like, you're offensive to me, right? Like I, and I've seen it, like someone will say something and they're like, well, you're a white guy, so you can't say that. Or you're, you know, this, you've never experienced that. And then that's true. Like, as a white guy, you have never experienced what it's like to fear, you know, rape, right? Or to be a woman of color and whatever. But, you know, I have faith in the human experience that I could, we could dialogue and get there, you know, and I think we often write people off and part of this is maybe like post traumatic stress, right? Like we were part of a clan and there was all of these beliefs and these checkboxes, and now we've recreated them outside the church, right? We've recreated them in progressive communities where if you don't believe these things, then you don't belong, you know, And I, and I just want us to approach each other with a bit more compassion and a bit more like giving people some time to get there. And I think everyone's on a different timeline and I've seen a lot of infighting that I just feel like is a waste of time. Like, let's Just, you know, work together. And I feel confident enough in the cause that people will come to it that we don't have to, like, shame them, because I think a lot of this tribalism is. It rests on shame.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] What about the discussions of. I mean, you gave the Alain de Bouton quote about. There's a. There's no less interesting question to whether or not religion is true. Let me push back on that. Not in a serious way, but just for the matter of exploring. There's a lot of people who feel like they would have made very, very different choices in their life if they had been given all the information and if the church actually turned out to be what it claimed to be. And so when people talk about the truth claims and they talk about the literality and all this stuff, I know that from an intellectual perspective, even from a social justice perspective, those conversations are like the tinkling of brass. However, to the people who feel like significant parts of their life or their time or their money were, in a sense, robbed from them because they weren't given all the information and because they would have made very different decisions in a different situation. The woman who would have gone and got her education instead of becoming a mom with six kids, and now she's divorced because her husband was a louse and she married because her mission president said, go get married, or the LGBT person that was put into reparative therapy and had 10 or 15 years of torment and self torture. To people like that, the fact, whether or not it's true or not actually really matters quite a bit. How would you speak to those sorts of concerns as you also bring up these important points about what really matters? You know what I'm saying?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:52:56] Yeah, absolutely. I have a lot of compassion for that, and I have a lot of friends in that camp. And I don't think. I see this as two different discussions, you know, I think absolutely, if you. I feel for that a lot, you know, and this goes. You know, this is broad, right? I mean, I think Stephen Peck writes in the Road Less Traveled, like, at one point, everyone has to leave sort of the dogma of their parents and create their own religion. So I think there is this, you know, sense of, like, killing your father, the Freudian. Like, you come out and you have to set your own life path. And so I think part of that is just natural, and everyone goes through it. Everyone has to dismantle the dogma of their parents. And in the Mormon context, it just so happened that, yes, maybe there were decisions made resting on that dogma. And so I feel so sad for those people that really do feel like there's a sense of regret.

John Dehlin [00:53:52] But you're also saying that's part of the human experience, Mormon or not. That's kind of maturity, you're saying.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:53:57] I think that's part of maturity is like, just taking the blinders off and seeing. And I also think, you know, the abyss, you know, this idea of nothingness and no Godness, that's not comforting either. So I, you know, I often wonder, like, it's like the Matrix, right? You take the red pill, blue pill. And so I don't know, like, as far as, like, happiness, maybe, I don't know which pill is the one that, like, staying in. Maybe you're better off.

John Dehlin [00:54:27] Blue pill.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:54:27] Blue pill is staying in, you know. And so some of us, you know, I think, want truth, you know. And the way Alain Batad says. I want to be clear is like, he says, like, look, religions have taken all the good parts of sort of

John Dehlin [00:54:44] community and songs, music and art.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:54:47] So there's all of these great things, like, why can't people who aren't believers in a religion also adopt those things? And so I think this is. That he's talking about a very different thing. I think he is not saying, like, you should believe in anything literally. And I do. I think it's. It is destructive to teach children literal beliefs and teach them shame and sin and hell. And I feel. I think that is abusive in any religion. And I think that is hard. And I think it's not. It could happen in any religion. Happens in Islam, right? You will go to hell if you show your hair. You will go to hell if you have sex before marriage. And so people make these decisions based on that. And I think that is truly tragic. And I think it is, you know, even. It is a sense of abuse. And it's funny. I think Frederick Douglass said something like it. You know, he saw when white people would teach their kids white supremacy, he saw that as a form of abuse, like teaching anyone that they're better than anyone else. He saw that as abusive to the, you know, slaveholder. Right? He saw how slaveholding changed somebody into someone despicable, from someone humane to someone despicable. And I think that idea of the devil and sin and, you know, literal hell, that. That can mess you up. So I. I do feel sad because I didn't. I never experienced that in a literal way. I had it taught to me, but it bounced off, luckily. And so I have a lot of compassion, but. But again, I want to Say that, that, that is broad. Religion is pan religious. It can also be pan other things. Right. There's a lot of shame that we give people outside of religion, though religion does have a lock on some of that hell and sin stuff. So I do feel for that.

John Dehlin [00:56:36] So what advice would you give, let's say questioning or liberal or even post Mormons, in terms of how they may lose sight of what's most important in terms of this issue of identity and tribalism?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:56:50] I just think don't use the tools of the oppressor. Like, if you were taught that, you know, the other is bad and evil, try to not think in that way. You know, see people as. We're all a little bit broken. We're all sort of grasping for something. We all just want to be loved and seen and appreciated. And, you know, we don't want to be told that we're racist or awful,

John Dehlin [00:57:11] and we're going to react dumb or ignorant or foolish.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:57:14] And even those in the church, like, when people leave the church and they're like, oh, you're deluded and duped, like, that is not helpful, you know, so treat people like they're people, like they're humans that have the same sort of ways of working as you do. And I think it's that sort of empathy and compassion. Again, coming back to this idea of, like, just try to think what it's like to be them and not you, you know, and, and we're, we're all a little bit short here on this because we can only know what it's like to be us. But we've got to give people the benefit of the doubt. And, and I. It's hard, right, because, like, I think Trump is, you know, I think he's. He's destructive and he's a narcissist. But also, I see in Trump, like, he wants to be loved and he wants to be appreciated and he wants to be, like, cheered. And he hasn't evolved past that. Like, I think he's just this, like, man baby, you know, but. But he is a baby. Like, I think there's this part of him that just wants attention, you know, and. And there's part of all of us that's like that, right? And so I think, you know, not like, you shouldn't vote for Trump, right? Don't do that. But, but understanding that maybe he's maybe not the devil incarnate, he's just like a broken human being, you know, that got a lot too much power.

John Dehlin [00:58:30] Jennifer writes, we are all just walking each other Home.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:34] Right, right. Just. Yeah, and let's, let's even, you know, even the people that you consider to be that other, whether it's a Muslim refugee who don't. You don't want in your country, and whether it's a true believing Mormon, white bishop, like, we're all a little bit broken and we all have soft spots and we're all trying to do the best we can. Some of us are trying harder than others, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Beautiful. Okay, what do you want to share? What do you want to say, first of all about your, let's just say religious or spiritual beliefs, you know, God, Jesus, universalism, where, you know, what if you were to sort of state some of the tenets of your beliefs these days, what would be some of the things you would talk about or assert? And it doesn't have to be religious. It can be just principles or values.

Personal Faith, Evolution, and Leaving the Church

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:33] Yeah, I believe, again, I don't. I believe, you know, I believe in evolution 100%. I believe that, you know, that's an

John Dehlin [00:59:47] interesting place to start.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:51] I believe in that, that science. I believe in the things that we've proven. I believe that we've got a lot to study about the human brain. I believe that, you know, meditation and mindfulness, you know, I believe that, you know, getting control of our thoughts is really important. I believe that our brains are not the best indicators. Our thoughts and feelings aren't always to be trusted here. You know, I think I do believe in magic. I do believe that, you know, there's. We need to have some humility in what we say. We believe, all of us, like, including the hard scientists who say there is no God. It's like what Louis CK Said. It's like, have you looked in the basement bathroom? You know, like, I don't know. Like, I don't know, but I'm getting to be okay with not knowing. I don't think, you know, I don't. There's a lot of things I don't think. Like, I don't think. I don't believe in heaven and hell and of this stuff. I don't know if I even believe that there is anything after we die. But I'm. I'm okay with not knowing, you know, and I'm gonna try to live the best life I can live here. And I. And I think that's the thing. If I believed in just death at death, I still don't think it would lead me to eat, drink and be merry. I still want to leave the world better than how I came into it. And I Want to raise children who are good, ethical, kind, moral beings, you know, because I think that I believe in humanity and I believe in progress. I think there are. We have taken some steps back, but I do believe that we are getting better together, but the future is not certain. I do believe in that. I do believe in climate change and I do believe that we are using more than the earth can give us. And so I think, you know, but I think we. I also believe that we need new myths, we need new understandings of each other. We need, you know, if you want to shed our religion, we've got to find something else that gives us that belonging and that, that, you know, putting, you know, not like living just for yourself. Like, we've got to learn how to live for other people. Worship something other than our own lives. Because I think we worship ourselves. It will eat ourselves up. This is the David Foster Wallace quote, right? Like, if anything that you, if you worship your money or your looks or your power, it will eat you alive. And so you've got to worship something else, whether it's a cause or whether it's a, you know, a group of people that you want to help, right? Find something that is outward looking and dedicate your life to that, because otherwise you're going to swallow yourself whole with, you know, whatever power, you know, greed, whatever.

John Dehlin [01:02:37] What are you comfortable sharing sort of about your relationship with the church now and what that's like for you to be where you are, knowing that the church was a really important part of your family's upbringing and your family's history in the United States. I mean, you really can't separate Mormonism from your family's sort of ascent in the United States.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:03:01] No, Mormonism was America as, like, it took me a long time to figure out that Americans, like, didn't think, like, thought Mormons were weird because we got to America and the Mormons came and they're like, welcome to America. You know, so we thought it was like part and parcel and it took a while to be like, oh, like Mormons are actually weird here. I think I miss, I miss the church. I, you know, this, we've struggled here in this ward and it's been a while. I miss my Harlem ward a lot. I miss my New York wards. I do miss my friends in the church. And I can see myself, you know, coming back into it, you know, in the way that I've always done is like, I, you know, I have my own stuff swirling around in my head and my own beliefs, but I miss the community you know, so I hope that, you know, I can find her. But it became difficult. It became difficult. As you know, I felt like mostly for my children, they were learning stuff that I didn't, it was not making them better people. And I thought that, you know, I can't, I can't just keep like coming home and saying, no, no, that's not right, that's not right. That's not right. Let's just like, you know, take, take a break and we've tried some other different communities and, you know, now, you know, I've read, I've read a lot of books in Buddhism lately and, and I've tried meditation and I think that not Buddhism, you know, belief wise, but Buddhism practically. Right. Because I'm a very practically minded person and I think there's so much good in meditation and just calming yourself and getting, getting some distance from your beliefs and thoughts. And I think we all need that. Like, we all need a little bit of, you know, like a barrier between where our brain wants us to go, where our bodies want us to go, into where like the calm center is.

John Dehlin [01:04:51] Sounds like you, you miss your Mormon community a bit like I do.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:04:55] Yeah. You miss it too?

John Dehlin [01:04:57] Oh, yeah, of course, of course. I always loved going to church.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:05:01] Yeah, me too.

John Dehlin [01:05:02] For the people and the music and the culture. Like it was never. I was, I was active until they kicked me out, basically. So do you, do you still in some ways identify Mormon? If somebody, if somebody said to you, oh, you ought to be with you, are you Mormon? Like, what do you say? And do you think, do you think you can be, you can claim, you know, some like to say we need to, there's lots of ways to Mormon and we need to claim our Mormonism, even if it's unorthodox. Are you at that point where you can claim Mormonism still as part of your core identity or.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:05:32] It was hard for me always. I mean, I was never, it wasn't my identity, you know, because I never felt like a true Mormon because I wasn't a pioneer Mormon. I was a convert and I was a Muslim and, you know, Iranian and we never, like, even when we were active Mormons, I never felt like Mormon Mormon. And so even when people asked me then, I was like kind of, you know, and I never was like a believe it all Mormon. And so I, you know, I say it's complicated. I say it's, you know, it's a religion I grew up with and I love the Mormons and I speak very positively of it when I can but it's not my identity, you know, I mean, but I get it. Like my husband, it was his identity, you know, and he grew up Mormon. And it's different for him, you know, than it is for me. And I have a lot of compassion for that. If, if you were to tell me all of a sudden that like Iran disclaims you, you know, I'd be like, oh, well, I thought I was Iranian, you know, and what does that mean then for me to not be that? So I think that's more, you know, I'm more viscerally, you know, that than I am Mormon. Like, even when I was Mormon, when people said bad things about Mormons, I was never like, shaken to my core, you know, And I've talked to my Mormon friends who would be. Who felt like, personally attacked. And for me it was like, oh, that's not right. Don't say that. But I never felt personally attacked because it was not a visceral connection I had because of, you know, just my family's history.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] I'll just say it's super hard to not have a people, you know, And I still think that this is something that many people who aren't able to keep attending church are struggling with. We're still able to find friendships and online communities, and there are some in person communities that have broken out. But I sense that you may have read Sapiens. Have you read Sapiens?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:18] Oh, yeah, I love Sapiens. I love it. And Homo duet, the second one.

John Dehlin [01:07:21] Yeah. Like, myth and community are essential. And when you just. It's not like dropping out of a religion equates to health and happiness and well being. That's not how it works, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:34] Yeah, yeah, no. And we are biologically driven to create myths and explanations, and we are biologically driven to have a tribe and a people. And so when you're thrown out of the one tribe that you knew, like, biologically, it's gonna hurt. And so I get that. Like, I get it. You know, I have never been able to like, claim a tribe, but Mormonism was the closest I ever came. And I still do. And this is why I think this community of ex Mormons, I think this is great. Like, this is people who at least understand each other, you know, and, and all. And I guess all I want want to say about that is like, let's have a tribe without enemies, you know, let's have a tribe put down the spears and just have a tribe of people that, you know, poorest border, you

John Dehlin [01:08:20] know, but enemies help you rally, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:23] Exactly, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:08:25] But you're right. You're right. We need a tribe without enemies. I love that. Do you think you'll ever have a tribe again? I mean, that's your theme, right? Your theme is sort of a woman without a tribe, and you find yourself sort of more tribeless than maybe you were, and you don't have a tribe to hand to your children when you know that this tribe was so useful to your family. Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:49] Yeah. And I want to not have a tribe. I want to because I think to have a tribe means that there is another. There's an out. And I've been always on.

John Dehlin [01:08:59] You mean in and out. You're in, but that is you're in

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:09:02] the tribe and you're out of the tribe. And so any tribe you create is gonna have an, you know, an outsider. And I've always been that outsider. And I just don't. I don't. I want to sort of overcome that biological urge to try myself. And so I. And I hope that my kids can too. And you're gonna naturally fall into some rush. You know, the kids have cliques, and they have a kid in middle school, and so that tribalism runs deep, but I want us to fight it as much as we can.

John Dehlin [01:09:30] That is your. I think that's the summative theme of your life, is you always felt like you didn't quite fit in a tribe. And for you, it seems like enlightenment has been accepting that you don't have a single tribe, and that that's actually maybe a good thing in some ways.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:09:47] Yeah, that's right. Because even Iranians, like, when I'm in Iran, I'm not an Iranian. My cousins in Iran, they don't consider me one of them Iranian Americans. I'm not one of them because they were the Shah's people. So there isn't a group of people in this world who I can fit in comfortably, who understands my life, except for my immediate family. But again, like I said, I think that has given me something that maybe other people don't have, which is what it's like to not have to rely on your tribe. Right. You go out there and you figure it out yourself.

John Dehlin [01:10:18] Well, Mehrsa Barateran, I want you and my tribeless tribe.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:22] Let's do it. No fears, no border wall.

John Dehlin [01:10:26] No borders, no enemies.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:27] Yeah.

Closing Reflections and Book Recommendations

John Dehlin [01:10:28] All right, well, I think it's been at least two hours and maybe a little bit more, maybe two and a half hours. And this has definitely been one of my favorite interviews ever, and I hope everybody listens to it. And you are A treasure to your family. You're a treasure to your native country, and you're a treasure to us, even though, you know, in some ways we're still trying to find out who we are and where we belong. But I'm so honored. I'm honored that you came on Mormon Stories. I'm admiring your work, and I wish you, your family and your career and your life, just all the success. And I hope you just keep shining and teaching us because we need what you're teaching. So thank you.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:11:18] Likewise. Thank you for what you're doing for the community and for, you know, bringing. Creating a tribe of people who don't have a tribe. And I think that is a huge, huge benefit. Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:11:31] All right, well, her name is Mehrsa Baradaran. The books are how the Other Half Banks, Exclusion, Exploitation and the Threat to Democracy, and the Color of Black Banking and the Racial Wealth Gap, published by Harvard University Press. Thank you so much for joining us. We had a lot of people listening. Just so you know, 23,354 people were reached by this podcast. Over 3,000 views. And that's before we release it. Tens of thousands will listen through YouTube and through.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:03] I would have worn something nicer.

John Dehlin [01:12:04] Itunes. Oh, you look great. No, great. So thanks again. Thanks to everyone who tuned in. Please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com Please contribute to the blog. Go to mormonstories.org, tell Marisa how much you loved and respected everything she had to say. Be respectful if you want to challenge or disagree with what she has to say. Thanks to everyone who supports Mormon Stories. Your financial contributions make this possible. You can donate@mormonstories.org to keep this sort of thing alive. We want to thank Cody Layton and Amy Grubbs, who are the staff of the OSF that make all this possible, along with the OSF board. And we just want to say we've really loved this series on sort of people of color. We did a bunch of interviews on the Lamanites and Losing the Lamanites, and we've got more good stuff ahead. So I'm just. I pinch myself every day that I get to do what I do, and I'll keep doing it until you guys stop supporting it. So again, Marisa, take care. Thank you so much. Thanks to all the listeners and we'll see you guys again soon on Mormon Stories. Take care, everybody. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org thank you very much.

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