Get Your Racist Mormon Action Figures Here!

Comments (80)

1. butbutbut, the church isn’t racist! just like the 1981 BoM changes, i’m sure this is the work of some rebellious printer who mistranscribed the scripture from what the original intent was.

2. and, i should clarify, that the church is now correcting these grave errors. decades and decades after the fact.

3. It’s not the church that’s racist, just it’s members.

   And leaders. And founders. And doctrines. lol

4. Better late than never. It’s not laudable but it’s progress.

5. You can’t assume that all of the members are racist. That makes YOU biased and closed minded. You’ll find racists in every religion. It all depends on how the person was raised. Just like you were seemingly raised to believe that mormon church is wrong, I was raised to believe it is right. Get over yourself.

6. No, Mormons aren’t all racist. But if they’re not, it’s because of their own moral instincts, with no help from their religion. Why not skip the church altogether and operate from your moral instincts directly?

   Oh, and Anna: Many of us were raised in the church. And if you believe it only because you were raised in it, you should probably realise that if you were born somewhere else, you’d be arguing for some other religion. Think about it.

7. David, my feelings against racism were PROFOUNDLY impacted by my religion.

   Ironically – as it so happens – I first learned it from the book of Mormon.

   Stories of Samuel the Lamanite and the people of Ammon – along with all those clearly dark-skinned people in the illustrated children’s Book of Mormon reader – which I listened to almost every Sunday as a kid – from kindergarten to third grade. They basically instilled in me a strong sense that righteousness was not contingent on skin color.

   So all this stuff about the Book of Mormon being racist has always baffled me. Because it’s precisely the book that taught me NOT to be racist – before I ever heard of Martin Luther King Jr., or read about the Civil War in school.

8. Oh, and I don’t suppose that anyone here is going to give a flip that the chapter headings were always mere study aids – and never “scripture” to begin with?

   Bruce R. McConkie wrote the chapter headings. Not Mormon. Not Joseph Smith.

   Bruce R. McConkie.

   Oh, and incidentally – Alma Chapter 11’s heading no longer says “Nephite coinage set forth.”

   It now reads:

   “The Nephite monetary system is set forth”

   Those mischievous Mormons – there they go again removing bad commentary on the scriptures.

   Someone needs to put a stop to this.

9. Seth,
   I’m glad they didn’t instill you with the virtues from verses like this one:
   “…that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” 2 Nephi 5:21

   Now who said cherry-picking scriptures was a bad idea? 😉

10. I would like to add that I unfortunately left out a bit of context by only partially citing the verse. Please do check the entire thing.

    Either way, your just god returned them to whiteness, therefore removing the “sore cursing” their black skin was (3 Nephi 2:14-15).

11. None of which has anything to do with what I just wrote. But thanks for that.

12. “So all this stuff about the Book of Mormon being racist has always baffled me.”

    I apologize for not understanding what you may have meant by this, but I took it that you were still baffled, and therefore potentially unaware of why people consider the BoM racist.

13. In a sense, it still does baffle me. Because the message of the book still doesn’t seem racist to me.

    I mean, I do see why people consider it racist. But such a viewpoint seems based to me on a very superficial reading of the book.

    King Lamoni was clearly a great and righteous man – and the Book of Mormon unequivocally portrays him as such. I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in my early years – an overwhelmingly “white” city back in the 1970s and early 1980s. I had almost no exposure to people of any color other than my own. Almost the ONLY exposure I had was through those cheesy “Beginning Readers” renditions of LDS scripture. And I DID NOT get a negative view of dark-skinned people from it.

    It was actually positive. That view stayed with me throughout the rest of my life.

    It was only when I entered the world of online debate that I LEARNED about why the Book of Mormon is supposedly a “racist” book.

    I am convinced that it is not. I can see why a superficial and uncaring view of the book might reach that conclusion – but I do not share it.

14. Superficial and uncaring. From being in online debate, I’m sure you’re aware of how you just put some very prominent prophets under that banner as well.

    Maybe I just care about the wrong things, then? Considering I care when I see blatantly racist remarks in a book of purported scripture? These racist verses have had a bit of an impact on historical LDS doctrine, I think we have different standards for what counts as “superficial”.

15. It was only when I entered the world of online debate that I LEARNED about why the Book of Mormon is supposedly a racist book.

    When I was a kid, my family used to read the Book of Mormon together as a family. Here’s a map my brother posted that we drew together when I was 5.

    I was aware, even as a kid, that God changing peoples’ skin color based on righteousness was an important component of the story. (See the part right around and soon after Christ’s visit.) We didn’t talk about whether or not that was “racist” because who are we mortals to judge whether God’s actions are racist or not? God can do whatever He pleases. After I stopped believing, naturally, the racism of this story theme was so obvious (especially coupled with the priesthood restriction for the lineage of Ham, discussed in the PoGP) that I don’t recall specifically when I noticed it.

    So which was it for you, Seth? You didn’t notice the parts of the book where dark skin is a curse until you started discussing the book online? Or was it that the online discussions that clued you in to why people might consider that storyline racist?

16. In a sense, it still does baffle me. Because the message of the book still doesnt seem racist to me.

    It might not seem racist to you, but weren’t those passages precisely why Mormons believed blacks couldn’t be ordained? Do you believe that policy was racist? Did church leaders simply misinterpret those passages for 100+ years?

    In 1998, on the 20th anniversary of the 1978 revelation/policy change, a reporter asked President Hinckley about whether there would be any kind of public repudiation about the priesthood ban, similar to how, for example the US Congress apologizes for its past evils (though really, I’m not sure what these apologies do except make Americans feel better about themselves). Hinckley, said: I dont hear any complaint from our black brethren and sisters. I hear only appreciation and gratitude wherever I go…I dont see anything further that we need to do. He was coming back from a trip to Africa, where the Church was growing leaps and bounds.

    I’m curious how you interpret this story. I interpret it as Hinckley acting “white,” if not “racist.” But something tells me I’d have to write seven more paragraphs to explain why I see it this way. Perhaps I should ask what your feelings are about the 1978 revelation/policy change — if you actually feel it was a “revelation.”

17. Yes, I view the 1978 revelation as a “revelation.”

    “Did church leaders simply misinterpret those passages for 100+ years?”

    Yes.

18. Chanson, I noticed it was a curse.

    But it didn’t occur to me that darker skin meant your were an evil person.

19. Yes, I view the 1978 revelation as a revelation.

    I’m a little confused why revelation has been attributed to the change of a racist policy. I mean, it’s not like God would have said, “Yes, they may now be ordained.” Wouldn’t it have been more like: “Of course they can be ordained. They’ve always been ordainable, you stubborn fools.”…? Wouldn’t coming up with the change on their own rather than attributing it to revelation be better in terms of legitimacy?

20. I remember talking to that very nice lady from South Africa during the early eighties who insisted that reports about her country were misrepresentations and that we just didn’t get it.

    The fact of the matter is that racists are people like us. Nazis are people like us. Communists were people like us.

    I can say that because I had the dubious pleasure of meeting all those people and they were very nice indeed. They weren’t monsters. They were people like us and if I had been in their situation, I might have done what they have done.

    In their own eyes, the bad guys are the good guys. And nobody ever does anything evil.

    The real question is what was it like growing up as a Black child in Utah in 1930, 40, 50, 60 and 70? How did the people who we labeled and excluded experience Mormon culture and society?

21. Evil or not. Accd. to the BoM: Black skin isn’t enticing. White skin is delightsome. God put a sore cursing on a people by making them black. Once they become more righteous, they became white.

    There’s a fairly racist theme at play here whether it said black people were evil or not.

22. Alan, I don’t think the Priesthood ban was ever “revelation” or even inspired to begin with.

    But this misguided policy became so entrenched in the LDS system that it took a full blown revelation to root it out.

    I have an quirky take on the racist passages in the Book of Mormon actually. But it’s not something I think will be shared that widely by other Mormons, so I don’t want to ramble on about it if no one is really interested.

23. Kinda O/T, but has there ever been any LDS church publication (printed anywhere, anytime) that showed an interracial couple? Ever? Seems like a fair question.

24. That was an interesting video, Chino. That guy needs to give himself permission to do what’s best for him and his family and stop worrying about everything else.

25. Since I’ve posted a link to that video, I should probably go ahead and drop these links here by way of background for that clip:

    Street Prophets: Mormon Like Me: Black Saints, Bigots, and Beck (Margaret Young wrote it, but I get credit for the awesome title)

    Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Interracial Mormon Marriages

    Plus an unrelated bonus link:

    Segullah: My dad thinks it would be a bad business idea if I ever married a black girl.

26. Wow, Chino. That story about Keori’s brother is just heart breaking. I wish somebody would interview him. Utah Mormons need to hear from people like him.

    He might even have a case against the school district that exposed him to so much hostility. That seems to be a civil rights violation.

    The Bush administration, of course, did not prosecute that but Tom Perez will.

27. Seth,
    Actually, I’m pretty interested in hearing your take on the racist passages in the BoM.

28. It’s not an LDS church publication but the mormons series on pbs some years back had an inter-racial couple. Again, I know it’s not official. I believe they were standing in front of the temple, after (seemingly) just having been married there.

29. Yes, those images ought to help transform what Mormons consider normal, Aerin.

30. .Seth R @13: I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in my early years an overwhelmingly white city back in the 1970s and early 1980s. I had almost no exposure to people of any color other than my own. Almost the ONLY exposure I had was through those cheesy Beginning Readers renditions of LDS scripture. And I DID NOT get a negative view of dark-skinned people from it.

    But Seth, this isn’t about you. It’s not about how you, as a privileged white boy in a racist white patriarchal society, came to view race without the challenge or blessing of having to interact with real human beings of other races; it’s about how racist depictions teach the people in those depictions to view themselves. (Though the fact that you think it is somehow about you is an indication of just how racist the whole system is.)

    You complained recently that you resented having you faith “reduced to a transient political issue” (meaning Prop 8). So imagine how it would feel to have something even more intrinsic to who you are–the color of your skin, what you see when you glance at your torso in the shower, or raise your hand to your face, or look in the mirror–reduced to a curse.

    Even if it’s a curse for eating with the wrong hand during dinner as opposed to a curse for immorality and evil, the fact that someone is told that their skin is a CURSE is racist and wrong. It justifies and perpetuates the racist view that there’s a default, “pure, delightsome” skin color and affirms, quite explicitly, that other skin colors are impure and revolting.

    That’s racist. No matter what you managed to extract from the BOM that helped you overlook that and feel good about it and yourself, the fact remains that its basic approach to race is racist.

31. Actually Holly, it is about me.

32. OK, Seth, you’re right: It’s about the way you can’t get beyond your own perspective.

    it shouldn’t be, but I can’t argue that ultimately, you make sure it’s about you.

33. openminded, I’ve cut and pasted my own words from a different conversation I had on this topic so I wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Here goes….

    My own view of the book of Mormon is that read as a whole it is not particularly racist.

    I do personally feel the author Nephi himself was racist (hardly a surprising thing for a person who lived around 600 BC they were all racists back then to some degree or other – when they thought about it at all). My own feeling is that he simply observed his wicked brothers intermingling with the local native population (something forbidden by the Law of Moses for any Israelite), and when their children had darker skin as a result he simply took it as a sign of Gods displeasure and wrote the lines quoted most often in these discussions. Most of the “racist” scripture cites originate from Nephi (and one from his younger brother Jacob) (1 Nephi 11:8, 13; 12:23; 13:15; 2 Nephi 5:21; 30:6; Jacob 3:8).

    But by the time we hit the Book of Mosiah, it seems clear to me that few if any racial distinctions remained by that point. Both Lamanites and Nephites seem to have intermingled so thoroughly with the indigenous populations as to be indistinguishable from each other on basis of skin color. Part of my basis for concluding this is simple population genetics based in my belief that both Nephites and Lamanites intermingled with the natives, and part of it is based on my reading of Amulek’s speech to the people of Ammonihah – where he seems to feel it necessary to declare himself a “descendant of Nephi” – which if skin color distinctions were actually still in existence would be an entirely unnecessary comment.

    It is true that Alma speaks of a mark distinguishing a wicked group from the righteous, and references the old skin cures (Alma 3:6) (or Mormon – I should say – since he’s the one who is the authorial voice in Alma). But the mark in this case does not appear to be related to skin color, but rather one the people put on themselves. Mormon 5:15 speaks as the descendants of the Lamanites being “dark, filthy and loathsome”, but this appears to be more a commentary on their idolatry and wickedness than on their skin color. The only really problematic passage I find in the Book of Mormon is actually 3 Nephi 2:15 – which seems to reinforce the skin-righteousness connection by declaring that Lamanites who became righteous received whiter skin.

    When reading any book after Jacob in the Book of Mormon, it needs to be kept firmly in mind that the author is Mormon the man who took all the records and history and abridged and condensed it down to the Book of Mormon. So it always has to be kept in mind how he would be viewing things. I view the passage in 3 Nephi as possibly merely an instance of Mormon extemporaneously attempting to harmonize the record with Nephi after the fact. But this passage gives us little to go on in understanding the true nature of Nephite racial views.

    I personally think its a mere matter of population demographics and genetics to reach the conclusion that Lamanites and Nephites wouldnt have even had skin color differences by the time the events in 3 Nephi happened.

    However, it is possible that Nephite society simply valued light-colored skin in the same way the Japanese currently do. Japanese consider lighter skin to be a mark of beauty and dont like looking tan (unlike we Americans). Yet Japanese are all of the same race. So its not so much a racist quirk as a vanity quirk (or defect). Nephite society may have been similar to this by the time of 3 Nephi. But this is admittedly pure speculation on my part.

    The point is, if you actually view this as a real historical record (as faithful Mormons do), then the racist character of the ENTIRE book is far from clear.

    Consider also, the countless stories in Alma of the Lamanites proving more righteous and praisworthy than the Nephites. Helaman even has an account of a Lamanite prophet condemning the evil Nephites from the city walls. At that point in history, Mormon praises the Lamanites extensively as morally superior to the degenerate Nephites – and this BEFORE any skin color changes are mentioned. This is not a narrative of racial condemnation.

    If the Lamanites were darker skinned than the Nephites at this point (and I dont really think they were), and if the Book of Mormon is a bona fide historical document (which I think it is) it would probably stand as one of the most racially PROGRESSIVE books of its time period (keep in mind that other writings of that time period were, when they spoke of race at all, unapologetically racist and xenophobic in nature).

34. Understandable. When I was a biblical inerrantist, I would excuse such things as Exodus 20:20 and the Leviticus statement about gays as culturally-specific to that point in history. I think degrading an author’s thoughts on god puts into question any statement made about god by that person (what other cultural truisms might we be missing? Truisms about morality, views on deity, etc. could falsely influence the mix as much as racism did).

    As for the view that this is a product of the 19th century, I would compare Abraham Lincoln’s views to Smith’s: progressively wanting an end to slavery while still upholding the view that black people are inferior in a few ways. Just seems like that 19th-century line of thought bled into the text.

    Seems more reasonable to me too, but I haven’t invested a lot of my life into trying to believe in and devoutly follow your religion. I can accept a more reasonable view and not worry about the pain and suffering of losing faith in Mormonism.

35. Yes, I don’t pretend that Joseph Smith was any sort of patron saint of racial equality. He wasn’t. But he wasn’t really comparatively that bad for his day either. The comparison to Abraham Lincoln seems apt (except that Smith was never in the position to exercise the sort of influence Lincoln did). Both men had reservations about ending slavery. Neither were really abolitionists (who were a fringe movement of society at best), and both would have been repulsed by the first impression notion of interracial marriage I think (to be fair – so would most white abolitionists of the day).

    But Joseph was fairly progressive for his time. He had some statements in favor of the status quo on occasion – but most of these boil down to “look, we Mormons aren’t going to interfere with your slaves – so please don’t shoot us.” When you add in the stuff about Elijah Abel being ordained to the Seventy, I don’t think the legacy of Mormon racism can really be laid at Smith’s door – passages in the Book of Mormon notwithstanding. I attribute the ban mostly to Brigham Young making a policy decision, and then his subordinates running with it. Over time, the need to justify the ban arose – at which point, figures like Joseph Fielding Smith and his follower Bruce R. McConkie started borrowing Protestant racist biblical arguments in an attempt to explain or justify the ban. As is often the case, the attempts to justify were worse than the original problem.

    Eventually the sheer administrative problem of hopelessly racially mixed areas like Brazil made the ban impossible to enforce and it became apparent to most of the top leadership that it needed to end. Once there was enough popular support for ending it among the leadership, I feel God responded and gave them the revelation. Until that point, I believe that God pretty-much left us to our errors in judgment. Ask and ye shall receive. But if you don’t ask…

    I do think Nephi was a product of his time – and misguided in the ways we would expect a person of that time to be misguided. God doesn’t “wipe the hard drive” whenever he calls a prophet. He leaves the prophet’s agency intact, and will not swoop in to override the prophet’s brain. I firmly believe this.

    Scripture is ALWAYS to be read with the possibility of the presence of a flawed mortal author firmly in mind. I have read the Book of Mormon this way for some time now. For instance, whenever reading glowing passages about characters like Captain Moroni, or the nature of Nephite civic duty – I always have firmly in mind that I’m getting this perspective from a GENERAL who has been leading armies since adolescence (Mormon).

    That’s a pretty big lens of bias coloring your worldview. And I expect it to be present in the Book of Mormon.

    As to whether this allows you to trust the Book of Mormon?

    I would simply respond – trust it for what?

36. I enjoy more liberal strains of thought such as that. They held me back from agnosticism for quite some time. I still hover somewhat back-and-forth. As for your argument about each character holding a particular bias, I’d argue that Smith’s bias was largely behind each character–his thoughts on what, for instance, a general would do or say or believe.

    As for your question: trust it to be holdable to the truth standards implied by Moroni’s promise.
    For instance, since Moroni promised “these words” to be true (referring to all the words in the BoM, I’m assuming), I would confront a passage such as the racist ones and ask, “is it true that God considered black skin to be a curse that could be lifted with righteousness?” and take a relatively face-value approach since Moroni specifically mentioned these particular words (the ones that appeared in the BoM–not the ones that excuse the presence of particular verses).

37. I keep open the POSSIBILITY that Smith’s own biases crept into the text of the Book of Mormon. But I avoided going there for this particular discussion because I didn’t think it was necessary to go there. Besides, people are always arguing whether Joseph Smith shows up personally in the Book of Mormon text. Fewer people are arguing about whether Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, and Moroni are showing up in the text.

    But I definitely keep it as an option. I think it is at least quite likely in the use of King James English in the Book of Mormon (the accepted way of speaking religiously in Smith’s day).

38. I just see it as more likely. Plus, I’m not sure how aptly one could argue for specific personalities emerging from the separate authors. Ever come across any good articles on textual comparison among each cited author? I’m sure someone has at least thought of it.

    Was also hoping to see if there was more room in Moroni’s promise than I gave it credit for, in your view. We throw in words such as “historical document”, but I wonder if that’s synonymous with what Moroni meant by “true”.

39. I don’t know enough about Joseph Smith to assess the historical merit of his position regarding race but I can see that such an argument may be plausible.

    What I do find troubling is that attitudes that might have been progressive a hundred years ago apparently atrophied and validated racism in the 20th century.

    It seems to me that latter-day prophesy should speed along progress instead of entrenching discrimination. Talking to god should make you smarter and more open-minded, not hateful and bigoted.

40. The BoM is rather ambivalent and confused about race/skin color. Dark skin is a curse (or a sign of the curse), but the righteous aren’t always the white guys. Sometimes the dark guys are the good guys. Racist Mormons even had to argue past some of these passages to justify their racism.

    But if it’s a curse, then doesn’t that make God unjust for “afflicting” innocent people with dark skin?

    Anyway, I have high standards. God should have created scripture that would have been unequivocally against racism.

41. I think the Book of Mormon is rather ambivalent about what the word “curse” even means.

    Sometimes it seems to have a racial component – though it’s never clear that the Book of Mormon is flat-out stating that darker skin is a sign of moral content of a person. Other times the curse is mentioned in contexts where clearly no racial meaning is meant at all (like the Amalekites marking themselves and incurring the curse – with no skin change).

    What does the word “curse” even mean in the Book of Mormon? It could just be a mark of some past wrong – but not ongoing ones.

42. Redefining words is a common tactic in apologetics.

43. Taking words at only the meaning that suits you is a common tactic on the Internet in general.

44. Besides, we don’t redefine them. We simply look for the full range of meaning in the word, research the most likely historical use, and then keep that meaning in mind.

    This tends to irritate people who depend upon the simplistic for the force of their own arguments.

45. I had a Lamanite (Navajo) foster brother and sister for a few years, back during my Arizona period (’67-’76). This is the Mormonism that I remember hearing around the house:

    In 1960, LDS Church apostle Spencer W. Kimball suggested that the skin of Latter-day Saint Native Americans was gradually turning lighter:

    I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today …. The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation. At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter we represent, the little member girlsixteensitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parentson the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather…. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.

    Wow, this is making me nostalgic, bringing back some real powerful memories, i.e., the post that got me banned at By Common Consent back in May: Where have all the Lamanites gone?

    Just think, if I’d simply waited until August to comment under this later BCC post, we’d probably still be on speaking terms: Reconciling the Indian Placement Program

    Actually, I think I’m gonna nominate that second post for a Brodie of some kind.

46. We simply look for the full range of meaning in the word, research the most likely historical use meaning most favourable to our point of view, and then keep that meaning in mind.

    FTFY.

47. Where is the strike tag around here?

48. We simply look for the full range of meaning in the word, research the most likely historical use meaning most favourable to our point of view, and then keep that meaning in mind.

    FTFY.

49. This tends to irritate people who depend upon the simplistic for the force of their own arguments.

50. If you don’t believe me, look at your own comment 41. You’re falling all over yourself trying to redefine ‘curse’ in a way that doesn’t mean ‘curse’. It’s really obvious.