Skip to content
Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Pioneer Day edition!

chanson, July 24, 2016

Yes, it’s time for Mormonism’s main holiday: Pioneer Day! Time to remember the Mormons’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley for better (here’s a travelogue of the company one of my ancestors travelled with) or for worse:

The frustration for LDS Native Americans must be the overwhelming privilege afforded to white stories and myths of religious heroics at this time of the year at the expense of their own truth. Yes, I know – its not just a Mormon thing, to remove Natives from their own geographies, to efface their histories and languages, and then render them ciphers in their homelands. But there is an appalling irony in holding a celebration for a settlement that did to the Shoshone, the Goshute, the Paiute and the Utes in part what the Mormons experienced in Missouri and Illinois; a forced removal, political, economic and cultural marginalization, violence and the appropriation of their property and resources. You would have thought that their hardships, so much a part of our religious narrative might have bred a consciousness and sympathy for the condition of others.

On a related note:

Mormons, in particular, should understand bigotry and denounce the voices of confusion that encourage it. Though certainly not on the same scale as slavery, historic oppression is hitched to us, raising dust as it drags behind. The religious persecution—the expulsion, the extermination—that our ancestors endured is part of our psyche even though we didn’t experience it, even though our neighbors didn’t inflict it on us.

[…]

My future grandbaby will not be able to hide. The dust of his or her racial history—slavery, disenfranchisement, immoral and unlawful persecution—will be in the eyes of all who can see. We can’t erase that any more than we can change the hue of someone’s skin. The world is not colorblind, nor should it be. My grandchild’s psyche will be infiltrated with an awareness that people who look like me once enslaved people who look like him or her.

In other Mormon culture notes, thinker of thoughts explained Mormon friendliness.

In women’s issues, it turns out the Mormon eternal reward for women isn’t very appealing. The rape-at-BYU problem: still not resolved! And check out these awesome patriarchy poems!!

In LGBTQ tales, apparently this lesbian divorced her wife in order to return to the CoJCoL-dS, and Tyler Glenn is pleading with Mormons to take real steps to stop the LGBTQ suicides.

In interfaith interactions, Facebook is again helping family members insult and alienate each other.

The US election is again/still in the news thanks to the RNC, so I dusted off my personal blog to describe what I learned back in 2000, and the Expert Textperts have compiled a list of tips on dealing with the Donald.

Well, I guess that wraps it up for this week! Time to get back to playing Pokemon Go. 😉 Happy Pioneer Day!

Sunday in Outer Blogness

Post navigation

Previous post
Next post

Related Posts

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Mormon integrity edition!

October 17, 2016

It’s starting to look more and more like Hillary Clinton has a shot at winning Utah in the upcoming US election!! I’m really proud of the Mormons for having rejected Donald Trump months ago — as a matter of integrity — rather than supporting him out of expedience or making…

Read More

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Religion, Politics, and Life Edition!

January 11, 2009September 3, 2011

First, an announcement about the tech problems in Outer Blogness: As you may know, I’ve been maintaining a list of all exmo/post-mo blogs I can find (whether they have any mo-related content or not), and keeping them in a convenient, regularly updated list. A few months ago, the part of…

Read More

Sunday in Outer Blogness: See you in court edition!

February 9, 2014

I want to remind you that you only have a few more days to campaign and get in your votes for the Brodies. But Brodies’ season has been overshadowed by an astonishing bit of news: Thomas S. Monson — the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…

Read More

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Mormon Alumni Association Books

Latest Comments:

  1. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  2. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  3. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  4. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

  5. LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binaries – Main Street Plaza on It’s Time to Vote for the 2024 Brodie Awards!!!April 14, 2025

    […] sincere acceptance is not a priority. Fortunately, this is what he exemplifies in his memoir, the Brodie-nominated Boughs of…

8: The Mormon Proposition Acceptance of Gays Add new tag Affirmation angry exmormon awards Book Reviews BYU comments Conformity Dallin H. Oaks DAMU disaffected mormon underground Dustin Lance Black Ex-Mormon Exclusion policy Excommunicated exmormon faith Family feminism Gay Gay Love Gay Marriage Gay Relationships General Conference Happiness Homosexual Homosexuality LDS LGBT LGBTQ Link Bomb missionaries Modesty Mormon Mormon Alumni Association Mormonism motherhood peace politics Polygamy priesthood ban Sunstone temple

Awards

William Law X-Mormon of the Year:

  • 2023: Adam Steed
  • 2022: David Archuleta
  • 2021: Jeff T. Green
  • 2020: Jacinda Ardern
  • 2019: David Nielsen
  • 2018: Sam Young
  • 2017: Savannah
  • 2016: Jeremy Runnells
  • 2015: John Dehlin
  • 2014: Kate Kelly
  • 2013: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson
  • 2012: David Tweede
  • 2011: Joanna Brooks
  • 2010: Monica Bielanko
  • 2009: Walter Kirn

Other Cool Sites!

WasMormon.org
©2025 Main Street Plaza | WordPress Theme by SuperbThemes