Awesome - I sent the link to my TBM family and told them I want the light and dark Laman for my birthday. I said I will set them upon my desk and use them to trigger gospel discussions about the nature of race, sin, and valiance in the pre-existence.
Get these action figures if you can --keep them safe because they will be collector's items -- you know they will be discontinued once the Mormons go "duuuhhh -- this is racist?? Well, I'll be...I guess it is!"
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2012 04:15PM by canadianfriend.
Thank you. You can also install an inline translation app, although that probably won't help you understand the rantings of the TBM's. Some of them go on and on...
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 girl—sixteen—sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents—on 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.[25]
Anyone remember the GI Joe action figures from the 80s. One of the bad guys used to change color when you exposed him to light. They should do that with the Laman and Lemuel figures.
Yes, thankfully, the dark skinned Laman and Lemuel action figures went back into hiding again this weekend. They have been removed from the Latter Day Designs website (www.lehi.com) It seems all it took was a brief mention from an American Indian group (which their site shows was shared over 500 times on Facebook).
But don't despair. I'm sure they'll be back in time for Christmas. And we'll be waiting!
So what you are saying is that if we have any dark skinned ones left from our TBM days, hold on to them because they will be worth a lot of money someday?