Hello all!

I go to Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. I am in a Mormonism class here, and my partner and I are researching Black Mormons and Ex-Mormons' perspectives and experiences of colorism in the church.

I know this community was a very great resource for my boyfriend when he was in the process of leaving Mormonism, so I was encouraged by him to reach out to you guys for help in collecting personal stories for this project.

Here are my primary questions:

How and what were you taught about 2 Nephi 5:21-25?
What colorism, if any, did you experience in the Church?
Was colorism a reason why you left the church or are thinking about leaving the church?

Thank you so much in advance!

Also, if anyone has any suggestions to post I should read that already exist on the website, that would be much appreciated.

LOL , oh dear.

You need to read up on Mormon leader Brigham Young's statements as recorded in the Journal of Discourses - they are enough to send any black Mormon screaming from the church.

IF you can find a black member. Most people have enough common sense not to join the Mormons in the first place.

SUCH a can of worms. I hope you get some great replies and link your report when your done (or even just paraphase it here).

I joined the church in early 70's at 18 years of age. I was taught then that African-Americans were fence sitters, they did not clearly choose Christ's plan of salvation and the fullness of the gospel so they were cursed by being sent through the seed of Cain. I left for many reasons but high on the list was that I never believed that concept. I believe that most of the people in the ward where I lived still believe this BS. I can't believe that anyone of color would join that cult. When I was in tscc the BofM clearly stated what they believed about black people and indians. The old guard that still lives there are racist, sexist SOB's and that for sure hasn't changed. Yes, there are apparently some African American members there now, but they are not equal in their eyes.

I'm white. I was taught that black people were dark because of the curse of cain. I believed that until I was 33. I believed it because that's what I was taught. I adopted two black children with my now ex-husband. When we began the adoption process 15 years ago with LDS social services, I asked the worker "why does the LDS church places black babies in white homes?" His reply, "to bring black members to the church." Orginally we started our adoption process in the church social service program. We did not stay with the church adoption/social services program basically they were horrible. We were worthy members (yes, you had to be tithe paying temple ready members) but it wasn't a good fit.
Several months later through a private agency, we were matched (she chose us) up with a religous black mom. However, once she found out about our religion she changed her mind. She knew more about my religion at that time than I did.

Members adored my kids, they were intrigued by their looks (their dark skin and hair texture). At the time, I lived in an all white suburb. The more hurtful comments surprisingly came from my own family and the local school. However, my family and former neighborhood thinks the same way church members do, but...you know...family actually says it! Nothing totally horrible; just stuiped horrible. "I have to stay out of the sun, I'm getting too dark...I'm startign to look like your kids". I replied with, "other than the sun damage your doing to yourself, what's wrong with looking like my kids?" I just got the, "Why are you so defensive, I have other nieces that are black-I'm not racist". It reminded me of the famous Oprah guest who stated, "I'm not racist, I have black friends" (or something close to that). They don't even realize what they are actually saying (posted on FB) is that they quicky identified being dark as a negative. Believe me it doesn't have to do with sun damage, they love sun bathing. I remember when my daughter was in 2nd grade and the class was learning abour Martin Luther King Jr.(in the suburbs they dedicate like a whole day to him). The students in the class told my daughter how lucky she was, "your lucky you get to come to school with us". You see, when MLK is taught for a few short days to white kids, what they take away from it is; white people are still in power. 2nd graders figure this stuff out.
After my divorce, I started really listening to lessons on Sunday and I concluded that I don't want my children to grow up in this culture because they weren't equal-meaning that I picked up on a general sense that they were lucky but not equal. Of course, it is because that's what Mormons are taught-even myself-but I am not sure I can articulate the twisted thinking. Perhaps reread my post. My kids were adored by members-members believed my children are dark because of a curse. Jeez, maybe if I had said that in the beginning, I would have saved myself a lot of time here! : )

Thank God for my kids because after having them I started to fully grasp the racism in the church. My kids were 4 and 5 when we left the church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 04:07AM by allpau.

I have a few experiences. But I'm mixed race (black, white, Maltese). I don't know if that counts...?

I am not a person of color. I have read "Black Mormon" by the first black member of the mormon tabernacle choir. She seemed to think that the church's philosophy on race explained the world the way it was (like why racism exists to begin with, why life is so hard for people of color). That is what I took away from the book, anyway.


"mormonism and the negro" is another book that was written about race issues before the change in priesthood rules in the 70s and is very thorough in explaining the church's position on race at the time. It mirrors what others have said here- it says that people of color were simply less valiant than white people in the pre-existence, and that god made them dark so that everyone could tell once they got their body on earth (presumably so none of the men of color got the priesthood on accident). Weirdly I've heard that polynesians were excluded from these "rules" from the beginning, but I can't verify how true that is...

Polynesians were treated just like blacks in the church. After many were baptized in the islands, they moved to Utah in the late 1800s. They were treated terribly by the white Mormons. The church decided they could not live amongst the white Mormons and created a town for them in Utah's west desert, in Tooele county. It is called Iosepa. They essentially gave them the absolute worst land in Utah. They struggled to survive and were dying quite rapidly. So how did the church respond? They built a temple in Hawaii and told the Polynesians at Iosepa that they didn't HAVE to go back, but that the church would pay for it if they did. Not surprisingly, the majority of them chose to go back to Hawaii and Iosepa was abandoned. It is still there, in the desert, today. All that remains is a cemetery. I have been there. It is dry, hot, and completely isolated. It was sad to be there and realize that Polynesians were dying daily, simply because the white Mormons didn't want them near their towns.

I've never heard this before. Your version doesn't match up the glowing stories by the church I've found now on the web. Imagine that.

These poor people died from infectious diseases and even had leprosy. No wonder the church put them out in that horrible place. Gotta keep the white people safe.

Don't forget the Lamanites (Native Americans). Their
skin was supposedly changing colors up through the 1970's according to some church leaders.

Mormon apostle Mark Peterson stated that he was wiling to let every black person have a Cadillac ( if they could afford it) but felt that they should stay within their own group.

In another statemet he cautioned that the aim of black people was to mix their seed with whites.
You can find his statemens on the web.

Policy was changed in 1978, allowing blacks to hold the Mormon priesthood.
But that was only after then President Jimmy Carter threatened their tax exempt status.
So all of a sudden the Mormon prophet had a revelation, allowing blacks in.

Whatever else anyone can say about Jimmy Carter - for this act alone I see him as a Southerner and a decent man who tried to live his religion.

Here is a link to what Petersen said http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/Mark-E-Petersen-1954-Mormon_Apostle-Race-Relations

Is colorism a euphemism for racism ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 11:47AM by Dave the Atheist.

I think so. And it might be a better word to use than racism, since there really is only one human race.

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that colorism is racism within the African American community based on how light-skinned or dark-skinned soneone is.

Oh, you might be right!

Definition: Colorism is a practice of discrimination by which those with lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin. In the African-American community, this traditionally played out via the paper bag test. Those lighter than the standard paper lunch bag were allowed entry into fraternities, sororities and other realms of black upper class life, while dark-skinned blacks were excluded. The Spike Lee film “School Daze” is an exploration of colorism.
Examples:
Colorism mirrors white supremacy in that those with lighter skin are awarded privileges their dark-skinned counterparts aren't--strictly based on skin color.

This actually is no longer the case, but was for quite some time. This was actually created by one Caucasian man, coming from Europe seeing how Americans were brutally damaging their slaves trying to keep them from running away. He taught them to use the lighter skinned slaves to work inside the house, making them feel better than the darker ones. With this elevated feeling, they would help keep the slaves in line and the abusers informed of slave insurrection.

It might be interesting to note that there are no black and white. We are all simply different shades of brown. The concept of race and the color scheme was created by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1775 as he was graduating from med school. We cover this in the video on LDS Race Doctrine on the website NEW VIDEO ON LDS & RACE http://blacksinthescriptures.com/in-the-news/

I was taught back in the 60s that Cain had sex with apes and that's where the black race came from. That and many, many other wacko teachings made me run screaming from the church.

If you're at all interested in the historical aspect of Mormon racism, this book is probably about as exhaustive on the subject as you're going to get:

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/curseofcain_contents.htm

As for today, IN GENERAL, I think the younger members aren't fully aware of the racist past or doctrines and aren't any more racist than the general white American population. I think most of them want equality in the church and wish there were more black people joining. The older Mormons were raised with some of the more racist doctrinal justifications such as blacks were "fence sitters" in the pre-existance, and that is why they were denied the priesthood. I have no idea what the church leadership thinks, but their official stance nowadays is they don't know why the blacks were restricted by God before 1978, but "they're all equal now, and we are working hard to recruit them in Africa,etc., so lets stop talking about it okay."

Using 2 Nephi 5:21-25 for Black Mormons is not accurate.

2 Nephi 5:21-25 is strictly about the ancestors of America's indigenous people. It is not about African Americans.

Polynesians supposedly left America and migrated to the Pacific islands but are considered better than American Indians, who are "idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey".

Mormonism's racism problems with Native Americans are not the same as the racism with Blacks.

Hi,

I am an African American convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this issue almost kept me from joining the church. Those trying to help me into the Church were telling me, lovingly, that I was curse, was less valiant in the pre-existence and was of the seed of Cain. I knew they were all wrong on this issue, but felt the Lord guiding me there anyway. I've since been used by the Lord to develop a series of videos using the scriptures and more to demonstrate what is really meant.

The bottom line is there is scriptural guidance to help all who truly desire to know what those passages mean. The problem is that most take them out of context. However, when you consider the whole, all of the standard works, it paints a pretty clear picture. We've opened up all the videos free of charge on our website NEW VIDEO ON LDS & RACE http://blacksinthescriptures.com/in-the-news/

In essence, the restriction was not of God. Everything they taught on the issues was wrong and the Lord knew that they would error and sin. See D&C 1:24-28.

Because then you jump out of the frying pan and right into the fire.

Believe it or not my brother, I believe men have made the LDS Church the largest organized body of racists, far larger than the KKK. So I can be part of the problem or part of the solution.

This is by far the most racism I've seen in my entire life and I was born during the civil rights movement. Most members don't even realize they're racist until they have a conversation with me or one of our Coordinators in the African American Outreach Program.

The thing is, I cannot deny what God has shown me and spoken to me. It was the church leaders who persecuted and had the Savior crucified. Why would it be so far fetched that this might be the case today as well?

How do you justify the bigotry against LGBT people that Mormons Inc. spends millions of dollars perpetrating?

How do you justify your adherence to an organization that IS STILL practicing hate and excusionist policies, and not only practices them, but seeks to enshrine them in American law?

You aren't part of any solution. YOU are part of the PROBLEM.

Bigotry cannot be justified in any way. I work for and stand for God. Many in His restored gospel have perverted His ways. So where you look at man to judge the things of God, I look to God to discern the things of God. If I were to look at man and his many faults, I would have left the church many years ago.

The majority of hate on the LGBT issue does not come from the Church, but from the LGBT community. The Church and its members have a right to stand up for what they believe in and a few organizers of the No on Prop 8 campaign created that mantra knowing it would incite people. It's not true. I love all people and believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but if one chooses to be in a same sex relationship, they should have the benefits such as hospital, insurance, inheritance etc. CA developed domestic partner laws to ensure that this would be the case. The problem for gay couples here, is if they wanted to move to AZ due to economy, health or for any reason, they would not be able to take those benefits with them. So instead of taking the time to work with each state to create what was created in CA, a few of the organizers decided to create this legalize gay marriage campaign which would infringe upon the rights of the other states. It's one big deception, a well orchestrated deception.

Also, LDS believe that we were sent here to overcome the natural man. There are some who want to love family members, more than one woman or man, underage individuals etc. But each are told that they have to stay within the bounds that they Lord has set. Why is it that those who have same sex attraction get a free pass?

You support a bigoted institution that for 175 years has practiced institutional bigotry, racism, and misogyny. You cannot not be a bigot if you are part of the structure. You cannot claim in one breath to "love all people" and then in the next breath begin imposing conditions on that love: it makes you a liar and a hypocrite. It also makes you a fool.

I suppose next you will try to convince me that all those Southern Methodist ministers who preached the blessed goodness of slavery during the period 1830-1865 were right, and that slavery was miserable only because the slave hated his master.

You might as well go join the Ku Klux Klan and try to change them from within, too. Good luck with that, sucker.

Can you deny DNA also?

It clearly shows that the Americans Indians came from Mongolia - the are NOT of Hebrew descend as the Book of Mormon claims.

Mormonism is based on a fraud. Nephites and Lamanites never existed, that is why you cannot find any archaeological evidence for them anywhere.

I can't speak to DNA because it is not a topic that I've thoroughly studied and prayed about to receive a personal witness from God.

I can speak to the fact that I've had many personal witnesses from God that I cannot deny.

There are many problems I have with what leaders of done, said and taught. I know that women are supposed to have the priesthood, but have a feeling this won't be rectified until the Savior comes. I believe polygamy was not of God, but of men. The racism is undeniable and I have a huge problem with how the leaders have encouraged the members to have a dependency upon them. This, in my view, is why many of you and others leave the church of have a problem with it. I can see it. I don't fault any who are critical of the church or the behavior of the leaders.

You'll have to read a scinece book to find out that truth.

Mormon god doesn't believe in science.

I am a current member of this joke. I would love to help you pub if possible. I am a white male, but have a few experiences with racism in the church. Post a way for me to contact you of interested.

What I can't get past is that Joseph Smith apparently got a constant stream of revelations on the most trivial matters in his life but God misteriously decided to be silent on this matter and allow several prophets to make up elaborate stories to hurt and demoralize his children without pulling them aside and explaining things to them. How can Mormons reconcile this?

You may be surprised to know that Joseph Smith received quite a bit of revelation that said give the priesthood to all who will embrace the gospel. We cover all of that in the videos and even provide the scripture reference guide for all to see and do their own study. Here are just a few:

D&C 4:5
D&C 36:4-5
D&C 63:57

Whatever.

Brigham Young and all who came after were horrid racists. They attracted racists to the religion, especially during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s-1970s.

Do you really want to preach the gospel of Mormonism to a group of people here who are VERY INFORMED as to the racist doctrines and history of Mormons Inc.?

This is my point exactly. They were incredible racist. So how could they have written the Book of Mormon, D&C and Pearl of Great Price when there is not a shred of racism in either book? The video will open your eyes.

My invitation is not to lean upon your own understanding only, but to trust that with the relationship you have with God, take a look at this brief video and see if there is anything that causes you to take you focus off of the faults of men and place them only on God. This was the case with Peter, walking on water just fine until he took his eyes off of the Savior.

>>>"the Book of Mormon, D&C and Pearl of Great Price when there is not a shred of racism in either book?"

How do I put this nicely?

Hmmm, I can't. So here goes:

You are out of your fucking mind if you think there is no racism in the Book of Mormon. It is WALL-TO-WALL White Supremist ideology bolstered by Manifest Destiny theory. Do you know what any of that stuff is? I suggest you go look it up.

I don't disagree on that point. I just think it is a bit absurd to believe in the prophets from Brigham Young to Harold B. Lee. I mean, the Lord gave Joseph Smith face time to tell where people would be sent on missions and other less consequential details but he won't even send the Holy Ghost to tell the other prophets that they were wrong? These men made up doctrine to justify racism. Were they so spiritually dead inside that they could not feel in their hearts that this was wrong? If they did feel that it was wrong, what does it say about their integrity?

They had to care first. Each of you are well educated enough to know that Joseph Smith gave all men the priesthood. Brigham Young began the restriction privately around late 1847 and then went public with it in 1852, the same year they elected to have the Utah territory to be a slave territory instead of free. It would be another 13 years before they were forced to get rid of slavery by the 13th amendment in 1865. It would be another 99 years before the civil rights act of 1964 would begin the process of outlawing racism in the US. So basically, nobody cared, until then. They were just feeding their own racism with the actions of Brigham Young and the teachings created to justify those actions.

Pres. McKay realized that it was wrong as early as 1954. But now they had a problem. They were commanded to govern the church by the law of common consent, which meant if there was one negative vote, they could not pass the change. They had so many struggling with racism, which after 100+ years of false teachings on the matter, believe that their racism is justifiable, that the problem became "how do we make the change when we know we can't get all 15 to say yes?"

How is Colorism different from racism?

Specifically, are you saying that being black but looking white gives you the benefits of the entitled class; therefore racism isn't really about race, it's about color?

That's an interesting idea if that's the case.


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