. . . who also happened to be my father. The following are quotes and examples of extreme racism from a "man of God". He was in the bishopric or on the high council from the time I was 6 years old to present (30 years):

"I almost didn't join the church because when I drove through Utah I saw mormon girls with n----rs everwhere. It really left a bad taste in my mouth"

When, as an 8 yeard old, I asked him about the AZ governor's race he said, "we want Evan Meacham to win - he hates blacks too"

While watching a boxing match on tv in which an african american was fighting a russian boxer I asked my INSANELY patriotic father who he wanted to win he said, "definelty not the n---er." I remarked that the black man was American. He seemd pensive for a few moments and remarked, "yeah, I still want the russian to win."

During a meeting with the youth in the Ward, our bishop wanted to have a "loosen the tie" meeting in which the youth could ask the bishopric any question. One of my friends asked why the church seemed to be racist in its doctrines. He related a story of how his sister dated a really nice black guy, but that her parents forbid them dating. My dad chimed in that "God created lots of different species of birds and you don't see a woodpecker mating with a dove." My friend said that didn't make us better than them. My dad replied "it does me!"

"One of the things that attracted me to the church (he was a convert at age 22 in 1967) was they viewed blacks the same as I did"

I can remember repeatedly him mumbling under his breath while watching the news that "n---ers are ruining this country."

Additionally he had a black sheep dog name "N---er" and refered to sling shots as "n---er shooters".

The church acted as a crutch for his dispicible racism.

Its deplorable! I mention it here because the church is trying to distance itself from its racist past and this sort of thing is still going on in the form of calling men like my father into positions of leadership.

Where did your father grow up?

In a small town in rural Arizona

Wow, I had thought it must surely have been in a former slave state. Was the Arizona town primarily LDS?

Awwwww...he sounds just like my daddy...one of the most racist people I know.

I think that nearly all mormons over 55 or so are racist to some extent. They were taught for the first 30 years of life that blacks had the curse of Cain and were wishy washy before coming to earth. Plus the whOle thing about not mixing genders.

My dad is a great guy buy he can't break out of his racism. It was just too ingrained when he was raised.

When I was five years old, my father was transferred to a very small rural town in Northern Arizona. Almost all LDS. My first day of school as I was waiting in line for a drink of water, this boy asked me: Are you a Mexican, N****r or what? I am to this day still bothered by this. BTW I am Mexican.

This had been mentioned before. I agree. How come all the white supremacist groups in the U.S. And abroad don't want to cozy up to Mormons more?

The beliefs are almost in lock step when it comes to race. In addition the way Mormons treat anybody who isn't a member of their church lines up nicely with these other extreme groups.

If these groups would line up with the Mo church they would have endless access to money and protection. Plus they'd have millions of new members that were Mormons also.

I lived in AZ for quite some time and I'm now in the deep south- From my experience, Arizona has some serious racial tension- not just animosity with Mexicans (as we've all seen on the news in the last 10 years) but also with African Americans.

My family are TBM's in AZ. My parents were absolutely against interracial dating/marriage. I was of dating age in the late 80s and 90's. I dated a middle eastern guy for 2 years and they almost had a heart attack. My mom literally told me, "You have seen that Not without my daughter movie, right? I just don't want you to be kidnapped."

I actually dated a white mormon boy too- who told me on our second date how disgusted he was when he saw interracial couples (this was the 90s!!!). That was our last date.

My parents alway say, "We're not racist, it's just that they are all so lazy. I don't want to pay for them and all their children." Kind of ironic from a mormon mother of 8 kids. They fail to see how their statement IS racist. Just because you claim economics does not negate the fact that you are making a generalization about an entire race of people and judging them and dealing with them ALL according to your small minded judgements.

So crazy. I'm atheist and my children are raised to accept ALL people as equals. No judgements until you get to know someone and even then, judgements are made towards specific individuals not generalized across large groups.

My father was a Bishop for many years.

My father never said the N word. But he said that blacks were better off under slavery, because "at least they had some value." He often remarked that black women were unattractive. He gave me a racist church book titled "Mormonism and the Negro."

Mormon racism was insidious and real in my lifetime. I'm glad they eased up, but I won't forget being taught that God doesn't like dark-skinned people. I wonder what other kinds of hate they may be teaching now?

Damn.


TemplenameGabriel: Did a black guy molest your dad or something?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2014 03:51PM by newcomer.

From my experience of witnessing the prejudices from the "greatest generation" up to the "millennials" is that nothing has changed here in Utah. People feel the same about color as they always have. You're just as likely to hear a high school student call someone a n-----r as to hear a WW2 vet talk about dirty Mexicans.

Whites loath brown people, period. And brown people are always seeking to acquire what whites have (usually not quite succeeding). Our laws protect minorities way better these days than in Jim Crow days and there is more keeping your mouth shut about it because of that. Which is the way it should be (I guess?) even though integration sure is an uncomfortable situation for everyone. (I wish I had a better answer)

One thing I can say, spoken from personal experience being slightly mixed race, is that it is in the best interest of posterity to keep your seed as pure as possible.

The racist brotheren (like McConkie, Lee, Kimbal) were right. People should marry within their culture for the greatest chances for success now and through the generations. There will be a lot of tension that has to do with money, values, and traditions otherwise.

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One thing I can say, spoken from personal
> experience being slightly mixed race, is that it
> is in the best interest of posterity to keep your
> seed as pure as possible.
>
> The racist brotheren (like McConkie, Lee, Kimbal)
> were right. People should marry within their
> culture for the greatest chances for success now
> and through the generations. There will be a lot
> of tension that has to do with money, values, and
> traditions otherwise.

The President of the United States might disagree with that assessment.

deco Wrote:
> The President of the United States might disagree
> with that assessment.

As would I. My two "mixed" kids are, even in a very conservative area, popular, accepted, even envied -- and have never had any problems with anyone under 40. The "marry within your culture" thing is outdated nonsense, and is itself quite "racist."

What part would Obama disagree with? His mother and father had challenges with their "money, values, and traditions." They couldn't even stay together. right?

I was 22 in 1967. I grew up in the Las Vegas 2nd Ward. Yeah, the 2nd Ward Tarantulas! Go Tarants!!! I'm full on Indio/Mexican; people say I look just like Benito Juarez, for whom I named my favorite G/F in high school, the lovely BJ...

I grew up totally color-blind. My dad, a neverMo, was color blind, he had Black, White and Polka dot friends.

My first hint of racism was when I got old enough to date. In Las Vegas, in those days, the three biggest Mormon nobility families were the Stewarts, the Bunkers and the Leavitts. I first dated a Bunker. But she couldn't let her parents know we were dating. It was with her that I thought I invented Dry Humping. In the months waiting for my mission call, I got very serious with a Stewart. Her dad was the Stake Patriarch. We dated openly, but not with her mother's blessing. (Her dad was true salt of the earth.) Her mother, whose maiden name I do not know, was from Southern Utah and she was Book of Mormon racist; she didn't want her fair White daughter dating a Lamanite. You know the scriptures about how when the Lamanites are faithful, their skins turns white? In July and August of 1964 she kept reading these scriptures to her daughter, as I was working for the state of Nevada, on a survey crew, and kept referring to the fact that I wasn't getting whiter, I was, in fact, getting BROWNER!!! (cue organ music, heavy on the minor third chords!)

I got Dear John'd on my mission. I've had two dates in all my life with Hispanic females. As the love of my life continually reminds me, I'm the Whitest Mexican anyone will ever, ever know. Although thanks to my mission, I can fake being Mexican. A very useful trait, here in SoCal...

I do not agree with the notion of racial purity. There's only one race, Homo sapiens sapiens. I have five 'mixed race' kids, 11 mixed race grandkids, with two of my sons still not married. I wonder if people who are concerned with 'racial purity' aren't really just thinking about 'attitude purity'.

Ok, being color blind may be more noble?

But is that how most people really think? If people were comfortable with "mixing" then we wouldn't be having a border problem right now and everyone would be welcome. Mixed children are going to confront challenges. It's a tough cookie to chew ;)

Maybe we should treat the issue of 'mixed marriages' like many people think Same Sex Marriages should be treated: If you don't believe in same sex marriages, then don't marry someone of the same sex. Do what's best for yourself and then just share your opinions with people you already know agree with you.

And I promise not to preach to anyone the doctrine of marrying out of their respective 'races.'

I will be thrilled with whomever my children choose to marry because (YES I'm going to brag) I ingrained in their brains NOT to be racist and they are the smartest kids I freakin know. Very educated and loving. I did this because my parents were racist too and for some damn reason I knew it was wrong (curse of Cain, Indian program yada yada yada). NOW, if one of them would marry already and give me a grandchild! :-)

poopstone Wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------
>
> Whites loath brown people, period.

Speak for yourself.

Or if you're non-white...I can only conclude you must live in an area where there are no mixed-"race" families. I have literally dozens of friends, neighbors, relatives and co-workers in "interracial" relationships, most of them married. In every case, one of the spouses in each couple is a non-Latino white. The other spouses in these couples include blacks, Asians, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and in one case a Native American. In fact, a cousin of mine who is only half "white and delightsome"---and who doesn't appear to be even part white--just married a white, blond guy last month.

Most of these couples have kids. I highly doubt any of these whites loathe their own brown-skinned offspring.

When I lived in SLC, I worked for a VW dealership in the 70's and 80's. The Sales manager there was a good TBM (mostly due to his wife since I know he enjoyed a beer occasionally). His youngest daughter was invited to a school dance by an African American kid and there wasn't many in Utah in those days.

He told her that she not only couldn't go, but if the "n....." asked her again, he would be happy to "take care" of the boy. I think his daughter was kind of shocked.

Back in the early 1970s in Washington State, my FIL was in the stake presidency. Once during stake conference, many of the wives who had been stuck at church all day Saturday preparing meals and stuff for the "brethren" came in to the stake priesthood meeting and sat down, probably out of boredom. My FIL, who was officiating at the pulpit, sarcastically announced, "Well. It looks like the women will get the priesthood before the ni**ers."

Ony my mission in the late 80s, we had an openly racist branch president. When he would give u s a ride, if he saw a Black person crossing the road, he would act like he was going to swerve and hit them and say "I'm gonna hit me a [racist word for Black people that the board won't let me write]!".

I went to graduate school at the University of South Carolina. The local SP was well known for his "N" word jokes. One Sunday, at Stake Conference, the Regional Representative got up and called a young man out of the audience. He had just received his mission call. Oh, did I mention the young man was black? Well, the Regional Representative explained to the congregation that this young man's call to serve and his authority came from the same source as that of the SP and that it was time for all in the audience guilty of racism, including and especially of telling jokes, to repent and change their ways. The SP was 18 shades of red. Looked like you could pop the veins on his forehead.

On the other end of the spectrum was my father. Nearly 50 years ago, I used the "N" word with my father while we were out running errands. He pulled the car over to the side of the road, and we had a "chat". Not physical. Not loud. Just very specific.

Oddly, the house we lived in at the time was owned and rented from a black man, and his son, my age, was my best friend. One would think I would know better. I did not see myself as racist, but really did not understand why the word was so offensive.

Sadly, the word just rolled out of my mouth. For the last time.

What year did you go to grad school? I know quite a few of the old bishops and SP's. One of them was my old bishop from back in the day when I lived in Utah.

I was at USC (the other one) 1983 - 1985. Great people, but it was only a short time since the church changed the policy (doctrine?) on blacks.

My daughter went to her prom with a black boy - her best friend. They went with a large group of kids and all the kids met at one house for pictures before they went to dinner. One of the boys in the group was a mormon and his mother sidled up to me and asked if i was ok with my daughter dating "that" boy. I told her not only was i ok with it, i hoped he gave her a big kiss that night. The look on that lady's face was priceless. Before that night i was unaware of the racism in Mormonism.

I had a very good friend in ST. George Utah. He was married to a negro woman (note I said negro not the racist word that begins with the same letter) She was a great person to know as a human being not as a person of "whatever" skin pigment. I do not see how genetic pigmentation of skin makes you "good" "bad" or "indifferent". My mother was raised on a plantation in the deep south. She was brainwashed into racial prejudice that tormented her all her life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2014 12:27PM by thedesertrat1.