Shameful, for anyone - especially those doing it in the name of God and everything 'holy.'

"Tamu Smith was called the N-word in the Salt Lake LDS Temple a week after her wedding day more than 20 years ago. The same slur was aimed at Zandra Vranes in April on her Facebook page by a temple-going Mormon.

In both cases, the women were advised to forgive the offense, take the high road and focus on the positive.

That approach, however, has hidden rather than solved latent racism in LDS Church ranks, says Vranes, co-author with Smith of "Diary of Two Mad Black Mormons."

Thursday marks the 39th anniversary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints ending its long-standing ban on blacks being ordained to its all-male priesthood and black women being barred from its temples. But some Mormons argue that their church is still grappling with racism and that failure to face the nagging problem head-on looms as a roadblock.

Black members routinely endure slurs, stereotyping, shunning and insulting assumptions ("You only got into Brigham Young University because you're black") — even from fellow believers.

No matter how devout they are, many Mormons of color say they struggle to escape outsider status in their largely white religion. And tensions have been heightened, they say, in a deeply divided nation, awash in personal attacks online and competing protests in the streets.

Last weekend, a group of white Mormon nationalists verbally assaulted Vranes and Smith on Twitter. Some defended the duo, who blog under the label "Sistas in Zion," while others joined the so-called alt-right side, whose devotees bemoan what they see as growing — and unfortunate — diversity in the global faith."

http://www.sltrib.com/home/5371962-155/39-years-later-priesthood-ban-is

I'm so shocked.

I'm not as shocked as I am saddened.

Was leaving the Idaho Falls temple with two of my cousins the day the racial ban was lifted. They were there to do temple work, as I waited for them at the visitor's center.

I was newly back from life on the West Coast, and staying with them for a while.

As we left the temple grounds is when the news broke on the radio about the race ban being lifted. We hadn't even left Memorial Parkway when I saw a black man in a dress suit stop where he was walking along the promenade to stare at me as we drove past. He looked like he was standing in a mist (on an otherwise clear day.)

I was one of the many who'd left the church when I did as a teenager in part because of the racial ban against blacks.

It seemed like a revelation of sorts to me that day by the IF temple, that God had finally answered the prayers of myself and others like me who found it outrageous.

And now reading this, it doesn't seem like things have changed very much since then. So it bothers me. A lot.

Even God must hang his head and sigh to see the shenanigans that pass for his "church" in these so called latter days. :(

Reminds me of when I took my paint crew to Manti for a week. My afro-adorned black guy was likely the first live black person they had encountered for some of the younger locals.

In my hometown of Idaho Falls there were hardly any black folks there when I grew up. Barely any minorities at all.

It's still a tiny percent of the population to have blacks living there.

We didn't have skinheads back then or the "alt right," like there is today. Instead of becoming more tolerant, these groups have become more divisive.

I experienced anti-Semitism at junior college up in North Idaho, early 1980's. That was a stronghold then for the Aryan Nation. One of my classmates was Mormon and belonged to that cult in Hayden Lake. We were in German together, where he went by the name of Adolf (for you guessed it.)

In SE Idaho I was the darkest compexioned kid in my class up until I moved away by high school. And I am anglo-Saxon Caucasian (unless my DNA test tells me otherwise, still waiting on the results.)

I was teased for being a dark haired brunette as a child growing up there. So was more sensitive to racial issues than were most kids my age.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I experienced anti-Semitism at junior college up
> in North Idaho, early 1980's. That was a
> stronghold then for the Aryan Nation.

No kidding.
My dad got a job interview in Coeur d'Alene back in 1969. We made a "vacation" out of it, and drove the whole family up from LA, stopping at national parks and generally having a good time.

When dad went in for the interview, we all went to a little local restaurant. After a couple of hours, he came back with a dejected look on his face, paid the restaurant bill, and just said, "Let's get out of here."

It wasn't until we got back home that my white-and-delightsome dad told his white-and-delightsome family that he couldn't possibly take a job in Northern Idaho, no matter how good the job was..."'cause those racist assholes were flat-out nuts."

I didn't learn about the place being such an Aryan Nation stronghold until many years later. When I did, I gained even more respect for my dad :)

Shocked! I tells ya! Just shocked! What's the only difference between a Mormon and a KKK member. The Mormon wears their secret white underwear under their clothes.

Racism in Mirmonism is industrial strength.

Surely the anti-Mormons may not think of Brigham Young as beloved and some of the Dishonest TBM's may try to run/hide from what Brigham Young taught. But everytime I think of how the Brethren today give so much support to the BYU brand name in honor of Brigham Young I'm reminded that whatever Brigham Young taught is beloved as eternal unchanging doctrines in this wondrous gospel. He certainly taught a lot about the station of Blacks and the Lord's laws on racial harmony. Well don't blame me as these things are just as they were in the gospel history and I'm just reminding you that it is what it was, umm I mean still is and always shall be.

I am aware that AmyJo and others may criticize my perspective on trying to give the honest TBM viewpoint here so the RfM'ers can see what they are missing and what kind of ways of thinking they'd need to adopt in order to become honest TBM's themselves. I have no malice towards any of you and good luck to you in finding some path of happiness in this mortal. Assuming that the wondrous gospel is true (i.e. including how honest/transparent the Church certainly may be on everything) then someday when you are stuck in the Terrestrial kingdom living in much-better-than-5* ocean front resorts sipping on Terrestrial kingdom beverages then if I'm exalted (assuming I never have any doubts bring me down) then if I were to have time (as I'd be super busy 24/7 answering all the trillions of daily prayers in my Celestial Kingdom version of Microsoft Outlook) then I might pity those of you stuck in such lower level resorts. Sure I wouldn't have any time for fun but at least I'd be a super busy bee enslaved to my email inbox for all time/eternity.

But don't forget, you'd still have your wiener. And because you'd be god, you could make it as YUUUGE as you wanted.

You mean eternal as in this well known Brigham Young pronouncement?

>Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.     - JoD: vol.10 p. 110: (March 8, 1863)

Internalized victim hood.

Racism is rampant?

Perhaps the policy was racist, but in my 38 years of activity in Illinois, Alaska, Utah, Texas, and many wards in Washington, I never heard one racist comment.

I have never heard a racist comment from any of my TBM relatives.

To the contrary, I was embarrassed and went overboard trying to point out how we accepted blacks.

Perhaps in certain areas such racism exists, but more likely a product of the local culture.

Don't get me started.
I've lived in WA my whole life. Born and raised here.
It's racist AF in the Mormon church here.
When I left in 2001, my son's seminary teacher was teaching him that Brigham Young was right to say that the penalty for mixing your seed with one of the Sons of Cain would be death on the spot by stoning.
This is the woman who's husband is the Bishop of our ward, which included two Sisters married to two African American Brothers, both of whom had very large families of mixed race children.
I was horrified.
I went to the Bishop and complained about his wife's blatant racism and asked him where she got the authority to say that?
He defended her and claimed that Jesus was a racist because he said not to go preach to the gentiles. Same thing.
I couldn't believe it.
I was stunned.
I could go on.
The list of Mormon racism I have witnessed, is endless.

You make a good point--both of you. I lived in WA state and AZ and TX and who knows where else, lol.

I don't think that I've seen overt racism in any of these places in decades. But the fact that there has been well-documented racism in the church for many, many more decades before is a problem for me. It was swept under the rug in recent years. That does not forgive the HORRIBLE treatment and statements made by the church.

It cannot be forgiven. No matter what what they try, if you claim to have divine revelation from God and the true gospel of Christ you cannot err in this way. Suck it LDS, you cannot escape your past.

When my TBM brother was in High School, in Oak Harbor, Washington, he and his buddies spread cotton balls in the yard of a black teacher during black history month. They "wanted her to know how it feels to pick cotton." They thought this was gut-bustingly funny. They were also picked up by the police for (supposedly) "playing army" in the woods very near to where a white supremacist get together of some sort was happening. Coincidence? I think not. I think the wretched punks were trying to get close enough to see what was going on, or to perhaps even get in. Or perhaps they did and the police picked them up on the way out. This was roughly 1985 or '86.

What do you expect from people who love and adore Trump?

Nothing more than those that adored his predecessor.

Starting at my youngest age I can remember, we had a black housekeeper/nanny that lived with us named Hazel. My mother made a lot of mistakes raising her kids. Hazel really loved us. Every night, Hazel cooked and served dinner and then disappeared, never sitting down to dinner with us. She ate alone in the kitchen. At the time I couldn't understand why. It was the 1960's and the Jim Crow laws were popular. As was said of blacks at the time (most sadly) she knew her place. I saw Hazel challenge my mother twice, both times fiercely, to protect us kids from abuseive treatment and both times my mother backed down.

One Sunday, Hazel took one of my sisters and I with her to a black church. We were the only white people there, amongst a few hundred blacks. I couldn't have felt safer anywhere else, then sitting there in Hazel's lap during the service. With the upbeat singing, the brightly colored robes, people loudly interrupting the minister's sermon occasionally with an "amen" or "that's right", or an "um-humm", and then people speaking in tounges, it wasn't like anything I've seen since.

Hazel came back in to our lives briefly years later when my older sister got married in the temple. My sister's new husband was a self-rightous asshole. Hazel's first words to my sister's new husband at first introduction were (speaking in a thick accent of a poor black person) "if this marriage don't work, it gonna be your fault, cause (sister's name) aint never done nothing wrong her whole life".

More than a decade after Hazel had lived with us, I had just been ordained an Elder. My family hadn't seen Hazel in several years when we were contacted by someone on her behalf. She was on her death bed in the hospital and wanted to leave what little she had in life, to us kids. Nothing of what little she had was worth any money, but had a great sentimental value to us. As I gave Hazel a priesthood blessing in the hospital, it was difficult to choke back the tears, knowing that nothing I could say or do would heal her. I wondered how she could possibly have made bad decisions in the pre-existance. I knew she was a good person and that she didn't deserve the treatment she had endured through her life because of racism. I don't forgive the mormon church for labeling Hazel as a fense-sitter (because she was black), and teaching me that she was black because of her own sins that she committed before her birth.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2017 12:19AM by azsteve.

Hazel sounds like a beautiful person who loved you and your sister fiercely.

You were blessed to have had her in your life, and it seems she felt the same about you.

What a lovely story, Steve. Thank you for sharing it.

Peggy Fletcher Stack put this on her FB page and solicited comments. But although she's with the Trib, she's LDS, and she deletes comments she doesn't find "helpful" (her own words), just as if she worked for Deseret News.* Anyway, my comments are always deleted. This time I only wrote that I was cynical enough to believe that the church would never find it within themselves to repudiate the doctrine. She deleted it, of course, but so many people wrote similarly cynical things, that she got huffy and shut down the comments. I still like and respect her, though. She's a great lady and very open-minded about religion, and can at least write fairly about any religion.

*In Deseret News, if you write a response that doesn't dovetail with all things Mormon, they actually say that your comment wasn't "on topic."

As much as I don't like it sometimes, the owners of a forum do have a subjective right to delete any posts they want to, to shape the direction of the forum. That doesn't meet the description of censorship and is not even dishonest as long as the rules are enforced equally.

But with the media such as the church-owned Deseret News, they are supposed to be objective. Even their web-based forums should be objective. Their lack of objectivity is dishonest, but are still not censorship. I think that censorship violations can only be committed by governments, against legitimate media establishments.

I cannot say I'm perfect. I am from the South, and try to be good and fair, but I am cognizant of my behavior typically, and if I do anything, it is by ignorance on my part. I am not, however, LDS/Mormon. I now live in the Morridor.

I have noticed some of these odd things around me.

In my area I know we probably have at least 30-50% minorities, mostly of Hispanic origin.

However, all of the LDS leadership (I believe Bishoprics, Stake Presidents, and whatever else you call the big wig leaders of the LDS church in the areas) seem to be composed of the more wealthy (and that's odd, as I believe the Lord said the rich had a hard time getting to heaven, and thus taught a LOT and was more successful among the poor)...AND...WHITE.

I think it is around 100% of the leadership is white (from what I've seen thus far).

How does that happen in an area with such a high percentage of minorities?

To me it appears that they are VERY biased. I also do not see how they could relate to minorities if none of them are in their leadership.

They'll accept you into their church, they'll accept your money, but only whites are good enough to be the leaders of their congregations.

+10,000

Good observation. The Hispanics took over population wise since the 1980's in the Morridor. I moved away before that occurred.

And yet, based on your description, they are persona non grata in church leadership positions.

Makes perfect sense from their "us vs. them" position @ the morg.

It's good ole boys club is still very much white, no minorities need bother to apply.

:(

Since exposure to black people for most mormons would be Snoop's visiting Martha Stewart's show, I think many Mormons fear what would become of their beloved sacrament blessing.

O God, tha Eternal Father, we ask thee up in tha name of thy Son, Jizzy Christ, ta bless n' sanctify dis bread ta tha soulz of all dem playas whoz ass partake of it, dat they may smoke up in remembrizzle of tha body of thy Son, n' witnizz unto thee, O God, tha Eternal Father, dat they is willin ta take upon dem tha name of thy Son, n' always remember his ass n' keep his commandments which dat schmoooove muthafcka has given them; dat they may always have his Spirit ta be wit dem wild-ass muthafckas fo' realz. Amen.

Here in the land of Mordor, there is still a separate cemetery for Polynesians: back in the day, they were not allowed to be buried anywhere near the white and delightsome good ole' boys or their families. My husband has had many experiences of prejudice in Zion, too many incidences to list. One though occurred recently when we went out to dinner and as we were walking into the restaurant, an old hag was coming out and when she saw my husband, she immediately made a big show of clasping her purse close to her side while looking at him with fear. I wanted to hit her upside her head with her stupid purse!