So cute and poignant!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BrFHq-t2VY&feature=related

Watch the rest!

If you have already, I've missed it. And over the last several years there have been several people ask if we had anyone here on RfM who is African-American who could talk about their experiences. Could you do or re-do that sometime?

Thanks.

c

i am not african-american.

The colour of my skin is black :)

And no i haven't told my story yet.

I am a bit of a techie, so I promised when I am ready I will do a video!

Man, now I've heard EVERYthing!


(Now, over to you, bona dea.)

I have read that statement I made and I said no such thing!

Thanks for setting me straight. I apologize.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Man, now I've heard EVERYthing!
>
>
> (Now, over to you, bona dea.)

Uh, what is your problem? You seem to be following me around with snarky comments today.I guess that is your right. I guess you didn't like my comments on the thread where you asked if the drowned child was Mormon. Well, tough! I'm not playing your game, so have fun.

Well Bona Dea, tell me.

As far as I know Aborigines are black skinned, but they are not African...

there are black indians in Inda as far as skin

Please talk to me cause I am really asking!

AIC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well Bona Dea, tell me.
>
> As far as I know Aborigines are black skinned, but
> they are not African...
>
> there are black indians in Inda as far as skin
>
> Please talk to me cause I am really asking!

My post was to Cludgie who earlier accused me of hijacking a thread because I added some info about ancient Rome that I thought was interesting.A couple of posts up in this thread she made a completely irrelevant reference to me. Sorry, for the misunderstanding. So are you aborigine, Indian or what?

None... I just thought cludgie's response strange and I really don't know that all black skinned folks are of African heritage

AIC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> None... I just thought cludgie's response strange
> and I really don't know that all black skinned
> folks are of African heritage

They aren't. Besides you could be African and not be American.

I know you get me, so I am not bothering you with silly questions!

Tehehehehe


I knew you could back me on that cause I know it to be true!

(Also, I may be mis-reading, but I hope you're not blaming bona dea for what was my comment.)

When I went to BYU in the 1960s, I had a class by the infamous and nutty Cleon Skousen. In that class he explained the whole Blacks-not-getting-the-priesthood schtick. He claimed (and this is Skousen speaking), that the black-skinned prohibition pertained only to "Negroes," and by "Negroes," the church meant West and Central and some southern Africans, chiefly the Bantu peoples. Okay, then... Uh, who again? How do we know? Who exactly decides this?

He specifically said that East Africans (Somalis, Eritreans, Ethiopians and the like, could, in fact, hold the priesthood, as could black-skinned Indians, New Guineans, Papuan Indonesians, and Australian aboriginals. (Try floating that one past your bishop when it comes time to be ordained.)

When I was learning about the origins of Indonesians, I learned that they are part of the three great migrations from Taiwan and China that produced the Malay, Indonesians, Philippine, Madagascar, Micronesian, and Polynesian peoples. (Helluva big area, you know, from Madagascar clear over to Easter Island.) But it said something like, "excluding the Papuan peoples and native Australians," but offered no more information. I had to google the Papuan origins, and it explains how they were part of a migration of African people that came across on the land bridge that extended across parts of the Indian Ocean 40,000 years ago. I just found it interesting that for years the Australians and New Guineans could have apparently have the priesthood (according to Skousen) when they were 100% African origin. Meanwhile, any white with "one drop of African blood" ("Negroes," you know) could not hold the priesthood.

Weird religion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2011 04:19AM by cludgie.

Hmmm...

It is a strange religion indeed!

Just to clarify!

Bantus comprise most of East and Southern Africa

Then you have the Cushites which is North and parts of East Africa

Then you have the Nilotes Central Africa!

Those are the 3 main groups.

Crazy making church!

I don't think it is strange at all. What Skousen actually said, is that those populations that delivered slaves to antebellum US and their descendants could not have the priesthood.

Which is exactly what I'd expect a pre-1978 LDS leader to say.

From what I can tell, the irrationality and insanity of Mormon teachings on this (which really took hold with Brigham Young) was part and parcel of the larger undercurrent among many Christian groups in America (especially the South) to try to rationalize and justify slavery. "Hey, if they're under a curse from Gawd, then we don't really have to do anything about slavery. It must be part of the curse." And the focus of the doctrine therefore became people from Africa because that's where most of the slaves came from. Of course Briggy was at the height of his power in the decade preceding, during and following the Civil War. Bigoted Mormon leaders didn't seem to know what to make of Fijians and other melanin-rich people from places other than Africa.

Whereas Joe Smith seemed to be somewhat more inclined to be aligned with Northern sentiments (see Joe's ordination of Elijah Abel, the conflict in Missouri and concerns that Mormons would tilt the balance against slavery), Briggy seemed to be a bigot to his very core. I don't think Joe Smith really cared one way or another very much, as long as he could keep collecting spiritual wives and real estate. Briggy, on the other hand, liked pushing other people down as much as possible in order for him to seem as elevated as possible by comparison.

Well, there were slaves in the US North. New York abolished slavery in 1827. http://www.slavenorth.com/index.html

The reference to "Northern sentiments" is just a shorthand way of referring to the types of anti-slavery attitudes and sentiments that generally were associated with the North in contrast to the pro-slavery attitudes associated with the South. Briggy himself was from the North. But he clearly was a racist and did not seem to be an abolitionist by any stretch of the imagination. (But if anyone has any contrary information on that, I'd be interested in seeing it.) I'm not saying that the issues between the North and South were simply or even primarily about slavery, nor am I trying to suggest that all of the people of each region were of the same mind.

And give you grief doing it. Snarky's a good word, and that's the mood I'm in.

There are LOADS of black people on this planet who are not African-American.
AND there are even people with black skin who are not African at all!

I was a 3rd grader in 1968 in a small total white all LDS community where church taught me that Black people were not good in the Pre-Existence, that their actions on the TV news was proof of their inherent wrongness.

I grew up hating a race of people who I had never seen in real life. Today I know and happily associate with quite a few people from various races, many of whom are better men than I am, many of whom are kinder and gentler than me. It's kinda funny to look back on my youth and even young adulthood and remember that I thought I was superior.

I also remember when the Priesthood ban was lifted and people outwardly supported the church, but also said things like - Don't worry, none of Them will be our Bishop.

Even today, mauch of my family thinks that the current President is proof of Ezra Taft Bensons claims that the Blacks were in league with the Communists and that they would work together to destroy America.

But more than that, the Brown/Blue eye experiment reminds me of how I catch myself thinking about how we see the overweight person with the greasy t-shirt and stretchy pants. How we gravitate toward the welldressed man in a suit and at the bank line when there are two tellers we choose the pretty girl over the not so pretty one, or the handsome male before the one with glasses.

Or how we fear a person because he looks like a Muslim, when in fact he is a Christian who we'd prefer.

And while we think about how we see our Middle East brothers as potential terrorists, and how a certain dread wells up inside when we see them get on the plane with us, we should pause to reflect for just a minute...there was once a man who was a Palestinian with the typical olive toned skin and jet black hair and he was aa little bit short like many Palestinians. His name was probably Yeshua, but most people call him Jesus.

Has your opinion changed about Native American now that the BofM is known to be a hoax? I remember a while back you posted about a tribe making a lawsuit because they wanted to open a casino. I still think your facts about that case were backwards, but I'm curious, are Native Americans less special and more irritating to former TBMs?

The Casino issue was that the tribes felt that they were slighted because of race. According to the news paper, they said that people voted down their casino plan because it was sponsored by the area tribes. I don't recall my exact post or the point I was trying to make at the time, but I do think it is a cheap shot to claim that it is due to racial bias just because someone does not get what they are after. ***

Many people were against the project. Not because of being run by the tribes, but because of the associated issues that were said to attend casinos and other gambling outlets. In our ward, the visiting HighCouncilman essentially commanded us to vote against it.

As for my personal views, as a child I was told that they were Lamanites. Local farmers hired them to work the fields along with natives from Mexico. We had several from the Dakotas who were placed with families in our school and they attended our ward. As a kid, they were more of a novelty to me. I really liked one of the girls that was in my class, but of course it was frowned upon.

I dated a girl who was Shoshone after high school for a little while. My wife and I love to go to the Pow-wows that are held in our area. And as far as the people in general, it saddens me when I see what we have done to them, living on the fringes of society in busted down trailer courts and cinderblock schools.

When I found out that the DNA evidence proved that they were not Lamanites it did not change my view of Native Americans at all. It did however change my view of the BoM and the church.

It wasn't so much my association or dissociation with the LDS that influenced my views about them, it was having them as friends and coworkers, and most importantly, moving away from an all-white LDS farming community and living in the real world.

*** I can't help but recall back when Jeffery Dahmer was busted for killing and then raping and then eating young men. At the time, somebody (Jesse Jackson?) who showed up on the news and claimed that it should be labelled a hate crime because caucasiam Dahmer was targeting minorities. Ummm, was that really the most important issue here? Was it the raping and eating of humans, or the fact that they were minorities?

Part of my lineage is Black Irish. Try explaining THAT to others.

Just sayin'...

Ron

Sweeeet!

I love it.

See this is why having these discussions help us grow our minds.

I guess being black I have always know that black skin is special to Africans.

YAY! STUPID CULT!

Black Irish huh...I have always wanted to marry a man with a HAWT accent!

Hmmmmm!

That third grade teacher taught a lesson not just about discrimination, but about confirmation bias. It's all about what people assume, "dumb people" etc.

Prejudging people by the color of their eyes, "the blue-eyed people are the better people in this room."

Brilliant lesson.

I know right.

I was sad for the brown eyes cause the stress is too much.

Funny yesterday they were ALL equal and how a few minutes changed everything.

Imagine a lifetime of that?