"BYU released a report saying its students of color feel ‘isolated and unsafe’ due to racism on campus

A committee recommends that school leaders take immediate action to address the concerns.

"The sign outside of the building was vandalized last year, as was a nearby statue of church leader Brigham Young, who opposed interracial marriage and started the church’s ban on Black members holding the priesthood and entering temples (which was lifted in 1978). Both were covered in red paint. The report, though, did not mention Young or the name of the university."

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2021/02/27/byus-students-color-feel/

Why would a BYU sponsored "report" on racism at BYU fail to mention Brigham Young's racially problematic name or the fact the University is named after one of the most evil racists in American History?
He instituted racism in Utah and the MORmON Church.
The only way to deinstitutionalize (root out) racism is to cut the head off of the snake.
#1. Debunk and denounce the racist myth of white supremacy, Mormonism is founded upon.
#2. Denounce the narrative that the white race is superior to all other races and especially blacks.
#3. Edit out the white supremacy and hate towards blacks in Mormon scriptures (The narrative).
#4. Do what you made us do, repent from your sins as an institution, a church and as individual church leaders, for the blatant racism you sponsored and support every day by sending out an army of missionaries to go spread those thoroughly debunked 19th Century racist/white supremacist myths.

Any gestures you perform before doing the above, are just paying lip service to rooting out racism and will convince nobody, except those tokens you managed to rope into parroting the party line dictated and heavily edited from the patriarchal white supremacist authorities above.

Now that you mention it, I'm stunned that we all missed that!!

Well, you sure as heck didn't start a thread on it.

That's your bad.

how much OPie earns ~


from its constant click-bait threds ~


it is as follows ~


~\||||||/~
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Tier 1 ~ $5.50 per 1000 unique views

Tier 2 ~ $1.30 per 1000 unique views

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You make it all sound so straightforward and simple. Just do the right thing!

Denouncing Brigham et al (Don'T forget Mark E.) is tricky, though.

Mormons lose the thing that is nearest and dearest to them if they do: Their great claim to being God's favorites in the one true church in that only THEY have a living prophet who communes with God and through whom God speaks to his children.

How do you take back what God told a prophet to say?

Oh they have tried with this "speaking as a man" thing. But still, God makes no correction on something this important? Silence is endorsement.

This mess has made Mormons the ultimate FENCE SITTERS.


What to do? What to do . . .



If the prophet wasn't really a prophet and is only Fence Sitter in Chief, then your 2nd Anointing is bogus. Oh no!

Straddle that barbed wire, kids!

It's shocking to think that rather than being the restored church of Jesus Christ, mormonism is just another human creation, doing what it can to change with the times in order to maintain sufficient relevance in order to get people to donate time and money... but mostly money.

Of course, it's wrong to consider that 'the times' changed the church. Just like now, in this Covid-19 era, the church, led as it is by a living prophet, is totally on top of things.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You make it all sound so straightforward and
> simple. Just do the right thing!

It is so straightforward and simple, for us, as exMORmONs, to do the right thing, because we've denounced everything about the CULT we inherited, especially the hateful racism, sexism and homophobia. But for those who still take Mormonism seriously and have sworn a suicidal oath in the Temple to 'avoid evil speaking of the Lard's Anointed', it's anything but straightforward and simple.

> Denouncing Brigham et al (Don'T forget Mark E.)
> is tricky, though.

Right. Damn near impossible, without admitting the whole house of cards is built upon a foundation of hate and completely violates the main commandment of Christ to "Love your fellow man as yourself."
So instead of admitting the obvious, they just lie by omission, sweep the blatant racism under the rug and hope nobody notices that it's still there, printed in black and white, canonized as the "word of God" in Mormon scriptures.

It's like Carl Sagan said, "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Thank goodness we are among the few, who got our power back after giving it to the charlatans.

Now, there's probably nothing we can do for those BYU students of color who feel ‘isolated and unsafe’ due to racism on BYU campus, except speak out in a public forum, like this, to express our empathy for them, for suffering the kind of abuse they suffer on a daily basis.
And even though they chose to attend a super white University, named after one of the most evil bigots in American history, that doesn't mean they deserve to be the targets of racism in the 21st Century.
And encourage them to continue demanding equality, even at the least equal University in America.
And until that happens, continue painting his false idol with blood.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2021 01:05PM by schrodingerscat.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only way to deinstitutionalize (root out)
> racism is to cut the head off of the snake.
===============================

It's an exercise in window-dressing.

Racism does not exist at BYU.
There are no snakes.

Dr. No Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> It's an exercise in window-dressing.

Right. Until they redact the white supremacy and black hate from their scriptures, anything they say or do about 'rooting out racism' is just paying lip service.

> Racism does not exist at BYU.

Tell that to the students of color who experience racism on a daily basis at BYU, still, in the 21st Century.

> There are no snakes.

Until BYU is willing to admit it was named after a racist snake and cuts its head off it will continue to come in last place, by a long shot, in terms of diversity and blacks will continue to only make up 1.8% of students, while they make up 12.7% of the US population.

Are there stats on the racial make up of the mormon church?

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are there stats on the racial make up of the
> mormon church?

The latest Pew Survey of Mormonism is 10 years old,

https://www.pewforum.org/2012/01/12/mormons-in-america-methodology/

Which indicates that the MORmON Crutch is

White 88% vs. 68% General Public
Black 1% vs. 11%
Hispanic 7% vs. 14%
Other 4% vs. 7%

The racist CULT is not fooling blacks, or any other minority, but is still quite attractive to whites, who are quite proud of their white supremacist God.

Suddenly comes to remembrance --

It was mission policy.
We were instructed to NOT actively seek, nor instruct, those of African ancestry.

The ONLY condition of instruction, was if it was actively sought out by the seeker - and even then we would have to ask clearance from HQ.
Something to do with "protecting" them. Uh huh.

Texas San Antonio Mission.
Not that long ago.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> . . . . . it will
> continue to come in last place, by a long shot, in
> terms of diversity and blacks will continue to
> only make up 1.8% of students
===============================

Is that not in the design?


Is it a bug?
Or is it a feature?

Dr. No Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is that not in the design?
>
> Is it a bug?
> Or is it a feature?

I've found that, when challenged on the blatant racism that is STILL alive and well in Mormon scriptures, Mormons are quite proud of their racism.
Ask a Mormon why they discriminated against blacks by denying them entry into the temple until 1978, 14 years after the rest of society passed the Civil Rights Act, when you never needed the Priesthood to enter a temple? See what kind of answers you get. Gee, we don't know why God did that, but it's not important to our salvation.
How can you say that if you believe temple rituals are essential to salvation when Christ commanded us love our fellow men as ourselves?
You can't possibly believe both.
And why blame God for the racism instituted by bigoted men?

Well, you are highly rational SC - so require intellectual integrity.
That is not a concern, or even passing interest, for TSCC.

Think of it:
What made those numbers what they are?
What keeps those numbers as they are?
Would there be a genuine interest in changing this?

Suspect many are quite satisfied with current circumstances -
to the degree BYU has become an element of national satire
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss

The initiative is at best a fig leaf

BY was "one of the most evil racists in American history"? Do tell. According to who?

Yeah, he was a racist. I don't see him as dramatically worse than lots of other racists. Further, his racists attitudes were not the defining feature of his life or accomplishments. A person where racism is a defining feature of a person's life or accomplishments would be someone like John C Calhoun, or even George Wallace, though he expressed a change of heart by the end of his life.

George Washington owned slaves, and we have an entire state, the nation's capitol, and I have no idea how many counties, towns and streets named after him. Anyone besides you and the Berkley (SF?) school board think they should all be renamed?

Oh, I definitely think BYU in particular and Mormonism in general, has a real problem with racial attitudes. I'm just saying the rhetoric gets a little self-righteous. I don't think that helps.

The Cat wants to stand out from the crowd, thus the bluster and spittle come across as over the top ...

Also, in case any of us EXMOs have lost focus on why we're here, he's the lighthouse, keeping us from grounding on the shoals of indifference.

He pays himself very well.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BY was "one of the most evil racists in American
> history"? Do tell. According to who?
>
> Yeah, he was a racist. I don't see him as
> dramatically worse than lots of other racists.

Why are you defending this racist?
Name another racist who was so racist they claimed God told them that the price for mixing your seed with a black person was death on the spot, by stoning. Or one who institutionalized discrimination against blacks in their church and taught that blacks were cursed by God, with black skin because of the sins of the father of their race, Cain, which would last for 100 years. Or who said such hateful things about blacks. I don't know of one.
Do you?

schrodingerscat Wrote:

> Why are you defending this racist?

He's not.

Probably the most 'popular' attempt to maintain "racial purity" derives from the story of Noah, after the flood. He cursed one of his sons for catching him naked, and he cursed Ham and added "and cursed be Canaan", which some took to mean that Ham and ALL his descendants would be cursed, and out of Ham came the Black race, so ...

The possibly second most popular excuse for Christian racism is based on the Garden of Eden situation where we find ghawd creating everything "...after its own kind..." So bigots say ghawd meant what Maria was told in Westside Story: "Stay with your own kind!"

And what kind of a vile, wretched super-Racist says this, in 1847, about Q. Walker Lewis, a black man who had been ordained to the priesthood, “We have one of the best elders, an African.”

By 1852, however, Young would declare that all blacks bore a “curse” and would no longer be eligible for Mormon priesthood or temple privileges.

So what happened? I don't know.

But BY apparently held no personal rancor toward Blacks, as noted by the quote above. Also demonstrative of this is how Green Flake was treated throughout his life as a mormon. He joined too late to get the priesthood, but he was apparently somewhat respected by the saints, but not sufficiently to be allowed to marry a White saint.

Green Flake was one of the first to enter the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Maybe they weren't buddies, but he and BY apparently got along. And in the years that followed, Bro. Flake spoke at two Pioneer Day celebrations and at the 50-year celebration, was honored with a semi-centennial pin.

George Washington, a slave owner and 'Father of our country', did not allow Blacks to be officers in the army. But neither did Abraham Lincoln.

Sure, BY's motivation to forbid Blacks from holding the priesthood may have come from deep-seated racism. But it might have come from some other motivation, maybe even political. Or maybe he caught Black Fox in the White Henhouse? Who knows?

But The Cat's spittle-laden foaming at the mouth at BY is just par for his course. Sure, the church is taking it in the shorts because of the 70 years they practiced a nasty form of racism, and they deserve it.

And hopefully, it will be a big part of them having to admit that they're just a fancy fraternal organization that has grown rich through finally figuring out what to do with all the tithing money.

Can we conceive of a thing called Religious Racism? Did the Japanese royal family have a touch of it? Did any segments of Jewish society suffer from it?

As a Lamanite, I "suffered" from racial prejudice as a mormon, but it was isolated. The mormon church I grew up in had way more good people than it did f--khead racists. Does this mean anything in the context of what we're discussing now? I'd like to think so.

Is it a fair question to ask which is worse, denying the priesthood to Blacks, or denying the priesthood to all females?

Brigham Young was a racist SOB but he wasn't the worst humanity has produced. The competition for that title is fierce: ranging from Hitler; to the God of the OT (or his self-appointed representatives who wrote the Bible), who demanded genocide of his followers; to the explorers and armies of the sanguinary expansion across North America; and the Japanese who pursued their vision of Manifest Destiny throughout Asia.

But these are matters of nuance and degree. And such ambiguities are less satisfying to some than sweeping generalizations.

> And such ambiguities are less
> satisfying to some than sweeping
> generalizations.


Yes, but quite a few of The Cats sweeping generalizations are very, very specific!! Not many of us are able to pull that off with the aplomb he exhibits!

And since they are generalizations, sometimes they are mutually inconsistent. Life is messy; it's nuanced. Generalizations are not, and hence unhelpful as we try to move forward.

For example, King envisioned a world where color was immaterial and yet in practice saw the first steps as requiring recognition of the role race played (and plays) in the United States. There was no contradiction: King was a nuanced thinker, pursuing ultimate goals with in a pragmatic step-by-step manner. If one takes his aspirational statements as absolute, he ends up condemning both the man and the strategy.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is it a fair question to ask which is worse,
> denying the priesthood to Blacks, or denying the
> priesthood to all females?

No it’s not a fair question because it’s a false equivalency. All females were never denied entry into the temple. Having the priesthood was never a requirement for entering a Mormon temple. Having skin that wasn’t considered cursed by God, was.
Yes the Abusive CULT we were born into is also sexist AF, but name conservative institution that isn’t.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2021 11:56AM by schrodingerscat.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> No it’s not a fair question because it’s a
> false equivalency. All females were never denied
> entry into the temple. Having the priesthood was
> never a requirement for entering a Mormon temple.
> Having skin that wasn’t considered cursed by
> God, was.
> Yes the Abusive CULT we were born into is also
> sexist AF, but name conservative institution that
> isn’t.

Yeah, your edit just rendered the contradiction between the first and final sentences even more profound.

"Waiter, may I have more croutons, please?"

Which is why I said, "ONE OF THE most evil racists in American History".
not the most evil racist in history.
Yeah, HItler was a lot worse. I wasn't comparing him to Hitler. Or Stalin, or Mao or Pol Pot, who were the opposite end of the spectrum, Atheists.
But he was at the far end of the white supremacist spectrum, IMO.
He hated blacks and I think he was responsible for the lynching of blacks who were falsely accused of raping white women in Utah territory at the same time as Brigham Young. That's fucking evil.
He had slaves. That's evil.
The things he taught and said about blacks is and always was evil. He was hateful.
Why the hell name a university after such a hateful person, who pretended to be the sole representative of Jesus Christ, who preached the opposite?

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Yeah, HItler was a lot worse.

> But [Brigham Young] was at the far end of the white supremacist
> spectrum, IMO.

That's what I mean about the generalizations contradicting each other.

Shoot-fire, it's almost as if someone didn't include that information on purpose. Naw, I don't think they'd do that.

cludgie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Shoot-fire, it's almost as if someone didn't
> include that information on purpose. Naw, I don't
> think they'd do that.

They must think if they don’t bring up Brigham Young’s white supremacy maybe they can just sweep their racist foundation under the carpet and nobody will notice.