Article re Black Mormons:
“Mormons Grapple With Church's History Of Discrimination Amid Wider Racial Reckoning”
by Tonya Mosley, radio host
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/22/mormon-church-lds-black-racismMosley starts the article diplomatically by stating “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are also known as Mormons, has a troubled history with racial discrimination.” (Bit of an understatement?!)
This I did not know: “Black Americans were among its earliest converts and even served in leadership roles”…
She goes on:
“…but for over a century, they were barred from being ordained to the priesthood or from entering Mormon temples, where the faith’s holiest rituals are performed.”
That I found out (here on RfM) *after* leaving the church. I was appalled that I didn’t know it sooner (like before joining).
“That position wasn't reversed until 1978.” (Quite late).
Further excerpts:
“Now that recent protests have forced a racial reckoning throughout American society, many Mormons are taking a renewed look at racism in their own faith.
“The LDS Church announced an official partnership with the NAACP in 2018, but it may not be putting words into action, says LaShawn Williams, a licensed clinical social worker and an assistant professor of social work at Utah Valley University.
“I think that one of the best ways to show leadership is to do what you ask your members to do,” says Williams, who co-founded the Black LDS Legacy Committee, which puts on a yearly conference about Black Mormons.
“While some Mormons are a “little resistant” to anti-racist efforts by fellow church members, the majority are very open to it, says Diana Brown, co-founder of a study group on race and The Book of Mormon, one of the church’s scriptural texts, along with the Bible.
“I think a lot of them have questions as well about how to reconcile some complex aspects of the church history,” she says, “and how … they [can] maintain their faith and testimony in the church while acknowledging the pain that people of color experience due to certain policies and cultural norms and what to do about that.”
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“Some complex aspects of the church history…” Again, very diplomatic way to refer to the racist doctrine and practices of the Mormon Church.
“On the Mormon church's official partnership with the NAACP”:
“LaShawn Williams: “I think it runs the risk of being a symbolic partnership as opposed to a practical partnership. [The church] offered, in the Medium piece where they initially spoke out for racial unity, that they would explore ways together to work together to improve self-reliance and upward … mobility for inner-city and minority families. And so one of the spokespeople for the NAACP said that those were minor efforts, and they don't befit the stature and magnitude of what the LDS church can and should do and how they were looking forward to the church doing more to undo the 150 years of damage they did and how they treated African Americans in the church.”
Specific and interesting: “[the church's] minor efforts... don't befit the stature and magnitude of what the LDS church can and should do…to undo the 150 years of damage they did…”
“On whether the church should apologize for barring Black people from receiving the priesthood or entering Mormon temples”:
Williams: “I would love to see the church issue a number of statements. They came close. They released an essay that disavowed any previous practices, folklore, thoughts or ideas that were perpetrated by church leadership about the reasons for the ban. They did not go so far as to call the ban wrong or to call the ban racist. But they disavowed all of the explanations that were given and said that they currently disavow racism and that it is not connected to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Mormons disavowing “explanations” but not the ban or past racism is definitely not going far enough. *Now* they are saying that racism “is not connected to the gospel of Jesus Christ” so how do they account for why previously it was part of the doctrine and practices of the church? Can something so major really be discarded? If it is wrong now how was it not wrong originally?
Williams: “A few Black members that are inspiring to us are ... first pioneers, the first people to be baptized into the church or the first ones to hold the priesthood, or the first one to join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or the first ones to be baptized outside of the United States, and we listed all of their names on a T-shirt to go along with so many of the other Black history pioneers, (Malcolm X) and (Martin Luther King Jr.) and me, and we took that same energy and applied it to the church experience for Black members in Black history in the LDS church, because holding onto ancestors, standing on the shoulders of giants, is what allows us to continue moving forward. And there's work to be done in every place where Black people set their feet.”
I appreciate reading Williams' experience and opinions on this subject. It’s hard for me, though, to understand what draw Mormonism has for Black people. Not only its history but its doctrine is surely quite far outside their religious beliefs and life experience.
“On white Mormons’ reactions to anti-racist efforts by fellow church members”:
Diana Brown: “There is certainly a faction of people who I think are a little resistant to this, who see this as part of revisionist history, but I would say that the majority of people that I see are very, very open to it. … I'm seeing people really seamlessly blend language that we're drawing from this anti-racist movement that, you know, is largely happening outside of our church, with rhetoric about personal change, ministering, building Zion, building community that's very common in the church.”
Interesting and important point that the anti-racist movement is largely happening outside the Mormon Church.
Brown: "We’ve had Brother Ahmad Corbitt come [to speak]. He's a first counselor in the General Young Men's Presidency for the church, so a pretty high leadership position. He also is African American. He sort of talked about his initial draw to the church and to the Book of Mormon as, to use his terms, the most racially unifying book of scripture out there. We had an Indigenous scholar, Farina King, come in and talk about a passage in the Book of Mormon that's often interpreted to be referring to [Christopher] Columbus, and she was just sort of raising the question: Are we wanting to glorify Columbus at the expense of our Indigenous members of the church?”
Re Corbitt who says the BoM is “the most racially unifying book of scripture out there”. I’m not getting how it’s possible to say that.
Re Columbus: Good point.
Brown: “These are people [in the discussion group] who are pretty central in the church and involved in church leadership and things like that, and I think their common questions are just wanting to really understand the perspectives of minorities and people of color in the church for pastoral reasons, wanting to know how to do better outreach [and] administering.”
Involved in church leadership – interesting.
Brown: “I do think that people are really hungry for a theological reckoning with the church's past, something that is ... not just saying, … ‘Now we're all one, now that [the] policy is gone.’ Something that is saying, ‘How do we make sense of the fact that this happened?”
I included these excerpts to show the discussion and the thoughts of the women involved. I’m not intending to criticize them at all. I'm not qualified to question their personal beliefs and experiences. But I am surprised to read of Black women who are happy in the Mormon Church. It’s a mystery to me. I do appreciate hearing their perspective.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2021 09:31PM by Nightingale.