http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/ <![CDATA[Comments on: To George with Love]]> Jonathan WordPress 2008-01-31T17:05:43Z http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6445 2008-01-31T17:05:43Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Lincoln Cannon]]> http://transfigurism.org Agreed — there is more repenting to do here.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6447 2008-01-31T21:39:29Z <![CDATA[Comment by: mel]]> http://mattelggren.blogspot.com I can’t really say how many times I’ve been told that JS was enlightened on this subject far beyond even the leaders of the 1970s. Always the point that JS gave priesthood to black men and not until BY did this racism get institutionalized.

But here you have it. Astounding. Thank you.

Let’s not forget that JS WROTE the Book of Mormon and he’s the one that put all that talk of god punishing with skin pigment in there.

Truly awesome the extent we’ll go to maintain our belief that JS was demi-god.

He was just a very gifted man. Based on that, I can forgive him for being such.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6448 2008-01-31T22:34:13Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Seth R.]]> http://www.nine-moons.com Mel, what teachings of Joseph Smith does Elder Stapley have in mind here? Because I honestly don’t know where he pulled that little piece of B.S. from. One of the presidential campaign platforms of Joseph Smith was to buy the freedom of all the slaves using money from selling federal lands. He once personally sold his own horse for $500 to purchase the freedom of a black child and conferred the Priesthood on Elijah Abel (a black man) personally.

In short, I think Elder Stapley, in this letter is, to put it bluntly, full of it with respect to Joseph.

J. Stapley over at By Common Consent did a post on this little episode with his ancestor here:

http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2007/06/conflicted-feelings/

My understanding is that Bruce R. McConkie personally delivered a sermon containing the closest thing to a repudiation that you’re going to get. He basically said, “forget what I, or anyone else has said on this matter. The Lord has spoken” the end. Not exactly the apology some are looking for, but it did seem like a pretty clear repudiation of the “Mark of Cain/Curse of Ham” business.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6449 2008-01-31T23:49:25Z <![CDATA[Comment by: mel]]> http://mattelggren.blogspot.com Hmmm … not sure about the full extent of Stapley’s understanding, but Jonathan definitely has the quotes from “Teaching of the Prophet” and “History of the Church” going. That’s what I’m talking about.

I for one was born into the church in 1966 and raised though 1978 with the understanding that the church’s position on the races was god’s position. BRM did say what you present, but not to the church as a whole and certainly not to the world … I believe it was before a group of LDS educators — and the church has not repented of this racism before the world where the wrong was done.

And my honest belief is that it never will, ’cause really — this would mean the repudiation of more than a few rogue statements of men, it would mean admitting that parts of the Book of Mormon are doctrinally unsound.

Perhaps they will do it, but that day will be one where the virtue of Mormonism’s claim to divine authorship will be greatly diminished.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6455 2008-02-01T09:27:01Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Seth R.]]> http://www.nine-moons.com My own pet theory is that the “curse of blackness” spoken of in the BoM is simply due to the fact that the Lamanites intermarried with other indigenous peoples already in the neighborhood. That explains the skin color change.

View this in light of the Law of Moses’ prohibition on Israelites marrying non-Israelites, and it’s fairly easy to see why Nephi, Jacob, Mormon and others would have viewed the skin color change as a curse. I also wouldn’t put it past God to take advantage of the natural prejudices of the Nephites to encourage them to avoid intermarrying with the Lamanites and adopting idolatrous practices.

Pure speculation, but still fun.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6457 2008-02-01T10:10:48Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ Repentance is an apt description of what needs to happen in this case. It seems that the church (speaking collectively and not individually) still struggles with the first step of repentance: feeling godly sorrow for its racist past.

I am sympathetic to the dilemma this puts LDS members in that mel mentioned. If the church repents, it first has to confess that its leadership was wrong on the issue and admit in humility that Wilford Woodruff was erred when he said:

“…the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the program. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so he will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.” (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, pp. 212–13 as quoted in Gospel Principles, Chapter 9)

In other words, they would have to admit that an LDS Prophet can indeed lead his people astray. If the LDS church admitted this, it would have gone a long way to divesting itself of pride.

Seth, I would suggest reading the full text of Joseph Smith’s letter to Oliver Cowdery. It seems that Elder Stapley is more familiar with Joseph’s statements on this issue than I am. Having said that, Joseph did change his views later in life, and I don’t know what source Stapley has for Joseph wanting to ship freed slaves back to Africa.

In the BCC post you linked to, I thought the phrase “false beliefs regarding civil rights” was interesting. Actually, Elder Stapley’s views were correct doctrine by all accounts.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6458 2008-02-01T10:24:57Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Lincoln Cannon]]> http://transfigurism.org Jonathan, perhaps Woodruff (and other LDS Church leaders that stated similar ideas) was correct, and perhaps we, as members, are also removed out of our place to the extent that we follow leaders that are removed out of their place. In any case, I don’t think any of this is merely black and white — neither individual leaders nor the general membership are entirely saintly or entirely apostate. We are, each and all of us, removed from the glory of God to the extent that we behave in a manner incongruent with such glory. That’s just a simple matter of practical faith.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6459 2008-02-01T10:51:39Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ I don’t see this issue in black and white, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m demonizing anyone. I’m sure Elder Stapley was generally a nice guy when he wasn’t stating his opinions about race relations. Admitting that the Mormon people have been led astray by their leaders isn’t about asserting that the leadership is evil, just human, always human—even when the leaders are acting in their roles in the church. That’s a far cry from making them look like devils, but it is a step down from the pedestal of godlike status that they currently enjoy.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6467 2008-02-02T05:39:35Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Kullervo]]> http://byzantium.wordpress.com I’m actully writing a paper on Mormonism and the Civil Rights movement this semester.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6469 2008-02-02T06:40:19Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ I hope you post your paper somewhere. I’d be interested to read it.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6470 2008-02-02T06:56:28Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Seth R.]]> http://www.nine-moons.com Sounds interesting Kullervo. Next time you’re in the law library and are flush with free time, I wrote a casenote in Volume 4, Number 2 (2004) of Wyoming Law Review on First Amendment law and the LDS Church’s fight with protesters over the Main Street Plaza.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6471 2008-02-02T14:30:11Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Kullervo]]> http://byzantium.wordpress.com Who needs the library with Westlaw and HeinOnline..?

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6473 2008-02-02T17:26:02Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Seth R.]]> http://www.nine-moons.com What’s HeinOnline?

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6476 2008-02-02T23:13:41Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Anonymous]]> Does this mean that the white ass Americans (collectively and not individually) still have repenting to do for the way they treated black man throughout it’s history?

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6480 2008-02-03T08:14:34Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Kullervo]]> http://byzantium.wordpress.com HeinOnline is a pretty sweet database of a bajillion law journals in .pdf format.

And yes, “white ass Americans” most definitely still have some repenting to do.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6484 2008-02-03T15:01:56Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ To some degree I agree that white America has some repenting to do. I don’t believe in guilt for the fathers’ sins falling on their children, but we do inherent an unjust system. We need to repent in the sense that we need to make our community just, beginning with our own attitudes. In the Mormon case, promoting justice requires that we acknowledge Mormon doctrines of the past as the product of purely human racism, not divine dictates.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6497 2008-02-04T11:18:18Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Stephen Merino]]> http://reasonandreverence.blogspot.com I agree that Mormons should be more reflective and apologetic about their racist past. But don’t judge early Mormons too harshly. They are largely a product of their times and inherited views that were widely shared.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6498 2008-02-04T12:05:15Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ I’m OK with accepting the early Mormons as human with all their faults. I think some LDS have a problem accepting them as such. :)

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6502 2008-02-04T13:15:35Z <![CDATA[Comment by: dpc]]> http://theuttermeaninglessnessofeverything.blogspot.com/ I always like the posts that are imbued with a lot of white guilt. Only in America, I suppose. It’s always easy to point the finger at the people that need to start repenting.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6507 2008-02-04T15:52:34Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ “White guilt” tastes like “homophobia” to me: gratuitous and pejorative. I search myself for feelings of guilt that would bias my perception of Mormon doctrine, and I can’t find any. My views on this issue instead seem to me to be based on a growing empathy for and identification with those who get the raw end of racism.

Besides, if we can’t point out behavior and beliefs that we think hurt our community, then why bother living on the same planet together? :)

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6516 2008-02-05T08:57:55Z <![CDATA[Comment by: mel]]> http://mattelggren.blogspot.com J wrote: “I think some LDS have a problem accepting them as such.”

Precisely the point as I see it. How can you repent if you won’t even admit that your past consists entirely of human failing?

And Jonathan makes this point in a much friendlier way but a shorter dpc is “STFU unless you’re perfect”. Sounds like a great approach to progress …

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6517 2008-02-05T10:06:29Z <![CDATA[Comment by: dpc]]> http://theuttermeaninglessnessofeverything.blogspot.com/ “My views on this issue instead seem to me to be based on a growing empathy for and identification with those who get the raw end of racism.”

Where do you live exactly? Down here in the South, you still see a lot of racism and segregation, on both sides. And compared to some parts of the world it is very tame. Most people who write about racism haven’t seem it first hand or haven’t experienced it first hand. The African-American population down here has more important things to worry about what some member of a podunk church said forty years ago in a private letter. I’ve been to some other congregations down here and I’ve found that some churches remain quite segregated, whereas the Mormon church was more racially-mixed, especially in the little branch I used to attend.

I think the best solution to problems of race come from ignoring it. It should be made illegal to ask questions regarding race on documents and forms. That is what foments racism and race-identity. It doesn’t make sense to me to classify a person from South Asia (who is from a physical anthropology standpoint, Caucasoid and more closely related to Europeans) in the same category as a person from East Asia or Southeast Asia. Race is arbitrary. It’s not a real category.

The complaint to my ears is that the Mormon church was racist and that they haven’t gone far enough to right that wrong. Maybe an apology doesn’t cut it. Maybe the church should pay money to every person who was denied the priesthood. Maybe Delbert Stapley’s descendants should have to make reparations to those harmed by his insensitive remarks. Apologies are meaningless. Did it make one iota of difference to anyone that Pope John Paul II apologized for the Catholic church’s actions in the Middle Ages? The time and effort is better directed elsewhere. As Thoreau aptly said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

The best way to end racism is to simply stop discriminating based on race. It consists of more than pointing the finger at times past and saying, “I wouldn’t do that if I was there. I’m enlightened.” It comes from deep reflection and introspection on your own attitudes and prejudices. It does not come from words, it comes from actions.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-6520 2008-02-05T13:57:23Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ dpc,

I think we largely agree. If you heard in my words a request for reparations, then I haven’t communicated well enough. I’m not asking anyone to make reparations.

Apologies aren’t meaningless or useless. Not only do they smooth relations between people, they also transform the apologizer. In this context, an official repudiation of and apology for misguided racist doctrines of the past may make a few people of African descent feel better about the LDS church; more importantly, it would grant members of the LDS church full permission to root out racism in themselves.

I don’t think that most LDS are outright bigots. Instead they may say to themselves “I think racism is generally bad, but prophets of God taught racist doctrines. Racism most be OK on some level, otherwise God wouldn’t have prescribed it.” This is something that an apology could heal. Then mainstream LDS could denounce racism unequivocally (at the cost of their belief that all presidents of the church never led anyone astray).

I freely admit that, if I had been born into the same world as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Delbert Stapely, I probably would have been just as racist. There is a precedent. I don’t want to blame early Mormon leaders as much as I hope that current Mormons will repudiate the racist ideas of the past.

I share your hope for a race-less world where race doesn’t exist as a category. I don’t believe we can get there from here by ignoring it completely. We have to address these racist doctrines in order to root them out, to get beyond them. I guess another option is to try to forget it ever happened, but that seems less honest.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-7942 2008-06-20T08:22:46Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Anonymous]]> I am grieved to discover the true opinions of JS and others on this matter,and feel they are indefensible,but have long suspected them to be such.
I cannot imagine a church where temple sealings are denied to my brothers and sisters on the basis of race.Having been given access to this document,I would very much appreciate someone pointing out other documentation supporting the idea of JS evolving the views which led to the more liberal actions taken later in his life.

Perhaps his views were more likely to lead to evolution rather than revolution?Was this perhaps the point?Really struggling to get my head round this.How did we get from there to the twelve praying on the matter in the temple?I can only assume that the spirit works on our souls over time.
One thing I reflect on-in my 30 years in the church I’ve seen many changes,and they have all been for the better.Funny how you can still know the church is true in the face of such distressing information.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-7945 2008-06-20T08:57:33Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ Anonymous,

You bring out a good point. Stapley was an apostle at the time of Official Declaration 2. He apparently sustained that action from a hospital bed:

Like those of the LDS Church, Stapley’s views changed with time and, from his hospital bed, Stapley sustained the First Presidency’s action on June 8, 1978 that all worthy men receive the priesthood, regardless of race.

Joseph Smith’s ideas seemed to evolve though I wouldn’t ever call him sympathetic to enslaved Africans.

I think the takeaway message here is that Mormon church leaders are not immune to the prejudices and follies of their time. Their understanding evolves over time just like the understanding of all mankind. They and the doctrines that they teach are not infallible and shouldn’t be treated as the unimpeachable end of all discussion on a topic. We are each still responsible for our own actions because the Mormon prophets aren’t a sure guide. (I wish they were; it would make life so much simpler.)

Follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet,
He knows the way.
(Except when he doesn’t so don’t follow him too closely. Results may vary.)

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-8073 2008-06-29T07:37:02Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Anonymous]]> Thankyou Jonathan for your time and trouble,this has been useful to me.
Can anyone comment on the fact tht one of the Saviour’s NT apostles was known as Simon the Canaanite?It seems an interesting possibility to me that he may have been a black man.

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http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/2008/01/31/to-george-with-love/comment-page-1/#comment-8074 2008-06-29T11:52:48Z <![CDATA[Comment by: Jonathan Blake]]> http://www.blakeclan.org/jon/greenoasis/ I looked up the word translated as “Canaanite” in Strong’s Concordance, and it seems to be either a surname meaning a resident of Cana—a town in Galilee, or meaning “zealous” (as in “Simon Zelotes“). The NIV translates his name as “Simon the Zealot”.

I think the impression that the Canaanites were descended from Africans (aren’t we all?) comes from Abraham 1:21–22. This seems to confuse who the Canaanites were.

In any case, Simon’s name seems to have almost zero chance of meaning that he was African in descent.

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