Darron Smith to be on RadioWest on Wed. 11am and 7pm MST

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

you are being inaccurate with your revisionist attack on SWK. He was not perfect, but a simple man, who had the courage to cut against the grain of Church culture and history to seek the permission to reverse the ban.

you can ride your high horse, but it is unbecoming and if you wish to cast yourself as some patron saint, go ahead, whatever floats your boat. I am grateful for SWK's courage, and it was not done at the point of a gun. The world had forgotten our racism at that time.

So SWK was courageous bwcause he asked God for permission to stop practicing racial apartheid in the church he was leading and God said okay. Do you know what that sounds like to the average college educated American? It sounds like kooky racism! Kooky as it gets. I thought this was a place to come for reasoned argument.

The irony is you would apply the word courage to this. They have consistently followed the path of least resistance. Had they not lifted the ban the LDS Church would today be less important than the RLDS. You probably wouldn't be able to be LDS and feed your family if the ban still existed.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

So SWK was courageous bwcause he asked God for permission to stop practicing racial apartheid in the church he was leading and God said okay. Do you know what that sounds like to the average college educated American? It sounds like kooky racism! Kooky as it gets. I thought this was a place to come for reasoned argument.

The irony is you would apply the word courage to this. They have consistently followed the path of least resistance. Had they not lifted the ban the LDS Church would today be less important than the RLDS. You probably wouldn't be able to be LDS and feed your family if the ban still existed.

I must be a kook because I am struggling to see the point you are trying to make. I agree that a formal apology and full, explicit repudiation is in order. But why bash SWK? Are you saying that he just didn't go far enough?

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

So SWK was courageous bwcause he asked God for permission to stop practicing racial apartheid in the church he was leading and God said okay. Do you know what that sounds like to the average college educated American? It sounds like kooky racism! Kooky as it gets. I thought this was a place to come for reasoned argument.

The irony is you would apply the word courage to this. They have consistently followed the path of least resistance. Had they not lifted the ban the LDS Church would today be less important than the RLDS. You probably wouldn't be able to be LDS and feed your family if the ban still existed.

Maybe Waters is right; maybe you are just like Satan.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I must be a kook because I am struggling to see the point you are trying to make. I agree that a formal apology and full, explicit repudiation is in order. But why bash SWK? Are you saying that he just didn't go far enough?

Let me ask you this. How can they possibly make "a formal apology and full, explicit repudiation" as long as they take the position that God is implicated in this? How is that possible? What better exculpation or cover than God? By definition implicating God precludes what you say is in order.

I think the explanation that the ban was lifted because God said it was okay to lift the ban is just plain ugly. Since SWK was the source of that I guess I am sort of bashing him. But more than anything I was attacking Archea's statement that SWK had the "courage" to ask God to lift the ban. I've expressed my contempt for the "revelation" story. More than that, all we've seen is lack of courage. They lifted the ban because they had no choice, now they make no accounting because why? Because of fear. Why else? I guess they fear mass apostasy if they admit the prophet and apostles, even BY, were just plain racist. I see no courage in the whole history of the ban. I see only ignorance and fear.

[myboynoah]

Originally Posted by Solon

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the culmination of many years of effort to secure full rights for all Americans. I agree that it didn't happen overnight. The west, though, was generally more lenient and open than the south towards racial minorities, except in the LDS corridor. I agree that Kimball was a product of his times. The problem lies in the passage's continued inclusion in curricula.

I saw it a month or two ago in a brochure about marriage. I think it was just a re-print of Kimball's talk, so it's not "current" in the sense of being delivered by a contemporaneous GA, but it is "current" to anyone walking through the building who decides to flip through the literature. The talk was right next to a Benson doozie on Mothers in Zion.

Mauss did a study in 1966 that counters your suggestion. According to his findings, the racial attitudes of Mormons in the west, from inside or outside the LDS corridor, tended to follow those of other religious groups in the west. In other words, despite the blatant racist priesthood denial policy, Mormons "were no more likely to give anti-Negro responses than were the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Baptists, and furthermore that the Mormon responses were very nearly the same as the Protestant averages."

Comparing Mormons to Mormons, Mauss found that "the likelihood of expressed anti-Negro attitudes was considerably greater among the poorly educated, the manual occupations, those of rural or smal town origin, and the old--those categories known my sociologists to be prone to prejudice in any denomination." These differences held constant even between "believers" and "doubters."

Since racist attitudes prevailed in certain demographic groups no matter the religion, Mauss concluded that it was impossible to determine whether racist attitudes found in the LDS corridor were due to Mormonism or to the rural small-town nature of the area.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner came out in 1967, only 9 years prior to Kimball's statement. Kirk kissed Uhura on nationwide TV in 1968, only 8 years prior to the statement. That's a short time to expect society's attitudes to make a 180. Jungle Fever came out in 1991, 15 years after the statement. Given the times, Kimball's counsel was probably still relevent for most, given society's distaste for interracial relationships. It's amazing to think how far we have come, even in the past 10-15 years.

As for pamphlets, other than the Joseph Smith Story, I haven't seen one in church for years. We only have pass-along cards.

[myboynoah]

BTW, I sent the email.

[MikeWaters]

I don't know that I see a lot of courage either, but SWK did work tirelessly to change the opinion of the other apostles, so that the change in policy could be made. He didn't pray one day and announce that God had changed His mind. No, it was nothing of the sort. It was coalition building, done in a prayerful manner.

There has been no public accounting of how it happened (to my knowledge) from one of the principals.

The best (and perhaps only full) account is the SWK bio, which I have yet to read.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

He didn't pray one day and announce that God had changed His mind. No, it was nothing of the sort. It was coalition building, done in a prayerful manner.

I recall him essentially telling the papers that he prayed and God revealed to him that he should repeal the ban, as I read it in the Miami Herald, in Quito, Ecuador at about the mid-point of my mission. There was a quotation in the paper in which he described praying about it and receiving some kind of inspiration or revelation or confirmation. He was vague about it of course. Of course the Mormon lore is that he received a "modern revelation" saying it was now okay to repeal the ban. Whatever the truth about what he said back then the lore is damaging.

I think the reason this resonates with me is I was a participant in these events as a young man and I feel a shame about teaching racism.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I am going to publish this FAR and WIDE.

Right. Across the whole of Cougarguard. Heh.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by myboynoah

Mauss did a study in 1966 that counters your suggestion. According to his findings, the racial attitudes of Mormons in the west, from inside or outside the LDS corridor, tended to follow those of other religious groups in the west. In other words, despite the blatant racist priesthood denial policy, Mormons "were no more likely to give anti-Negro responses than were the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Baptists, and furthermore that the Mormon responses were very nearly the same as the Protestant averages."

Comparing Mormons to Mormons, Mauss found that "the likelihood of expressed anti-Negro attitudes was considerably greater among the poorly educated, the manual occupations, those of rural or smal town origin, and the old--those categories known my sociologists to be prone to prejudice in any denomination." These differences held constant even between "believers" and "doubters."

Since racist attitudes prevailed in certain demographic groups no matter the religion, Mauss concluded that it was impossible to determine whether racist attitudes found in the LDS corridor were due to Mormonism or to the rural small-town nature of the area.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner came out in 1967, only 9 years prior to Kimball's statement. Kirk kissed Uhura on nationwide TV in 1968, only 8 years prior to the statement. That's a short time to expect society's attitudes to make a 180. Jungle Fever came out in 1991, 15 years after the statement. Given the times, Kimball's counsel was probably still relevent for most, given society's distaste for interracial relationships. It's amazing to think how far we have come, even in the past 10-15 years.

As for pamphlets, other than the Joseph Smith Story, I haven't seen one in church for years. We only have pass-along cards.

An interesting study, thanks for bringing it up. It definitely makes me re-think my previous post. I don't know how much we can conclude from Mauss' survey of three wards in northern California, though, receiving less than 150 responses. I'd be interested to know what he would have found in Mormon heartland, like Utah or southern Idaho.

You also left this out:

"A comparison of Mormon responses to those of the Catholics and of all Protestants combined, shows that the Mormons are consistently more likely than the Catholics and somewhat more likely than the Protestants to give anti-Negro responses. However, this same conclusion would be true for the Lutheran and Baptist groups represented." (pg. 92).

It should come as no surprise that the responses of Southern Baptists and Missouri Lutherans were more racist towards blacks than LDS responses.

So, Mormons were - according to this small survey - middle-of-the-pack when it came to being racist believers. I fully recognize that it takes time for people to abandon beliefs, but my gripe isn't with the people; it's with the leaders, especially those who continue to propagate this material today.

PS - if anyone's interested, the article is Armand Mauss, "Mormonism and Secular Attitudes Towards Negroes" in The Pacific Sociological Review Vol. 9, No. 2 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 91-99.