This Black Woman's LDS Story

[_Jason Bourne]

Hi GIMR,

I am sorry for you and the bad experiences you had. Wards are different and diverse. Some are much like what you described. Others are not. The ward I live in is mostly loving and kind to any who attend. There are some jerks sure. But maybe because it is a diverse ward full of variuous races-some black, a number of hispanicp-we have quite a growing group of mexicans that do not speak english and we accomadate them evey way we can with tranlators-we even bought a system where the translator can use a wireless system and the spanish speaking member can listen on a head set. We have a sunday school class for those who speak spanish as well. One of our spanish members recently was asked to speak in stake conference too! It was cool. Our ward also ranges from the very poor to middle class with a few upper middle class members though nobody is really wealthy. Maybe you would have liked our ward.

Also, I do not agree that Jesus is takes a back seat. Again, not in my ward.

As for your experience as a black person in the Church I trust yuor feelings. I am not black so I cannot begin to understand what it may have been for you. I hope where you are now brings you joy. You have had a hard life and you deserve joy.

Blessings to you.

[_OUT OF MY MISERY]

Jason goes tothe best church of all...it is perfect and clean and not racist and they give you a dollor when you leave

[Dr. Sunstoned]

yhf

[_Coggins7]

bcspace, you have done a sterling job of handling this thread as the lone (except for Jason) defender of both intellectual integrity and Gospel doctrine on this thread, so kudos.

This particular issue is a real irritant for me, and despite the philosophical fun one can have with it, it grates nonetheless, and not only for the reason that its being used to bash the church.

Let me take a selection of GIMR's posts and comment upon them one at a time, just to through my two or three cents in here, and support what bcspace has already said.
GIMR said:

But before I get into that, let me bear my testimony of what I feel God has done for me today. Firstly, I'm a progressive Christian. I'm also Evangelical, but I hate fundies. I believe that the journey is just as important as the destination, and that the vehicle you're traveling in isn't really worth much.

Loran:

For those who aren't aware, the term “progressive” is code for “leftist”, with all that implies culturally, philosophically, and politically. I just thought that should be clear at the outset. The claim that the vehicle you're traveling in (your life philosophy and the body of beliefs that constitute it) aren't worth very much, yet the journey you're taking, in which the vehicle is a fundamental part (and without which the journey could not even have been conceived), is 'at least as” important as the destination, which also requires the irrelevant “vehicle”, is logically incoherent. This is a mess, to be sure, but I won't belabor the point now.

So for those who want to say I'm crazy, to them I say this: I only pretend to be this way so f*ckers like you will go away and leave me alone. *grin*

Loran:

This indicates a mind not particularly well steeped in either critical thought or in the nuances of civil and productive discourse. But I won't belabor the point now.

I'm going to go ahead and snip the long daytime talk show anecdote about DIMR's utterly dysfunctional personal and family life, an anecdotal maelstrom of which I have no knowledge nor any way of verifying as to its core realities. Clearly, Montel, Jenny Jones, Ricky Lake, Maury Provich, Jerry Springer, and Oprah could share GIMR throughout an entire Fall season without breaking stride. Whatever the truth may or may not be about her family and personal problems, what is of the most interest, whether we want to look at GIMR's ideas through either a psychological or philosophical lens, are the following statements:

The elders knocked on my door and told me that they wanted to give me a message about Jesus. Now, if you know anything about the church, you will know that in most wards, Jesus plays a back seat.

Loran:

This is simple a bald falsehood. This initial comment makes we wonder if GIMR has ever actually been a Mormon or spent any substantial time in an LDS ward as she claims.

But for many TBMs, the fact that His name is in the name of their church, and the fact that they rush over saying things in his name at the end of a talk or half thought out prayer is enough. I ain't even getting into that.

Loran”

More of the same. This isn't the same church I've been in all of my life. I wonder which one it really might be?

I told those boys that "God and I have issues". They, as they were trained to do, feigned interest.

Loran:

We now descend from what appears to be simple disingenuity to something of a darker hue (no pun or anything personal intended GIMR). This kind of malignant cynicism, mixed with the obvious utter ignorance of

1. How missionaries are trained, and

2. What motivations lie in the hearts of any particular one

bode ill for any serious discussion with GIMR about what may be her real issues. Clearly, she's not, at the outset, willing to deal with any degree of intellectual honesty with church culture and philosophy as they stand, and has come to this forum to impugn and defame both the church and the majority of its committed members (including its missionaries), in public. So far, all we have here is an emotional rant empty of any substantive criticism. Let's continue.

So I let them in. I explained to them my dismay with modern religions (as I saw them then), with people being cruel in Christ's name, and with racism in church. They nodded their heads (as they'd been trained to do), and began with the first discussion once they had reeled me in. They told me that the church was the true church, and all the problems I had been having with other churches (including racism) would not be a problem in the LDS church.

And I believed them.

Six weeks later, after taking the discussions, I was baptized.

In the beginning, everything was fine. But once the waters of baptism dried off, I was no longer the celebrity, I was just a regular person. And I began to discover, a person who was only good enough to speak to in church.

My background had taken me down many a sad path. One of them took my virginity. One issue I struggled with was constantly having to sit in relief society and hear about how pure all those women were. Not to mention, none of them had the family problems I did. Either that, or they lied. Fast and testimony meeting was just one big brag fest about one's wonderful cookie-baking family, and one's wonderful capitol hill job. I felt so out of place there. I am related to teenage mothers, uneducated people (as in no high school diploma), drug addicts, and people who have been to jail, including a cousin in jail for attempted murder. These folks weren't going to bring me home period, much less home to mom.

Loran:

Oh, I forgot Dr. Phil in that list above. He might have quite a time with these kind of presenting problems. Again, an ancedote like that above, while possible, isn't very probably, and I say that as one who has done a fair amount of missionary work. I've never met a missionary who would tell somebody that the church has no people who may cause problems in the ward. There are jerks in wards. I've met them. I've known them. I've met some missionaries that shouldn't have been on missions at all in my view. But the sheer small size of the missionary pool who I've ever known or dealt with, and who never would have made claims of this sort, makes GIMR's problem here either one of really bad luck, or of another really transparent “why I left the Mormon church” story with all the usual formatting and standard themes. I'm not exactly sure of which at the moment, or, at least, wasn't until I read:

Fast and testimony meeting was just one big brag fest about one's wonderful cookie-baking family, and one's wonderful capitol hill job

Loran:

I've never been to a single testimony meeting in my entire life that had this cast. Of course, that doesn't mean GIMR hasn't, just that after a lifetime in the church, I've never encountered such a thing. This sounds like Hillary Clinton's or John Kerry's ward (hypothetically, of course).

One other point here, that might be of interest is the statement: My background had taken me down many a sad path. One might expect someone who was really concerned about working through the trauma's and trouble of the past would say something like “The choices I had made had taken me down many a sad path” or, “I made certain decisions that took me down may a sad path”. I sense a tendency toward externalization of responsibility here, locating it in one's background rather than in the choices one made within the context of that background against a range of alternatives. After all, many people have grown up in very poor circumstances but have avoided choices that would have made their lives much worse and then escaped and left that background behind. Background is not destiny.

Then she says:

I felt so out of place there. I am related to teenage mothers, uneducated people (as in no high school diploma), drug addicts, and people who have been to jail, including a cousin in jail for attempted murder. These folks weren't going to bring me home period, much less home to mom.

Loran:

I'm sorry, but regardless of the truth of the demented psychological nature of the majority of the poor sots in your ward, how are teenage mothers, convicted felons, drug addicts, and in general, relating to and surrounding yourself with dysfunctional sociopaths going to 'bring you home”?

I began to get tired of the cultural blandness of the church.

Loran:

Never noticed it, at least not in any significant degree. People in the church come from all walks of life, intellectual, and cultural backgrounds. Maybe you need to get out a little more GIMR?

Don't get me wrong, but nothing but white people.

Loran:

Now why would I ever think such a thing of you?

I was not raised in such an environment. I grew up in an all-white neighborhood, but those people were used to me, and I to them. The white Mormons I dealt with usually didn't know what to do with me. And after a while, the hypocrisy started to shine through. You could tell me that I had a sweet spirit, but you didn't want to get to know that sweet spirit outside of sunday, unless it was within your cultural boundaries.

Loran:

To bad you don't go to church with me here in SC GIMR. Our best friends in our branch are a mixed race couple (he's black and she's of mixed Spanish and Irish extraction) and we love them like our own family. I've been around black people since I was fairly young. In school, in the Martial Arts, at work, in the military, and in later on, in church. I've never had a problem relating to black people, don't seem to have ever had all the hang ups all the white people, to a man and woman it seems, you've ever known have had. Sorry.

The people in my initial ward were so weird. They refused to do anything that was considered "modern" or "secular" top 40s music, any movies other than a G rating, hanging with non-LDS simply to do so...none of this went on. And the stake bragged about their righteousness and temple attendance...and they ate it up.

Loran:

My my, aren't we judgmental? This is truly the “progressive” Christian mental set isn't it? The same self righteous, sanctimonious moral finger pointing and nose snubbing at all the unhip people around you who just can't or won't dig the scene that we see in the secular leftist world. Well, good for them on a few points anyway. Most Top 40 music is unendurable slop and has been for much of my life. I watch movies beyond the G rating but I'm very, very careful now of just what that is, so good for them again.

I used to sing in church a lot, but eventually stopped when I was informed that Gospel music was seen to "take away the spirit" (and if you think I'm lying, go onto FAIR and look at Renee Olson's talk),

Loran:

I found Renee Olsen's talk to by among the most patronizing, paternalistic, and insufferable pieces of racialist passive aggression I've ever read, and, quite frankly, was shocked to see FAIR fail to vet that thing properly. The tone of the talk, speaking down to all white people as if they were children who needed to be told “how” to deal with black people in the church; their mannerisms, language, and music (as if all black people are essentially a lumpen mass without unique, individual members) was at one and the same time both patronizing and so racialist in nature as to be nothing less than obnoxious at certain points. Renee and I clashed repeatedly at the FAIR email list when I was on it, so its no mystery and both you and her would disagree with me. As to music, you really ought to get out more. Try BYU TV. There doing old Negro spirituals all over the place, and I've seen no pumpkins after midnight as of yet.

Onto the race issues:

Loran:

Please...

My mom was quite shocked when I joined the church. As was every black person I encountered of her generation when they found out I was LDS. I didn't know why. My mom's family often said to me, "you joined WHAT church?". I had to repeat myself ad nauseum, I tell you. And I didn't get it at first. I thought mom was on crack when she said the church was against interracial dating, and that they had problems with black people...until I opened my eyes.

Loran:

It was, in general, against interracial dating at one time, and at the time, this was probably very good advice (based as it was on problems that could arise in such relationships, and the effect this could have on future children), especially given that it was based much more on problems of cultural integration between families from different ethnic backgrounds regardless of race. I have no idea what the counsel is at present, although I imagine that, even as the church becomes ever more a worldwide church, interracial marriage will sometimes be OK, and other times, be wisely avoided, not because of skin colour, but because of cultural or psychological dynamics that it may be very difficult to deal with from both sides. Theses are things to consider (as is whether to marry within similar sociocultural, educational, and religious parameters. All things to consider.).

As to black people's general reaction, Larry Elder once remarked that if you want to be physically attacked in South Central LA, just go into a black barber shop and praise Clarance Thomas. The “black community” in America, that is, the indigenous population that grew up in the civil rights era and in the immediate post civil rights era, has a lot on its plate at the present time, and these are things so deeply ingrained in the minds and culture of this population that much of it may have to exit the scene before a new generation of American blacks can throw off the baggage of this era. I'm not talking so much about the disproportionate social pathology in the black community, such as crime, violence, drug use, unwed pregnancy and child bearing,etc., but of the cultural attitudes and dynamics that have animated so much of that pathology, including a pervasive hypersensitivity and hyperconsciousness of race and racial issues, deep seated tendencies toward conspiratorial thinking and acceptance of even the most bizarre conspiracy theories (especially regarding whites and Jews), antisemitism, anti-Asian and anti-White racism, and, perhaps the most important of all, at least from the perspective of the general cultural background in which one is socialized, the mass acceptance and glorification of the culture, language, attitudes, values, clothing and mannerisms of the inner city welfare underclass, or what is otherwise known as Hip Hop culture (and obviosuly, this has affected whites as well).

Hip Hop culture has become virtually synonymous with “authentic blackness”, or with being truly black (“black” here being understood not so much in a genetic sense but more in a political and even metaphysical sense), and until this entire cultural underbrush is cleared, the massively disproportionate social pathologies among black Americans hasn't a chance of of being resolved.

T

he initial shock came when an African man came to our ward. He bore his testimony, and I thought he was cool. Everyone did. But after sacrament, this girl comes up to me and says, "there's someone you can date". I didn't even know what to say to that. But it all started coming together after that.

The single men who would talk to the white woman next to me, but not even meet my gaze half the time. Some of these guys weren't even white! But they weren't black, either.

The fact that my "sistas" in the ward never dated LDS men, and had to look outside the church for love. The few that I know that are still active STILL DO...yet they hang on in misery dreaming of that temple marriage.

Loran:

Well, there you have it GIMR. Who wants to date a “sista”? What young LDS guy wants to date someone who attaches monikers from the inner city ghetto (and the black power movement) to themselves? What else might this say about one's personal values and beliefs?

The "skins of blackness" passages in the Book of Mormon, that I remember trying to justify with friends of color who were LDS.

Loran:

Well, good luck, as this had nothing to do with people of African descent.

Not to mention all that I came across on the internet...including people on ldslinkup.com trying to justify the use of the word "n*gger", just because they'd heard some black people use it. Well I don't, and if you call me that you will get punched. Seriously.

Loran:

Again, the Hip Hop culture. We might also mention bitch, hoe, and any number of other terms used in black pop culture and within the welfare underclass (which seems to have become the frame of reference and source of values, attitudes, and language against which the rest of black America, including the black middle class, is measured).

I would never call you that, and I don't know anybody who would (whom I now know personally) who would, but at the same time, I think this is another example of some things black people can do and say that white people and others can't. Its just not done. The stone cold concrete fence of political correctness simple won't allow it.

I began to be miserable.

Loran:

It appears you were miserable before you entered the church, brought that misery with you into it, and left it with the same. What has changed?

You see, I had joined the church out of the need for a family. And I have that in my new church, but they're human there.

Loran:

Oh. What was the genetic code of those with whom you interacted while you were in the church like? Reptilian? Insectoid? Extraterrestrial?

In the LDS church, I held the dream of the forever family, one that was not going to be like the family I was raised in. After I began to work on my self esteem, I had held to the conviction that I was indeed a good person, even beautiful, and deserving of love. But that never played out in the church. And with every marriage I saw, I became more depressed. Before I finally got my name removed, I would damn near cry every time I saw a woman (who was always white) coming out of the temple in her wedding dress. I knew that would never be me...at least not as a Mormon.

Loran:

Perhaps, but this will have been you're own choice, and no one else's

(home life was awful, stepdad a perv, grooming me for molestation, mom ignoring it for the money

Loran:

This is interesting, as I have been privy to a similar situation involving a close relative and a niece. This was the final straw that ended our relationship, in fact.

Part of me wanted to stay and fight, not because I thought the church was true, but because I thought the racism was unfair. But I knew that I'd be fighting closed minds, and I have better things to do.

Loran:

I'm glad yours is so “open”.

Maybe in a few generations things will change. But I value myself too much to dwell in an institution that does not value me...except in February for a PR stint.

Loran:

Something else that indicates that this whole sad story is just that...a story, or that this person is miserable, always has been, and brougth that misery, anger, rage, guilt, self pity, and frustration into her church experience, which inevitably corrupted it and her relationships with others in it, and led her out of the church to what she perceives as easier and greener pastures.

[_Polygamy Porter]

Loran:

Something else that indicates that this whole sad story is just that...a story, or that this person is miserable, always has been, and brougth that misery, anger, rage, guilt, self pity, and frustration into her church experience, which inevitably corrupted it and her relationships with others in it, and led her out of the church to what she perceives as easier and greener pastures.

Bravo! Put the blame on her for not conforming! Do you finally see that Mormonism not for everyone? It only fits certain personalities.



Bottom line is this is a white man's church.

All non white baptisms are for the sole purpose of keeping the lilly white tithes flowing in from the lilly white asses.

[_Jason Bourne]

Jason goes tothe best church of all...it is perfect and clean and not racist and they give you a dollor when you leave

Hey out of your mind. Shut up unless you can add something worthwhile.

[_Mercury]

The initial shock came when an African man came to our ward. He bore his testimony, and I thought he was cool. Everyone did. But after sacrament, this girl comes up to me and says, "there's someone you can date". I didn't even know what to say to that. But it all started coming together after that.

That's pretty bad. I think it ought to be recognised that racism is not just a "LDS church problem", it's a worldwide problem, and not just towards Africans. Hitler didn't exterminate 6 million Jews because of their skin colour. German Jews were as white as all other Germans. The genocide in Yugoslavia was not based on skin colour either. The Rwandan genocide was not based on skin colour. Where I was born the greatest hatred was not between whites and blacks, but between Indians and Blacks.

The problem with the "black ban" is that it was cultural, not divine. The only solution I see to LDS "institutionalised racism", and there's no doubt that many still cling to the "McConkie definition", is for the church to make a formal apology. McConkie has already said, "we were wrong", but he was not addressing the wrongness of the doctrine, just the timing of when the PH was given to blacks. Armand Mauss has advocated an apology. This is the core of the problem. Until the church repudiates this past "policy", many Mormons will continue to hold to the idea that it's still valid, even if not officially sanctioned, it still has, among many, a kind of defacto acceptance. That's why, most likely, this girl told you that, because this idea is embedded into many by "theologians" like McConkie. Racism is already bad enough without the sanction of God. Tribal and racial hatreds are transferred to "God said it". In all of this, don't forget the man who tried to break these taboos - Spencer W. Kimball. It may be anomalous to current mores, but he, singlehandedly, set the church on a different path, even when it meant contradicting past prophets. What the church needs now is another SWK who will issue that formal apology. I'm sorry to break with the board tradition of condemning and demonising Mormons, if I have, but they are only human, and with that humanity comes all of the prejudices endemic to most. This is something in human nature that we primarily have to address, first and foremost.

No ray, racism is ubiquitous throughout Mormonism in a very patronizing manner. You are misdirecting and deflecting the issue by trying to say that "wveryones racist". No, racism, unlike down under where it was common to eradicate the natives standing against the colonialists is something abhorrent. Racism in the Mormon church is widespread.

[_moksha]

GIMR, I know that avatar is from that play you like. At first glance, she reminded me of Dame Edna. Dame Edna was such a madcap lady.

The Avatar the GIMR is using is from a Diary of a Mad Black Women

I understand precisely why she is using that AVATAR

Dame Edna is nothing like Madea...at least I don't think so.....Madea has no problem spekaing her mind and standing up for the ones she loves...

Dame Edna was no shrinking violet either....

[_OUT OF MY MISERY]

Jason goes tothe best church of all...it is perfect and clean and not racist and they give you a dollor when you leave

Hey out of your mind. Shut up unless you can add something worthwhile.

Well your "CHURCH" is the very best.....you have said that many times..

Add+WORTHWHILE====ADD=====something

[_OUT OF MY MISERY]

GIMR, I know that avatar is from that play you like. At first glance, she reminded me of Dame Edna. Dame Edna was such a madcap lady.

The Avatar the GIMR is using is from a Diary of a Mad Black Women

I understand precisely why she is using that AVATAR

Dame Edna is nothing like Madea...at least I don't think so.....Madea has no problem spekaing her mind and standing up for the ones she loves...

Dame Edna was no shrinking violet either....

Dame Edna was a white man Okay...not black okay you are still missing GIMR's point oh well