In another thread, RfM poster “generationofvipers” wrote the following that pained me to the core:

"My wife has studied the manual on Ezra Taft Benson this year and read all the Sherry Dew crap about him. But as she was looking into his life, she came across this image, with the name of the supposed 'apostle of Jesus Christ' proudly written across the top:

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/03/TheBlackHammer.jpg


“This one image was infinitely more disturbing to her than all the history and doctrinal points I've ever mentioned to her. She was especially horrified by the exaggerated features and the bloody severed head. We had a good talk afterward, very open and frank. No major breakthroughs but a very open discussion on both sides.”

(“The Picture That Might Break My Wife's Shelf," by “generationofvipers,” on “Recovery from Mormonism” discussion board,” 3 February 2015, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1504151,1504151#msg-1504151


While the sins of my fathers aren't on my head, the desire to apologize to others for those sins is in my head and in my heart. So, I'm going with both. Somebody needs to. My grandfather isn't around to confess his White supremacist wrongdoings and to ask for forgiveness. I'm his oldest grandkid. In his behalf and in behalf of all the people he hurt and hobbled with his hate, I'll do the asking for forgiveness for the Bensons' bigoted non-prophet patriarch of so-called "white-and-delightsome" Mormon racial purity. Besides, nobody else in the clan seems willing to--at least not at this point, I've simply decided that it's up to me to do what's right by acknowledging and apologizing for this blight of Mormon white-makes-right. It's time to stand up and condemn this diabolical disease of racism from within the Benson family circle, as a long overdue act of contrition for the words of a man who is dead and who probably never would have been willing to admit that he was deeply and horribly wrong. Benson family PR be damned.
_____


--Bigoted Ezra Taft Benson and That Bigoted Mormon-Praised Book

This gawd-awful book with its screaming White Supremacist title smeared across the top of its vomit-inducing racist cover--“THE BLACK HAMMER: A STUDY OF BLACK POWER, RED INFLUENCE AND WHITE ALTERNATIVES"--contains a foreword authored by my racist grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson It represesnts a nauseating reminder of historic Mormonism's track record of "prophet-revealed" racism. It forever remains a disturbing and revolting image that today's mop-up crews for the LDS Church don't want anyone to see, ever.

Yet, incomprehensively, there are Mormons today who vainly seek to rationalize away Ezra Taft Benson's racist views--as epitimized by that racist book, “Black Hammer”--even while reluctantly admitting that he harbored "problematic" attitudes toward Blacks. Ya think?? On a website dealing with his life and times, one Mormon poster struggles (quite ineffectively, as the record will show) to defend my grandfather's stridently racist views by striving to minimize them, while at the same time accusing me of evidencing a bad attitude when it comes to laying out the actual historical record. This apologist starts out potentially promisingly, but quickly turns defensive in robotically rationalizing the morally indefensible (corrected for misspellings):

“[It's] [h]ard to believe that such a 'respected' religious leader would write the foreword to a book like this.” The poster's pathetically out-of-touch response?: A simple shrug and an “Ugh.” Despite such graphic evidence, he proceedds to dismiss the Ezra Taft Benson-endorsed book as proof of racism on Ezra Taft Benson's part:

“Regardless of the shock value of the cover, the text of the foreward seems to be unavailable anywhere. A cursory search for the above shows that the person making the biggest deal of this was Benson's grandson, Steve Benson--who (reading his other writings) seems to have quite the chip on his shoulder regarding his grandfather. He advertises his stance against the LDS Church and just about anything associated with it. I don't think this trivia rises to the level of inclusion in this article. To illuminate: When reading the old quotes of E.T. Benson as noted by by Steve Benson, it quickly becomes clear that most (if not all) of these statements are taken out of context and pieced together for a more inflammatory effect. The bulk of them come from a talk given in 1967. When read more critically than a cursory glance looking for buzzwords, you see that the talk is more about communists than black people. In that very talk, E.T. Benson qualifies his statements thus:

"'First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder. Not one in a thousand Americans-black or white-really understands the full implications of today's civil rights agitation. The planning, direction, and leadership come from the Communists, and most of those are white men who fully intend to destroy America by spilling Negro blood, rather than their own.'

“While not very PC language, the intent is obviously *not* advocating violence against African-Americans. E.T. Benson was a noted anti-Communist and in the 1950s and 1960s, such conspiracy theories abounded at every level of society and government; And he uses the vocabulary of that time to express his views. But using today's PC-paintbrush to color him as a racist isn't clearly representing the person. And throwing trivial (out-of-context) factoids out there doesn't do justice, or give perspective."

(“Talk: Ezra Taft Benson,” at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AEzra_Taft_Benson)


This abject excuse-maker for mind-boggling white Mormon madness doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Sadly, some members of my own family have come to Ezra Taft Benson's indefensible defense when confronted with his undeniably racist attitudes, employing the argument that he was, like everyone else, an imperfect human product of his times and, therefore, it should not be surprising that he harbored racist sentiments. I find this kind of “logic” to be bizarrely curious, completely unpersuasive and simply intolerable, since the unavoidable conclusion follows that if Ezra Taft Benson was a genuine prophet of God expressing God's divine will, then the Mormon God himself is a racist. (Perhaps this also means, in the mind of a true-blue LDS defender, that this Mormon God is also a product of His racist times and thus can't be faulted for His unholy bigotry).

If, on the other hand, Ezra Taft Benson was "speaking only as a man" and not as a heaven-inspired prophet of the LOrd on High, then what is the point of having a prophet to convey God's divine plan of action from the pulpit when what this "prophet" does is merely speak humanly like every other mortal? Additionally problematical for Mormonism's true believers, if Ezra Taft Benson was merely expressing his personal racist views and not the mind and will of God, then, according to Mormon doctrine, God would not have allowed him to lead the Mormon Church astray as one of its specially-designated "prophets, seers and revelators." Yet, he survived to age 94 and never repudiated his racist views. Attempts to grant him an undeserved pass on his racial prejudice by insisting that he was merely a product of his racist era in a society where prejudice and bigotry against Blacks was common and accepted is an essential admission that:

a) Ezra Taft Benson was an uninspired, high-ranking, racist leader of the Mormon Church;

b) the Mormon God was Himself a racist; and

c) the Mormon God tolerated/condoned contemporary societal racism by allowing His "prophets, seers and revelators" to spew bigoted racial hate without divinely intervening to stop it.

And please don't give me the "we-don't-fully understand-God's-will-and-purposes" line. I know racism when I see it and Mormon scripture and teaching is full of it, so to speak. Such desperation pretezeled positioning in defense of rank racism is not only absurd; it is unprincipled--and I have told my family that when some of them have resorted to such fallbacks.
_____


--Ezra Taft Benson's History of Anti-Black Racism

I submit that Ezra Taft Benson remained in good standing within Mormon Church highest leadership circles for as long as he did precisely because he loyally and unquestioningly towed the LDS party line--a line which included (and still does) in the canonized "sacred" writ of the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price) God-commanded devotion to racial discrimination based on skin-color punishment imposed for supposed wickedness.

In this context, it is entirely appropriate--and absoluteley necessary--to lay out the historical record, so that Ezra Taft Benson's attitudes and actions on the racism's toxic front can be seen for what it was and is, within the larger view of his life in service to Mormonism.

Warning: The picture isn't a pretty one.

(see "ETB vs. MLK--Mormonism's Prophet, Seer and Race-baiter [3 Parts],” by Steve Benson, “Recovery from Mormonism” discussion board, 20 January 2014, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1142572,1142572#msg-1142572)
_____


--But Back to That Bigoted Book

Viewing its revolting cover reminds me of when I first came across it several years ago. The book's front is emblazoned with its capitalized title, "THE BLACK HAMMER: A STUDY OF BLACK POWER, RED INFLUENCE AND WHITE ALTERNATIVES." Here's the first inkling of its clear Mormon Church connection: The book is dedicated to "all the Elders of the California North Mission for their interest and prayers" and warns of "well-defined plans for the establishment of a Negro Soviet dictatorship in the South."

The book's foreword features a condensed version of my grandfather's fiery anti-communism 1967 speech, "Trade and Treason," which was reprinted in the booklet with my grandfather’s permission, as indicated by the book's authors expressing gratitude for the fact that Ezra Taft Benson "has generously offered this address as the basis for the introductory remarks to 'The Black Hammer.'" In addition, his name, "THE HON. EZRA TAFT BENSON," is prominently displayed on the top of the booklet's front cover. Additionally, the same address has been entered into the "Congressional Record" by the notorious segregationist senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond.

One observer described the book's sordid history as follows:

"Now we go back in time to 1967, when Ezra Taft Benson thought about running for President of the USA. Thousands of promotional packets were sent out.

"In 1967, the infamous 'Black Hammer' book was published. The full title was: 'BLACK HAMMER: A STUDY OF BLACK POWER, RED INFLUENCE AND WHITE ALTERNATIVES, FOREWARD BY THE HONORABLE EZRA TAFT BENSON.' Benson's foreword discussed the Civil Rights movement as a Communist program for revolution in America. Benson praised segregationist theories of Hargis and others. The cover of this racist book featured the decapitated and bleeding head of an African-American man.

"As a result of the 'Black Hammer' and his popularity in the Birch Society, Benson tried to link up with George Wallace, a Southern segregationist (and well-known 'racist') who declared his bid for the presidency in February 1968. Benson flew to Alabama to discuss Wallace's candidacy and promote himself as a possible running mate. Wallace sent a letter to President McKay in February requesting that Apostle Benson be allowed to be the vic-Presidential candidate in Wallace's third-party bid. McKay refused and sent a denial letter to Wallace."

(see Ezra Taft Benson, “Trade and Treason,” foreword of "THE BLACK HAMMER: A STUDY OF BLACK POWER, RED INFLUENCE AND WHITE ALTERNATIVES," by Wes Andrews and Clyde Dalton [Oakland, California: Desco Press, 1967], pp. 13-23; D. Michael Quinn, "The Mormon Hierachy: Extensions of Power" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books,1997] pp. 98-99; Quinn, "Prelude to the National “Defense of Marriage” Campaign: Civil Discrimination Against Feared or Despised Minorities," in "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought," Vol. 33, No. 3, Fall 2000, pp. 34-35, at: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/issues/V33N03.pdf; and "Benson Brown and King--Power Struggles of a Prophet," by "bigcat_10@yahoo.com," 24 April 2001, at http://www.salamandersociety.com/foyer/prophets/ezrataftbenson )


Returning again to the book's bigoted cover: As noted, it depicts the thick-lipped, low-browed, severed, blood-oozing head of a Black man superimposed upon the symbol of the Communist hammer and sickle.

Historian D. Michael Quinn describes the cover in all its grotesque detail and reports on how Ezra Taft Benson's endorsement wound up further soiling its already filthy pages:

"In 1967, Apostle Benson . . . approved the use of one of his talks as the forward to the overtly racist book 'Black Hammer,' which featured the decapitated (and profusely bleeding) head of an African-American male on its cover. Subtitled 'White Alternatives,' this book warned about the "well-defined plans for the establishment of a Negro Soviet dictatorship in the South." In 1968, Apostle Benson also instructed BYU students about 'black Marxists'and 'the Communists and their Black Power fanatics.'"

As another commentator notes:

"It is a strange legacy that we inherit from a [Mormon] Church leader [Ezra Taft Bneson], who denounced the Civil Rights Movement. Can somebody please post some quotes to cheer me up?

“'LOGAN, UTAH--Former Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson charged Friday night that the civil-rights movement in the South had been "formatted almost entirely by the Communists." Elder Benson, a member of the Council of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a public meeting here that the whole civil-rights movement was ‘phony.'” ("Deseret News," 14 December 1963)

“'The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. While it can be thwarted in a fairly short period of time merely by sufficient exposure, the evil effects of what has already been accomplished cannot be removed overnight. The animosities, the hatred, the extension of government control into our daily lives–all this will take time to repair. The already-inflicted wounds will be slow to heal.

"'First of all, we must not place blame on the Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder. Not one in a thousand Americans–black or white–really understands the full implications of today’s civil-rights agitation. The planning, direction, and leadership come from the Communists, and most of those are white men who fully intend to destroy America by spilling Negro blood, rather than their own.

"'Next, we must not participate in any so-called "blacklash" activity which might tend to further intensify inter-racial friction. Anti-Negro vigilante action, or mob action, of any kind fits perfectly into the Communist plan. This is one of the best ways to force the decent Negro into cooperating with militant Negro groups. The Communists are just as anxious to spearhead such anti-Negro actions as they are to organize demonstrations that are calculated to irritate white people.

"'We must insist that duly authorized legislative investigating committees launch an even more exhaustive study and expose the degree to which secret Communists have penetrated into the civil rights movement. The same needs to be done with militant anti-Negro groups. This is an effective way for the American people of both races to find out who are the false leaders among them.” (Ezra Taft Benson, "General Conference Report," October 1967; cited on "Mormon Worker" website, at; https://themormonworker.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/ezra-taft-benson-and-mlk/)


Here's more on the connection between Ezra Taft Benson and the racially-biased "Black Hammer" book:

"Alexander Zaitchik describes the book in his recent piece for the Southern Poverty Law Center on [Mormon Glenn] Beck's espousal of [close Mormon friend and associate of Ezra Taft Benson, W. Cleon] Skousen:

"'Benson was . . . an advocate for Bircher-style conspiracy theories. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he saw the hand of Communism in every social welfare policy and fought them as both immoral and unconstitutional. A rabid foe of the Civil Rights movement, Benson . . . allowed one of his anti-civil rights talks to be reprinted as the introduction to a book of race hate called 'Black Hammer: A Study of Black Power, Red Influence, and White Alternatives.' The book's cover featured the severed, bloody head of an African American."

("Glenn Beck Is Still In Denial About Martin Luther King's Progressive Leadership," by David Neiwert, at: http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-beck-still-denial-about-martin)

*********


If you can stomach it, take another look at that brainless, souless book's loathsome cover image and ask yourself: "Is this what so-called Mormon 'prophetic revelation' is all about?--and does it represent anything I would want to be even remotely associated with?"

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/03/TheBlackHammer.jpg


Take a hammer to Mormonism's ungodly, undeniable, unacceptable and uncouth history of racism in doctrine, policy and practice. As ex-Mormons, in particular, we owe it to the family of humanity--past, present and future.

And, again, my deepest apologies for the racist rants of my grandfather. The devil made him do it--the Mormon one. And, besides, standing up as a Benson against the besmirching bigotry that he Mormon God-blessed is simply the right thing to do.



Edited 16 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 10:08PM by steve benson.

http://gawker.com/mark-wahlberg-wants-marky-mark-pardoned-1667672924

Towards this articles conclusion, Wahlberg says: "The more complex answer is that receiving a pardon would be a formal recognition that I am not the same person that I was on the night of April 8, 1988," Wahlberg wrote in the petition." (Kind of boiler-plate statement in probation hearings.)

Can you imagine TSCC saying, "W're not the same we were fifty or a hundred years ago"? "We repent of false doctrine...false revelation...assuming that the cultural racism of our forebears was the Word of God"..."

I am old enough to have heard from people in my Mormon town how the communists were using the negroes to bring down America.

I am young enough to still be hearing people excuse people like ETB, who should have known better as a prophet, because "that's just the way things were back then."

Well it wasn't. It's time to man up Mormon church because your history is truly ugly. If it weren't you wouldn't need a P.R. department and a legion of Apologists, and a Doubt your Doubts program in place.

My family held ETB in high esteem and took his agenda very seriously.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 10:16AM by blueorchid.

As did mine.

The old man never uttered a prayer from 1952 until 1961 without closing with " and bless Elder Benson blah blah..blah".

Funny, after 1961 how I never heard him put in a good word for Stewart Udall, a cabinet member equal in standing to ETB's sacred calling .....and a baptized member of the same damn cult.

Go figure.

Please don't carry that heavy baggage around.

As a girl I would cringe at my father's racist jokes...

He must have been alarmed when blue eyed Jesus didn't meet him when he died.

You aren't responsible for your grandfather's ignorance.

You don't need to apologize for the acts of someone else.
That whole "sins of the fathers" stuff is, of course, nonsense. :)

Why would you apologize for something your grandfather did or said?

. . . somebody needs to. My grandfather's isn't around. I'm his oldest grandkid so, in his behalf and for all the people he hurt and hobbled with his hate, I'll do the apologizing for the Bensons' bigoted non-prophet patriarch of so-called "white-and-delightsome" Mormon racial purity. Besides, nobody else in the clan seems willing to--at least not at this point. While it's true that the sins of my fathers aren't on my head, the desire to apologize to others for those sins is in my head and in my heart. So, I'm going with both.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 12:15PM by steve benson.

Of course that's your choice. After rereading my comment, it sounded like I was chastising you.

You can "make amends" by doing what you're doing -- reporting on and exposing the nastiness of the cult he led, with the idea that preventing others from joining or staying in is a valuable public service.
But you still don't need to apologize :)

. . . the Benson family circle, as a long overdue act of contrition for the words of a man who is dead and who probably never would have been willing to admit that he was deeply and horribly wrong.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 12:19PM by steve benson.

Books like these remind me of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Steve, you are not responsible for the racism of your ancestors but acknowledging that it was wrong is the right thing to do. Future generations will ask "Didn't someone say it wrong? Didn't any one object?" Thank you for being that person.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 11:46AM by anybody.

Entrenched and freely manifested bigotry at the highest and most apparent levels of Mormon leadership (McConkie, Kimball, Smith, Peterson, Young, Benson) are a direct proof that Mormonism and Mormons are not what they claim to be.

Modern prophets in direct consult with a loving God are His properly keyed agents on earth.

These men would not reflect the times or even be the stubborn mules of ancient vulgarities, but would be on the cutting edge of transition and the warriors and casualties of changing a stubborn society with the enlightenment of God.

Regrettably there are minimal if any examples of uneasy behavior and words on this matter. The Quakers were on the forefront of abolition in action where millions of religious and enlightened people lined up against millions of religious and unenlightened people in war where all was risked and often lost to a cause that was and was not theirs, it was only their cause if their religious faith was what they claimed it to be. (Clearly the Civil War was more complicated than slavery, but it was a vehicle of action for those who had faith in a God that abhorred slavery). This was not the Mormon God.

Mormonism has only evidence in actions, words, and doctrinal claims of bigotry.

The recent disavowals that its founding fathers were no more than men of their times is disrespectful to the better men of their times and dismissive of their message, that these men talked with God and listened to God and champion God.

Clearly none of these things are True. A failure to see this now is a failure on the followers of a faith that is not what it claims to be, not on the message that Mormonism is not what it claims to be.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 12:27PM by gentlestrength.

It makes me sick to think I belonged to a group whose leaders had ever said or done half the things I have learned since my defection from TSCC. I take responsibility partly because I remained a believing member for far too long into adulthood. I should have been much more interested in TSCC's background and the stupid stuff they pulled right in front of my face that I just wrote off.

How anyone can hear the racist rants of Brigham Young, Mark Peterson, ETB, and other mormon giants and believe they speak for any creator of mankind is beyond me. To them it seems the mormon god is a little kid playing with his toys. He's made the good guys and the bad guys and they're duking it out on all fronts. These mormon leaders see themselves as the leaders of the good guys and must vanquish the bad guys that god never liked in the first place. He made them the bad guys, for goodness sake! We must fight against them, these mormons believe. Whether it is "Lamanites," black people, or gay people this is the way the mormon brethren treat people who are different than themselves.

Most certainly the words and actions of TSCC's leaders down through the years prove they do not subscribe to the "god is no respecter of persons" idea. They revel in their own ideas that they are the chosen, others are lesser and that's the way god made it. They never, ever think of how the "cursed" feel and struggle under this oppression. Human sympathy has no place in mormondumb. Today, they fight the gay people trying to make sure they cannot marry, and barring that, they'll settle for being able to put them in their place as second class citizens calling it "religious freedom."

Growing up as a mormon, my very mormon mother made certain her children were warned against racism. As little children, she made us watch countless documentaries of the civil rights movement and the holocaust, Roots, and anything else that showed the horrors of racist thinking. I had many nightmares as a kid having been exposed to all this and was duly horrified and disgusted with racism. If one of us said anything smacking of this kind of thinking, we were harshly corrected. Yet, the woman lived as an adult mormon at the very time ETB and Peterson were saying such things! Today, she will not tolerate hearing anything bad about her church or it's leaders. W.T.F??!!

Dang. He even makes the laughably false claim that Woody Guthrie was a Nazi. WTF? During WWII Woody wrote a bunch of songs about going over to kill the fascists and he served in the Merchant Marines. Then he went on to marry a Jewish woman and write many songs about Jewish culture. I know the racist and paranoid anti-commie stuff is worse, but I hate to see Woody put down like that. He was 10 times the man Ezra Benson ever was.

What is the image supposed to represent? I'm sorry - I don't get the reference - why would the cover depict a severed head? I've read through the OP twice and all the responses and don't see any comments on that - sorry if I missed them somewhere. Maybe everybody understands it but me (do you have to be BIC to get it?)

Given what's going on in the world today, the image of the severed head is even more intensely grotesque. A stark illustration that we haven't come very far after all.

I have always instinctively abhorred even the thought of someone who is racist. I think that was taught to us by my parents and as a young child maybe I didn't really understand it but developed the feelings against and the aversion to a person that would harbour such racist sentiments. It seemed to me that they were cruel along with it. I wondered how anyone could love such a person or tolerate their awful views. Too, I often wondered about Nazis and those who would go along with their reign of horror. As a child, I seemed to always think in extremes: racist = KKK; unkind/cruel = Nazi.

I read just recently that (obviously) Nazi men in concentration camps could witness or perpetrate the worst acts imaginable and then go home and kiss their children, love their dogs, cuddle their wives. Talk about compartmentalization. The book I was reading didn't explain how they did that. And so too, I have wondered about racists. Who could love them? Who could tolerate their actions and views? Obviously, their families and supporters. Is it a matter of crowd compartmentalization?

I understand just accepting family members especially, at face value. When I "met" my grandfathers again as a teenager after we left England to move to Canada when I was 3 I didn't ask what they had done in their lives to see if they were "worthy". I just loved them. Living in England, a few generations ago, I got the impression that there were at least hints of racism there. Even now, some members of my family call new citizens/immigrants/refugees "incomers", which I always call them on, saying it sounds like a racist label to me (or at the least, it likely makes newcomers feel unwelcome). But I have mixed race niece/nephews/cousin-in-law as well as two step-nephews and I don't see anybody in at least two generations differentiating between them. I, for one, usually don't even remember the "mixed" or "step" parts of the equations. A big thank you to my parents who strived to bring us up to be fair-minded and egalitarian. It gave me hope too that maybe the world would move further towards that ideal in time.

I remember the first time I read here on RfM that the Mormon Church doctrine and practices were racist. I was actually sick to my stomach. I cried. I yelled. I disbelieved at first. It was hard for me to accept that I could have joined, never mind stayed in, a racist church. I felt as if I had deeply wounded my mixed race niece and nephews. How could I have been a member for three years and not heard, or recognized, about the Mormon racist past, racist leaders, racist doctrines? I had skimmed through the Book of Mormon before I joined but mostly with one major goal in mind: to confirm that there was nothing in it that would contradict the Bible in a major way. I really skipped over the first third. I get bored with long passages of geneaology, names, speeches - I just want action and messages/reflections. The first part I liked was Alma. I noticed the "born again" verses, which reassured me that we were all on the same page (ha!) Obviously, in hindsight much later, I realize that I had a very low threshold for accepting Mormonism at face value and it embarrasses and upsets me. However, I just add it to my life's experiences and try to learn from it. The biggest lesson to me so far is to avoid jumping into anybody else's font, likely for the rest of my life.

People today, in the Internet Age, can ask how anybody sane or marginally intelligent could join the Mormon Church. It is difficult to explain the dearth of information there was in my little corner of Canada before the Net and without church bookstores. I could likely write out the content of the missionary "discussions" on a napkin. I had to cross an international border to find a Mormon bookstore (one did open for a little while at some point in a town nearby in my own area on this side of the border - I bought a lot of FARMS material, thinking it was the scholarly arm of the church. You can guess where that got me. I had not even Clue One what the material was about. I didn't know anything about papyrii, the BoA or even the PoGP. They keep you in the BoM before baptism and of course, once you join they keep you so busy you don't necessarily read the other "scriptures" right away, if at all. I'm a vociferous reader and yet did not read those other three Mormon books. I've written before about how the church had a small library that was only open on Sundays just before SM and was "only for teachers". I could only get my nose in there for 27 seconds a few times, as a Primary teacher, and the only book I ever took out was something by JFS, given to me by the SP, which supposedly would answer all the questions I at last posed to him after a couple of years in the church. "Don't tell anybody I lent you this book", he whispered, even in an empty church, to me. I didn't know if it was because he shouldn't lend me any books or if he shouldn't lend that one in particular. It was full of "deep doctrine" apparently, a term I had heard but which I didn't understand. I was everlastingly on the "milk", a well-used tactic in my ward with investigators and new members. Get 'em dunked and called asap and keep 'em too busy to think.

That actually works - for a while.

I have strayed well away from my original query - what is the significance of the severed head on the cover of the book discussed in the OP? But I guess partly I wanted to explain why I would "join a racist church". The short answer is that, of course, I didn't have a single clue that racism was in the past or present of the church. I, for one, joined largely on a body of my own expectations that ended up, of course, severely clashing with the reality of Mormonism, even without knowing all the problems with it that we frequently discuss here; a big expectation of mine being that "Christians" weren't racist.

Ha. Yeah. I was sheltered. It took a long time to break out of the shell.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 02:44PM by Nightingale.

The "standard view" (if you could call it that) from the far right is sort of like this: Jews control the world. Communism was created and controlled by Jews. The Communist Jews use the blacks. Black leaders are controlled by the Communists. The Communists are using liberal sympathies of decent whites against themselves to undermine white Christian civilisation. Blacks are a menace and they have to be controlled and their Communist run leadership must be culled -- hence the image of cutting the head off of the Negro on the cover with the Hammer and Sickle.

"Jews And Communism"
http://www.saveyourheritage.com/jews_and_communism.htm

"Why Jews Support Black Causes"
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=472

"Martin Luther King's Communist Connections"
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/king_jr-communist.htm

"My Awakening," Chapter 18, "Jews, Communism and Civil Rights" by David Duke
http://www.martinlutherking.org/ma-chapter18.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2015 06:22PM by anybody.

I think that is really cool of you. If only the Mormon church would do the same thing.

I had no idea that ETB was responsible for MC Hammer. Frankly this apology is decades too late.

Right on. I love it.

You seem to be a man of honor and integrity Steve.


Thank you for opening up about the racist thinking


of your grandfather.


I just couldn't help but wonder if you heard all the


racism and grew up with it or what. If you were around

it how do you account for not being a racist now?

You seem like a wonderful person and if you don't want to

discuss your family dynamics I understand.

Just thank you for sharing that.

"ETB vs. MLK--Mormonism's Prophet, Seer and Race-baiter [3 Parts],” by Steve Benson, “Recovery from Mormonism” discussion board, 20 January 2014, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1142572,1142572#msg-1142572



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 10:06PM by steve benson.

Thanks Steve.

You are not being held responsible for your grandfather's bigotry, but thank for this post. We love you Steve.

Thanks Steve! I always enjoy reading your posts- very insightful.

Very interesting thread. I'm curious, Steve, why McKay had the power to stop ETB from being on the ticket with Wallace if he indeed wanted to. Can you explain this to me? It sounds like being in the mob. You can never leave.

Not your fault, Steve.

TSCC:

If something's good, it's "an everlasting truth inspired of God."

If somethings's bad, it's "a product of the times."

So that throws the whole "In this world but not of it" right out the window.


That being said, I'm sure there was a lot of actual soviet and home-grown communist attempts at undermining American society, just as there was a lot of American subterfuge trying to undermine and overthrow the soviet system.