It is stated in the BoM that God caused a skin of darkness to
come upon the Lamanites so they wouldn't be "enticing" to the
Nephites.

Why would a simple change in skin color make someone not
"enticing" to someone else? I can see this in terms of American
racism (which, due to slavery, was pervasive when the BoM was
being "translated"), but I don't see this in ancient history
anywhere. As an ancient-history buff I can't recall anything
that assumes that a dark skin color would make someone
un-enticing.

In Mormonism (again reflecting common, American racism) we find
such things published as: "You see some classes of the human
family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, . . . " (Brigham
Young, JoD, 7:290) but I've never seen this or anything like it
in ancient sources.

The "dark-skin = not enticing" idea seems to be another
anachronism that would make perfect sense to Americans in 1830
but would not make sense in ancient times or now. How many
white boys get turned on by Halle Berry?

Moses' wife, Zipporah, was a Cushite--that makes her an African
from south of Egypt. Joseph (who was sold into Egypt) married
an Egyptian woman. Abraham took his wife's Egyptian slave as a
plural wife (or concubine) in order to fulfill God's promise of
a great posterity.

Clearly a dark skin was no problem in the Bible. But in the
Book of Mormon it is just assumed that a dark skin will make it
so that they are not "enticing" to the Nephites.

I know of no ancient source that holds that a dark skin is ugly
or "not enticing."

Hmmmmm.

Cracked dot com to the rescue! This article just appeared today, I think. It talks about how dividing people into separate races started in the 1700's, and was then taken as absolute truth by the winners (Anglo-Saxons- it is obviously God's will). Anyway, read on:

http://www.cracked dot com/article_24591_7-things-you-didnt-realize-humans-recently-invented.html

Ancient Greco-Roman society was extremely class concious but not racist in the modern sense. What we call racism is much more recent:

http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-01.htm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Sheba

https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-status-of-black-people-in-the-Roman-Empire



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2017 04:59AM by anybody.

this is just my thought just now, People see things better when it's not too dark. Light skinned people are easier to see at a distance, but blacks I can't make out their features especially in a darkly lit room.

Humans sense of beauty is likely tied up with how well they can see.

As long as I think of you as an SNL character, then your posts kind of work. Ohhh....poopstone. :)

You're gooood...

Interesting suggestion, D&D

You could be right, but if not...:-/

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2017 04:44PM by Soft Machine.

What's all this about "white" people? I am resolutely pink, verging on red. It comes from being English ;-)

Hoorah for women (and men) of all colours!

Down with all colourism!

Tom in Paris

America is one of the most race concious countries on Earth and many Britons were not used to being asked "what colour are you" by 1950's era American customs officials. So, when once asked this question on a trip to America back then Sir Peter replied "pink." You can imagine how that went over with them.

By this logic, "ugly white people" are especially ugly. We can see 'em better and especially well, right? All it takes is a bit of perspective.

some of my children have beautiful black/brown skin and are the envy of many people. They are gorgeous, and most people tell me that. They have no problem getting dates with any race of people.

My Testimony:

I was raised in the whitest all Mormon county in the middle of the Morridor. I was the kind of TBM youth that kind of makes many of us sick now. I was also desperately trying not to be gay.

When I got my mission call, it was to a South American country and my first thought was literally, "Thank Heavens. I won't be tempted by all that Lamanite blood down there." As you can imagine I was seriously having trouble keeping my eyes off the white boys, nature being what it is and all. So, I figured I could stay really pure and that like for sure, Heavenly Father would turn me straight after I gave it my all on a mission.


Well, to cut to the chase--I had been off the plane about two days, wandering through the streets of a very exotic city, and just had to look around and say to myself, "Uh oh. This is not good. Geez these guys are hot."

Because of that, Heavenly Father never turned me straight. Luckily.

Never been color blind since. I know exactly what color everybody is and I love them all.

Dark-skinned peoples have always been the best-looking. I used to have this argument way back in the 1960s with BYU roommates who called black female singers the worst names possible. If this isn't proof that the Book of Mormon is not God's scripture, I don't know what is.

NOTE: I kind of have to go with what Poopstone says about black people being hard to see at night. In Kinshasa, DR Congo, the people tend to be very black-skinned. In a city of 8 million with no street lights, pedestrians get run down by cars and killed virtually every night. But they are gorgeous people, if we're just talking looks, the envy of most of white America.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2017 06:31AM by cludgie.

Once you figure out that both "beautiful" and "ugly" are subjective, you can toss the original notion.

It sometimes comes as a real shock to "white and delightsome" people that "dark-skinned" people sometimes find THEM "ugly." :)

that girl sitting behind Judge Gorsuch at his interrogation hearings. She may be dark skinned but she ain't ugly

Lol.. I thought the same thing when I watched that. She was beautiful.

http://www.somamagazine.com/site/wp-content/uploads/Soma-_-Icons0379New.jpg


and European whites are the mutations.

Wow, we all used to have dresses like that?
I'm not sure I could ever make that work...:)

Hie, if you'd grown up with that dress from earliest infancy, you'd be totally comfortable with it. And you'd feel really weird if you had to go out without it.

Ever since I was a kid I found darker people more attractive. After the hormones kicked in I was mystified by all the other guys swooning over blue-eyed blondes. But, the dark-haired, dark-eyed, darker-complexion girls? Be still my loins. One of my English teachers somehow sensed this about me. I must have said something. She handed me a D. H. Lawrence book and said, "You'll notice in Lawrence's work that the intelligent, complex women have dark hair and the blondes are shallow."

Audra McDonald.

Irene Bedard.



Plenty enticing.

Dark-hearted people are ugly.

Once in Hawaii, there were an number of Japanese people on the beach. Their skin was paper white. I was taken aback. I had never seen people so white.
Gosh, they were pretty!

Once at In And Out Burger, there was a family who looked Hispanic and sounded Hispanic, but their hair wasn't black--it was smoke color, and even though they had brown skin, they had pink cheeks.
Gosh, they were pretty!

My husband has brown skin and green eyes.
Gosh, he's pretty!

I wouldn't mind looking like Harris Faulkner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2017 10:20PM by kathleen.

One or both of them is the follower of the Lebanese prophet.

This post doesn't make sense now that some of the posts have been deleted.

"This baby is black. It is a dark, ugly thing." -- Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars [R-UT]

My dad was in the world war II generation and never really met a black American until he was in the army air corp in Europe. He always seemed a little bit racist but not as bad as his friends in our white and delightsome mormon town. In the 60s and 70s my father often had to travel with Air Force generals and NASA official to meetings. Once at a very fancy hotel they were waiting in a hotel gift shop to be called to their table and Diana Ross was in line. I'm not exactly sure how it happened but my dad and his friends struck up a conversation with her. When he came home he could not stop talking about how pretty and charming she was. I never heard him use a racial slur or comment about black people after that, almost like he had had a visit from an Angel.

NAH! There are some PRETTY UGLY white people too. I find all races equal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2017 02:58PM by lazylizard.

What I never understood was how come so many bigoted white people who like to throw around the N-word...

...go to tanning parlors!