I was raised to be RACIST

pewsitter April 2013

As a child we spent most of lives influenced by church doctrines. There was no internet and the books we had access to were written by the church. We had to relied on Church Authorities and CES to provide us with the truth. We had access to Mormon Doctrine and of course the book Moses and the book of abraham.

One of the very pretty blonde haired girls in our ward started dating a boy from the Mexican Ward and they started getting pretty serious.

Our Bishop called the girl and her parents into his office and open his scriptures to those wonderful scriptures in the book of abraham and the book of moses and explained to the girl and her parents about the Lamanite curse and how if she married this boy and had children by him that all of her descendants forever would have the Lamanite curse of dark skin and would not be blessed as she was being white.

Her parents of course followed their church leader and required her to break up with her boyfriend simply because he was a Mexican.

The Bishop came to our early morning seminary class and used his scriptures to explain the curse of not marrying another white person.

It was tough to go from being RACIST to loving my black great niece and nephews. It is so sad they are LDS.

THANK YOU LDS CULT for teaching me to be RACIST.

jbug
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I was taught by the LDS cult that God was a white man. I was taught that they were the superior race and a dark skin meant you weren't as good before birth. I was a convert and not raised as a racist and these things made me feel uncomfortable and I sort of tried not to think too hard. I thought that SURELY in God's eyes we were all the same.They had lots of racist teachings back in the 70's, don't know if they teach it now.

Mormons were quite a racist cult back then.I wish I had thought more about it and maybe I could have left the cult I had joined and maybe saved myself from decades more misery.

Stray Mutt
It was much more subtle in my family.
It was less distain and more condescending pity for non-white people.

Once the phone company sent a black repairman. After he'd left, Mom commented, "My, he was a handsome man. Imagine how handsome he'd be if he was white."

On my mission to the Lamanites, which included some very attractive young women, I wrote home asking hypothetically, "How would you feel about me marrying an Indian woman?" Dad's response was a delicately worded thing about how the brethren encourage us to marry within our own ethnic and socioeconomic group.

And my parents didn't know what to think when a nephew and wife adopted a non-white child. They came around, though. "He's such a cute little sweetheart," Mom said. I thought, "Hmmm, maybe he'll grow up to be the kind of guy who'd be even more handsome if he was white."

albertasaurus
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
Very true. I was born in 78 and I still noticed a lot of the lingering racism. It's still there but now they hide it. It is right in their scriptures after all

Itzpapalotl
I come from a racially mixed background
I'm still not sure why my lily-white mother (who is uber TBM and believed all the really weird doctrine, I mean folklore) married my very brown Latino and Dine father. And this was back in the 60s when the teachings were not under wraps.
Tupperwhere
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I married a Lamanite. My LDS church status suddenly went through the roof

Bradley
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I see a trend. Whatever prejudice a society has, scriptures will be used to justify it. The problem with the cult is that it closes the mind.

rationalguy
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I was born in 1950. Imagine if you will, your experiences about three times worse.... Everyone said the N word without the least shame.

Mormon Observer
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I put this quote on another thread but it belongs here too.

I thought my FILs cousin was nuts when she told me at a family reunion that if you ever sin and don't repent your skin will turn black. Then I found this referrence....

I feel to bless this people, and they are a God-blessed people. Look at them, and see the difference from their condition a few years ago! Brethren who have been on missions, can you see any difference in this people from the time you went away until your return? [Voices: "Yes."] You can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil (Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young, October 7, 1857, vol. 5, p. 332).

So if you have turned black and wrinkly, grey haired and you are over sixty you must be an apostate!!!!!

Also the Devil is black, wrinkly and grey haired....gee the live session Devil at the Idaho Falls temple had white hair...????? Hmmmmmmmm

Beth
Diné? Too cool.
I dated a gorgeous Yaqi. Too bad he was insane. If you know Yvonne Yazzie (or even if you don't), shoot me an email -- my address is public.

Yeah, the whole religion is fundamentally based on racism. But for the NDNs...

Pewsitter, thank you for addressing this issue. It used to be The Huge Third Rail here.

jl
So very true.... 

darth jesus
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
yeah i know it sucks what they taught you and what you were brought up like that.

BUT...the good thing is that now you are out of the cult, you acknowledged that you were being used, and now you are free.

cheer up. we've all been angry at the cult for one thing or another. in the end, it's really up to us what to believe in.

Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I've heard older Morgbots say things like, "Oh, we never discriminate. We just prefer. There's nothing wrong with that."

And they would have this strange smile on their faces, while saying this, that seems to tell you, "See how smart we are? We've found a way to get around it."

breedumyung
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
My TBM brother married a Lamanite from El Salvador...

Parents tried to talk him outta marrying her.

I married a Lamanite 9 years ago.

My TBM aunt and cuz (mother daughter) called me from Salt Lake and told me not to marry her.

I wasn't even in the Cult...

The racism runs deeeeeeeeeeeep in the Cult...

Itzpapalotl
Yuppers...He wasn't raised on the Rez
But it was very common for the Spanish and French to marry Native women in this area.

My middle sister seems to have acquired all the Dine blood in our family, cause my other siblings and me don't look very Native, lol.

Once More
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
From what I can tell, overt racism within mormon culture has diminished, but covert racism thrives.

This is in line with the usual mormon modus operandi, don't actually change nor become more enlightened, but do get better at hiding your stupidity and intolerance.

realist
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
Yeah, growing up in the 70's in Orange County, we were specifically taught that we should only marry within our own race.
Drives me crazy when members today will deny stuff like this happened.
Charley
Re: I was raised to be RACIST
I remember the SP telling us at conference that we should only marry our own race. Not that other races were inferior mind you but that we should keep our blood "pure".

For some reason that talk didn't go over too well with a bunch of Hispanic investigators who promptly left and never returned.

I also remember a MIA president being released because she let her daughter date a Mexican boy. I also knew a girl who killed herself because her parents didn't approve of her Mexican boyfriend.

So much crap from a supposedly non-racist church.

"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"