Comments on: Guest Post: Mitt Romney, Blackness, and Brigham Young, Part II

By: Mandy

Mandy — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:08:51 +0000

Thank you for this fascinating article! I am white and my husband is black – we’re both Mormons. I’ve often wondered how I will explain this part of our Church’s history to our children…
I appreciate the information you have shared and I’m now excited to do some more research on this topic.

By: The Other Clark

The Other Clark — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:43:45 +0000

In Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, it’s made clear that JS taught that one’s blood is literally changed with conversion. I wonder how this fits in with his views on race. That when they’re baptized they’re literally changed? If so, that would fit nicely with the book of mormon verses, and perhaps his reasoning on ordination.

Don’t hold your breath for DNA confirmation of the TPJS passage…

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:09:11 +0000

UMDG, Thank you. Yes, I do attempt to complicate both of those narratives in the book. I see the priesthood and temple bans developing in “fits and starts.” If BY’s three speeches in 1852 constituted the beginnings of the ban, why do they allow Elijah Abel to retain his priesthood and why does John Taylor need to investigate the matter in 1879? If it was a policy or doctrine by that point, why investigate? And the 78 revelation has a long history and context too. Both the implementation and the removal are complex, like history in general. Truncated and simplified narratives are much easier to tell and to attempt to understand but rarely adequately reflect the much more messy history.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:59:56 +0000

Margaret, Vader, and Clair
Yes, I think ideas about tribes are especially problematic when immersed in 19th-century attitudes regarding “racial blood.” As race scholar Elise Lemire puts it, for most 19th century Americans “racial differences were physical differences located in the blood.” So when BY says, “If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot” it raises all kinds of interesting questions. These questions played out in court cases across America (see Ariel Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on trial in America) and become problematic in Mormonism too. How much “blood” equals “white” and how much “black”? By the 1930s the state of VA adopted a “one drop” rule, meaning one drop of “black blood” made a person black in the eyes of VA law (most states had a one forth rule, but some had one-eighth or one sixteenth). By the turn of the 20th century Mormon leaders were applying a one drop standard to Mormons in terms of temple marriages and priesthood. But, as Margaret notes, they made exceptions when they believed that tribal lineage trumped “black blood.” The irony of course is what DNA teaches us today, a confirmation of Acts 17:26, that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men” and how intermarried we are in one big human family. Good luck trying to apply a one drop rule today.

By: Clair

Clair — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:25:37 +0000

That is a very good post. Thanks to Paul and Ardis for making it available. And thanks to Vader for noting the somewhat awkward (IMO) apology, and to Paul for explaining it further.

Paul’s emphasis on aversion to interracial mixing in racial restrictions seems true from what I heard and saw growing up in the 50′s and 60′s.

For anyone younger and who lives in an area with a mix of races, to what extent is interracial mixing a part of today’s culture? I don’t see many mixed couples even today.

How many here dated people of other races or married or almost married someone of another race? Or know someone who did?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:58:56 +0000

Cedric Falwell, you perhaps think that random, out-of-context quotations without explanatory commentary from you convey some sort of relevant message. They don’t. Try again when you actually have something to say.

By: @UtahMormonDemoGuy

@UtahMormonDemoGuy — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:35:27 +0000

Paul: Excellent articles with much helpful and interesting information. I think an issue that needs to be teased out (and perhaps is in your book) is the comfort LDS people have with “doctrinal evolution” or further light and knowledge that results from continuing revelation. This is seen by some, mostly outside the Church, as convenient backtracking. By many in the Church, it is used to say that God has spoken and “we just don’t believe in the priesthood ban anymore.” Both interpretations are far too facile. The truth is far mroe complicated.

By: Vader

Vader — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:22:13 +0000

Patriarchal blessing lineages are an interesting topic that I suppose could take us far afield, but it seems at least close to topic in a discussion of race and the Church.

An Institute instructor I greatly admired told of taking his son for his patriarchal blessing. The patriarch met them at the door, looked at the son, kind of gulped, and told them to come back later, all but slamming the door in their faces.

The phone was ringing when they got home. The patriarch was deeply apologetic and explained that when he met the son, he had an immediate strong impression that the son’s lineage was Judah. But he knew the parents had no Jewish background, and this deeply unsettled him. The parents confirmed their own lineage was Ephraim and the son was not adopted.

He told them to come back. He proceeded to give the son a beautiful blessing in which his lineage was pronouced to be Judah. The patriarch, receipient, and his parents all felt that this was the correct tribal assignment. Assignment, not genetics.

I also know several descendents of William Budge, who was quite publicly known to have been declared a direct descendant of Aaron (tribe of Levi) in his patriarchal blessing. All, without exception, have been declared of Ephraim in their own patriarchal blessings, even in cases where the patriarchs are aware of the family history.

I, too, conclude that the pronouncement of lineage in a patriarchal blessing is, at least in some (and perhaps most) cases, an assignment rather than a DNA analysis.

I know this is not a universal view. A close friend who is a patriarch, and highly conservative in his views, believes these are cases where there is mixed lineage and one lineage for some reason runs stronger in the parent than the child. I dislike that emphasis on DNA, but he’s a good man and a friend, and I would be honored if he ever had occasion to give me a blessing.

By: Eric Boysen

Eric Boysen — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:55:35 +0000

There is no dictator like Ardis!

Long live Ardis and God bless Keepapitchinin!

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:48:49 +0000

No, Tim Hendricks, my not posting your comments (which may remain visible to you from their lingering in moderation hell, but which have not appeared publicly) doesn’t mean what you claim it means. My not posting your comments means only this: Your opinions and the way you express them are of no interest.

Trolls like you who attempt to blackmail me with lines like “If this is removed it shows that …” always stir my dictatorial impulses.