A thoughtful reader commented on the “Racism in the Book of Mormon” post about a presentation which has been given by a group of Black LDS men which gives a whole new way to look at the Book of Mormon to demonstrate that what people think are racist aspects in the scripture are not in fact racist. I reviewed their presentation and this post is my response. It takes the form of a conversation you might see take place between someone who subscribes completely to this new way of looking at the Book of Mormon and a member of the younger generation who is investigating the church with a socially conscious and analytical mindset. Flip through this presentation to follow along. Highlighted words can be clicked to go to appropriate references.

The Conversation

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Why these rationalizations are wrong

Members of the church will see what is taught in these firesides as a great service – they are expunging the stain of racism from their hallowed scriptures. Outsiders who have no reason to hold the church, its leaders or scriptures as divinely inspired will see these efforts as ludicrous linguistic acrobatics. To illustrate what I mean – lets consider a cartoon that was recently put on auction. It is an illustration drawn by the beloved children’s author and illustrator Dr. Seuss. you can see it here:

“Racist Dr. Seuss drawing up for auction” from CNN.com

If you examine the last frame, you can see the the highly revered Dr. Seuss was guilty of creating a horrendously offensive, ignorant and racist illustration:

Deplorable racist illustration by Dr. Seuss, presented uncensored.

There are so many terrible things wrong with this illustration, starting with the stereotypical blackface depiction of black men, the use of a highly offensive racial epithet and the trivialization of human life by including these men as the punch line of a highly offensive idiom.

Now imagine that parents who believed it impossible for Dr. Seuss to have ever held this despicable worldview about fellow humans tried to make an argument, similar to the ones above, in order to defend Seuss.

• “The blackface caricature was just a metaphor for the struggles of the black man! We know that black men don’t really look like that so we can’t imagine that Dr. Suess was trying to convey that.”
• “The epithet here is really just an abbreviated form of the word ‘niggardly’ which means someone who is stingy with money – since many black men were not financially well to do, this cartoon simply depicts the difficult fiscal state of the black man in early 20th century!”
• “The idiom about someone in your woodpile is an allusion to concealing escaped slaves who were trying to reach freedom through the underground railroad. This cartoon actually honors the memory of abolitionists who help freedom loving black men and women escape the bonds of slavery!”
• “Dr. Suess’  books about equality such as “The Sneeches” and “Horton Hears a Who” show that he was not racist. As such, there is no way that this cartoon he drew is really racist and these other explanations demonstrate that it is not!”

It is safe to say that nobody would take such arguments seriously. They are clearly ridiculous attempts to protect the reputation of Dr. Suess at the expense of reasonable standards of logic and reality. Outsiders who see the above arguments about the Book of Mormon would see it in much the same light.

The hurtful aspect of such arguments is that they have the effect of minimizing or denying the reality of the racist ideas and language that did in fact exist and adversely impacted the lives of men and women at the time. It is akin to denying that the holocaust existed, and attributing the stories of what took place in the concentration camps to idiom and metaphor. It is a grave insult to the people who experienced it at the time and diminishes the warning message of those historical accounts.

To the extent that that these rationalizations take pressure off the church leadership to make a full and undiluted acknowledgement and apology to black members these ill-conceived arguments actually hurt the church by preventing the full measure of healing and reconciliation that such an apology would bring.

This post is part of the Thoughts on Race collection. Click here for more.

Appendix

Here is the Presentation

Here are the basic points made in the presentation and direct links to where they are discussed:

• Humans were not divided by race in terms of “black” and “white” skin color until a German physician named Johan Blumenbach wrote a thesis on it in 1775. (10:54)
• There is no such thing as race – the various changes of skin color are a manifestation of God’s love for man – not a punitive curse. (14:25)
• Certain words in the Book of Mormon imprecisely convey their original meaning from “reformed Egyptian”. These are called ‘idioms’. When we read them, what they mean to us is not what they were originally supposed to mean. (4:47)
• The term “skin” in the scriptures refers to the “spirit” of a man – not to his cutaneous outer surface. (28:42)
• The term “curse” refers to the separation from God, His path or ways which men bring upon themselves when they sin – not an unjust arbitrary divine punishment. (21:19)
• Several revelations indicate that the Priesthood should be inclusive of all men. (39:58)
• Changes to footnote and headers of the Book of Mormon made in recent decades demonstrate the proof of all the foregoing points. (31:31)
• The terms “black and white” refer to gloominess or righteousness – not to skin color. (23:39)
• When we face challenging issues such as racism in the scriptures we experience cognitive dissonance. Each of us resolves this one way or another and then we don’t accept any evidence that would disprove our conclusion. (8:46)
• Prophets are not expected to be perfect (18:48)