Skin Color Doesn’t Mean Skin Color

[pogi]

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

Why is your racial identity so important to you. Our children grew up without a racial identity.  I remember when they came home from school and asked us what race they were, they really didn't know.  Were they white? were they Mexican? Were they Native American? 
 

if you read the descriptions of some of the students, they were traumatically torn from their families and required to be baptized and assimilate to a foreign culture.  They described it feeling like being in identity “limbo” where you don’t really belong to one culture or another and aren’t fully accepted as white or Native culture.  

How one identifies racially and culturally establishes a sense of belonging to a group.  If your kids had solid cultural belonging and roots that they weren’t forced to abandon, then I imagine the need for racial identity is not as strong, but some have expressed the uncomfortable sense of not belonging anywhere because of that program.

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

 

Wanting a good education and shot at financial independence is a bad thing to want for your children?

that’s not what I said

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

What was sacrificed?, what was gained?  was it worth the cost? 

I suspect the answers to these questions are highly individualized. 
 

I suspect so too. 

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

What kid really has a choice about the culture they are raised in.  These are choices the parents must make until children are of a certain age. 

Then why are you making this about agency, as if they chose this?  
From what I have read, many parents complained horribly about the cultural assimilation but felt they had no choice if they wanted their kids to have an education.  

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

You know this how?

Because that was the goal of the program.

2 minutes ago, Danzo said:

Educational choices for children are usually made by parents.  If Children were allowed to make their own educational choices I suspect there would be a lot of unemployed teachers. 

The fact that they weren’t allowed a proper education unless they were baptized and assimilated to white culture, you don’t see any problem with that?  

[pogi]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I mean that some things are always immoral, regardless of the context or culture.

But you don’t believe in the philosophy of moral absolutism?

I am confused.

And why only “some” things, and who gets to decide which things?  Where do I find a comprehensive unquestionable list of those things?

Edited February 29, 2024 by pogi

[Danzo]

1 minute ago, pogi said:

The fact that they weren’t allowed a proper education unless they were baptized and assimilated to white culture, you don’t see any problem with that?

Who was withholding education? I suspect the Tribal Government, The native "Culture" was the one withholding education.

The church was offering something for its members, not withholding things from the general population.

 

 

[pogi]

21 minutes ago, Danzo said:

The church was offering something for its members, not withholding things from the general population.

It wasn’t a program for members in general.  That is false.  It was seeking out non-member Native Americans specifically.   The missionaries had a quota to fill.   Education was a means to and end of full assimilation.   It was a numbers game.  The education was a carrot on a stick.  The baptism was superficial at best, the membership was superficial at best for the vast majority.  The goal was assimilation, education was a tool.

If education was the main goal, why demand assimilation before education was provided? 

Edited February 29, 2024 by pogi

[Danzo]

4 minutes ago, pogi said:

It wasn’t a program for members in general.  That is false.  It was seeking out non-member Native Americans specifically.   The missionaries had a quota to fill.   Education was a means to and end of full assimilation.   It was a numbers game.  The education was a carrot on a stick.  The baptism was superficial at best, the membership was superficial at best for the vast majority.  The goal was assimilation, education was a tool.

If education was the main goal, why demand assimilation before education was provided? 

 

CFR Assimilation was required before education was provided

[MrShorty]

5 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

No allowances can be permitted for the Restoration to be progressive and received line upon line. No allowances can be made for centuries of cultural biases to be progressively overcome.

 

5 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

He meets us where we are and uses His prophets to advance the church closer to the Zion community He needs us to be.  It's a game of inches (stubborn creatures that we are) and He's not gonna get us to where He needs us to be in a single generation (nor apparently, in a dozen generations).

I find this kind of "progressive" view of revelation quite intriguing. In many ways, it seems to be an accurate description of the history (for better or for worse).

The big question that I still see in spite of a progressive view of revelation is whether or not our leaders and even we as a people are actively seeking out new revelation or if we are too conservative to actively seek it out?

For example, Elder Petersen in his '54 talk about race problems and their effect on the church, opens the talk with a long discussion about how interracial marriage is bad. A few states had started to repeal their anti-miscegenation laws (California in '48, several prior to the turn of the century), indicating that the nation had begun to realize that interracial marriage did not need to be illegal or punished. It seems that Elder Petersen (and, I expect, he represents many LDS leaders and members of the '50s) was not only not looking for new revelation on racial issues, but seems adamantly opposed to any kind of progressive (for the time) revelation on the topic.

It seems to me that, if we really believe that revelation can be progressive -- can show us where we are harboring false traditions and can offer better alternatives to those false traditions -- we ought to be more open to new revelation. What I see in these historical issues is less about a simple "either the church was perfect from the beginning or it was never of God" but questions around just how revelation works. Can prophets, apostles, or members be so opposed to change and improvement so that God cannot or will not reveal something? If God has withheld revelation because of our reticence to receive said revelation in the past, what revelations is God withholding now because we insist that God cannot reveal something?

[ZealouslyStriving]

7 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

 

I find this kind of "progressive" view of revelation quite intriguing. In many ways, it seems to be an accurate description of the history (for better or for worse).

The big question that I still see in spite of a progressive view of revelation is whether or not our leaders and even we as a people are actively seeking out new revelation or if we are too conservative to actively seek it out?

For example, Elder Petersen in his '54 talk about race problems and their effect on the church, opens the talk with a long discussion about how interracial marriage is bad. A few states had started to repeal their anti-miscegenation laws (California in '48, several prior to the turn of the century), indicating that the nation had begun to realize that interracial marriage did not need to be illegal or punished. It seems that Elder Petersen (and, I expect, he represents many LDS leaders and members of the '50s) was not only not looking for new revelation on racial issues, but seems adamantly opposed to any kind of progressive (for the time) revelation on the topic.

It seems to me that, if we really believe that revelation can be progressive -- can show us where we are harboring false traditions and can offer better alternatives to those false traditions -- we ought to be more open to new revelation. What I see in these historical issues is less about a simple "either the church was perfect from the beginning or it was never of God" but questions around just how revelation works. Can prophets, apostles, or members be so opposed to change and improvement so that God cannot or will not reveal something? If God has withheld revelation because of our reticence to receive said revelation in the past, what revelations is God withholding now because we insist that God cannot reveal something?

Excellent points... Did Pres. Lee die unexpectedly because it was time to end/correct the Priesthood ban and he wouldn't have been as open to it as Pres. Kimball?

[The Nehor]

Something was internally bothering me about this topic and finally realized what it was. This is a wholesale interpretive change from what the ‘obvious’ meaning of the test is based on possible translation and/or cultural misapprehensions.

Then I realized this is exactly the same tact taken by LGBT Christians trying to explain away the anti-gay messaging in the Old Testament as being about pederasty, that the New Testament passages were about avoiding pagan religious rituals, and so on.

I tend to reject both of them. Not sure if that is consistency or some kind of masochism.

[bluebell]

15 hours ago, pogi said:

But you don’t believe in the philosophy of moral absolutism?

I am confused.

 

No, I don't believe in the philosophy of moral absolutism, because it says that everything is inherently right or wrong.  I don't believe that everything is inherently right or wrong but I do believe that some things are.  I was one class short of getting a minor in philosophy in college and while I loved the experience I ultimately didn't enjoy philosophy's "all or nothing" approach to issues or questions.

I'm with Blue Dreams, the world can be made up of both absolutes and things that are relative to context, maturity, knowledge, etc.

Quote

And why only “some” things, and who gets to decide which things?  Where do I find a comprehensive unquestionable list of those things?

We all do, using the criteria that means something to us (which will be different for a theist than an atheist, and different for atheists and theists in those specific spheres).  

[Teancum]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:59 PM, Calm said:

Have they impacted your thinking at all?

Yes they have. 

[Teancum]

On 2/28/2024 at 11:27 AM, Nofear said:

I'm not going to engage this thread (since I find it mostly silly), but I am a little perplexed by your assertion that the Book of Mormon must be interpreted as racist*.

As I have repeatedly said I am just reading the words as they are written and also noting that for we over 150 year LDS prophets, seers and revelators taught that the passages literally meant black skin. I happily conceded that the church leadership now disavows all such racist interpretations.  Yet my guess is a large part of the church membership understands the verses the same way I did, and in the same way I heard it taught when I was growing up.  So as @SeekingUnderstandinghas noted, those who run the church are not succeeding getting the message out.

 

On 2/28/2024 at 11:27 AM, Nofear said:

What is abundantly clear historically is that Protestants and some Catholics very much used the Bible to justify their advocacy of slavery or other racist ideas.

So what?  The whole idea of a restoration is that God was speaking through prophets and apostles. Justifying LDS leaders adopting erroneous racists teachings same as other apostate religions helps with this argument exactly how?

 

On 2/28/2024 at 11:27 AM, Nofear said:

 

Many of the early Latter-day Saints carried that over with them and similarly used the Book of Mormon to justify their racist ideas. Just as the Biblical interpretations have been discarded, so too do we reject the justifications for racism that some used the Book of Mormon for.

The BoM passages in skin color and the priesthood ban were institutionalized dottrine for 150 years.  If the LDS leaders got this wrong and you want to blame it on the time and culture it does not speak well to the usefulness of prophets and apostles. This was not a small issue.

On 2/28/2024 at 11:27 AM, Nofear said:

Put it another way, I don't think the Book of Mormon took a non-racist individual and made them racist because it's so clearly taught to be so in the Book of Mormon. Instead, somebody who was already racist found text to justify their attitudes. It would be shocking to me if they did not do so. It's human nature.

This has not been an argument I have been making.

[Danzo]

18 hours ago, pogi said:

It wasn’t a program for members in general.  That is false.  It was seeking out non-member Native Americans specifically.   The missionaries had a quota to fill.   Education was a means to and end of full assimilation.   It was a numbers game.  The education was a carrot on a stick.  The baptism was superficial at best, the membership was superficial at best for the vast majority.  The goal was assimilation, education was a tool.

If education was the main goal, why demand assimilation before education was provided? 

In your zeal to condemn a program meant to help people, you are, in reality condemning the native American parents.  Somehow, their wishes don't matter.  They are just the dupes in the story, they have no agency, no say. 

The church didn't care about these people, but you do. You know what is best for them.  The parents of these people didn't know what was best for these children. But you do. 

In the past these Native Americans were rounded up and sent to reservations.

Today, people like you are doing their best to keep them there. 

[pogi]

18 hours ago, Danzo said:

CFR Assimilation was required before education was provided

They were required to be baptized and abandon their Native Rituals and ceremonies and were kicked out of the program if they were found to participate in Native religious ceremonies. 

Let's be clear that the goal was to make them white in every way:

Quote

The work is unfolding, and blinded eyes begin to see, and scattered people begin to gather. I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today as against that of only fifteen years ago. Truly the scales of darkness are falling from their eyes, and they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.”
“The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos; five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.
At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl — sixteen — sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents — on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather. There was the doctor in a Utah city who for two years had had an Indian boy in his home who stated that he was some shades lighter than the younger brother just coming into the program from the reservation. These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated. “

The program was a program of assimilation, and children were actively recruited by being enticed by education, taking them from their homes, families, cultures, religion, and forcing them to be baptized if they wanted an education.  If they didn't abide by the language, culture, religion, etc. they were sent home.  

Quote

 

“There was also constant conflict with the beliefs. Just the whole concept of the church… learning to understand that.” 
~Another individual talks about not being true to her culture, and not being honest with the Mormon culture. Because the children were told by those in charge of the Indian Placement Program not to participate in traditional ceremonies when they were with their families on the reservation for the summer. She also says she was told, “Go to church. Don’t go to any ceremonies like squaw dances. Don’t have any ceremonies.” When she would return to her Mormon foster families in the fall she was again questioned and had to lie about it, denying participating in cultural traditions. Those who did participate in cultural traditions with their families were at risk of being kicked out of the education program. 

The children in the Indian Placement Program experienced complete cultural abuse. The promise that children in the program had to make – that they would not participate in cultural traditions – was based on Mormon beliefs. How children viewed their family, heritage, and even their own skin, Mormonism played a part in all of it.

https://lamanitetruth.com/2018/09/14/the-indian-placement-program-with-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints/

 

 

Quote

On November 2, 1972, American Indian tribal leaders and educators attending the National Indian Education Association Conference in Seattle, Washington, passed the following resolution regarding the placement program, which sums up many of the above complaints. 
WHEREAS the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints endeavors to uplift the status of the American Indian by initiating large-scale child placement of Indian children. 
AND WHEREAS the result is the wrong upbringing of Indian children in a wrong society, by the wrong people. 
AND WHEREAS Latter-day Saints do not consider the Indian religion anything other than pagan and considers itself, LDS, the religion. 
AND WHEREAS the LDS program tends to assimilate and destroy the Indian child’s sense of relationship to his people. 
AND WHEREAS the LDS program is based on considering the Indian people inferior LET IT BE RESOLVED that the National Indian Education Association strongly disapproves and opposes this program and asks that it be discontinued on behalf of our brothers and sisters. 
LET IT BE RESOLVED that until the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints considers the Indian religion as first and valid and the Indian way of life, the National Indian Education Association will not endorse the child placement program. (Rainer, 1976, pp. 32-33) 

Quote

 

The American Indian Movement and its followers and sympathizers have met in prayer and ceremony and have come to one mind. The Great Spirit has spoken to our hearts and minds. Because of [the LDS church’s] insensitivity to our religion and traditions.... Because of your racist attitude regarding our skin color. Because of your divisive practices, of pitting Indian against Indian. Because of your attempts at cultural and religious genocide. Because Native Americans have approached you...to resolve these matters and you have turned them away. You are hereby ordered to recall all your missionaries from the reservations and the areas where Native Americans frequent.... (Rainer, 1976, p. 126). 

For Native Americans, becoming a Mormon was a multi-layered assimilation process, including white life-ways, LDS life-ways, and LDS doctrinal expectations. 

 

Quote

 

The removal of Native American children is rooted in colonization, according to Margaret Jacobs, professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"Colonizers interfered with Native families and removed children, often for labor," Jacobs said. "A lot of Mormon families brought Indian children into their families, ostensibly adopting them, but often using them more for labor."
The practice was supported by state policies. In 1850, California passed a law that allowed white settlers to take in Indian children as indentured servants. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the US government paid states and religious groups to run Indian boarding schools that sought to eliminate traditional American Indian culture through assimilation and education. Many Native Americans recalled "torture and hatred" at these schools, according to the AP.

Both the government and religious groups employed "rhetoric of benevolence" to justify their attempts at assimilation, according to Jacobs.
"It was always the rhetoric of, 'The poor Indian child needs to be saved from the impoverished reservation,'" Jacobs said. "Ironically, all the impoverishment was a result of colonization."
The government retaliated against Native American families who resisted these programs by withholding a tribal community's rations or even bringing in the police, Jacobs said.

Part of the LDS Church's mission was to help save Lamanites by acculturating them as their own. In the 1800s, the church's second president Brigham Young advocated "purchasing" Native American children "into freedom" by buying them as slaves and then converting them into Mormons.
In 1954, the church launched its Indian Student Placement Program, which aimed to "provide Lamanite children with educational, spiritual, social, and cultural opportunities." Church members went into Native American communities to recruit children. By the 1970s, around 5,000 Native children had been converted and were living in Mormon homes.
LDS leaders widely regarded the program as a success. At an October 1960 conference, Spencer Kimball, the chairman of the church's Committee on Indian Relationships, claimed Native Americans who participated in the program were becoming physically lighter.
"The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised," Kimball said. "These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness." 

 

The religious assimilation is undeniable.  The religion wasn't enough though, true success was measured by the whiteness of their skin. Kind of gross. 

This is probably the most comprehensive paper on the subject that I have found.  The best part is that it actually interviews those who participated in the program, both the students and the families.   People might find it really interesting.  I have skimmed through most of it and will give it a more thorough read:

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1094&context=etd

Edited February 29, 2024 by pogi

[pogi]

4 hours ago, bluebell said:

No, I don't believe in the philosophy of moral absolutism, because it says that everything is inherently right or wrong.  I don't believe that everything is inherently right or wrong but I do believe that some things are.  I was one class short of getting a minor in philosophy in college and while I loved the experience I ultimately didn't enjoy philosophy's "all or nothing" approach to issues or questions.

I'm with Blue Dreams, the world can be made up of both absolutes and things that are relative to context, maturity, knowledge, etc.

We all do, using the criteria that means something to us (which will be different for a theist than an atheist, and different for atheists and theists in those specific spheres).  

It sounds like you believe that things are absolute, but ultimately it is society that decides.  That sounds a whole lot like what I have been saying this whole time.  If there is an absolute, it is only relatively perceivable and will be viewed "different" from different and "specific spheres".  

[Tacenda]

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

As I have repeatedly said I am just reading the words as they are written and also noting that for we over 150 year LDS prophets, seers and revelators taught that the passages literally meant black skin. I happily conceded that the church leadership now disavows all such racist interpretations.  Yet my guess is a large part of the church membership understands the verses the same way I did, and in the same way I heard it taught when I was growing up.  So as @SeekingUnderstandinghas noted, those who run the church are not succeeding getting the message out.

 

So what?  The whole idea of a restoration is that God was speaking through prophets and apostles. Justifying LDS leaders adopting erroneous racists teachings same as other apostate religions helps with this argument exactly how?

 

The BoM passages in skin color and the priesthood ban were institutionalized dottrine for 150 years.  If the LDS leaders got this wrong and you want to blame it on the time and culture it does not speak well to the usefulness of prophets and apostles. This was not a small issue.

This has not been an argument I have been making.

In a nutshell, now who's to say you are racebaiting? I think more than Elder Uchtodorf, needs to admit that prophets (leaders) can get it wrong. We must understand they are men, not gods upper G. We never truly get an apology, but we as members are expected to repent, or apologize for things that we've said or done wrong. There are plenty of past and present prophets that could/can apologize for not getting the right revelation that they thought they got. I believe the commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain, can mean speaking for God, when you really aren't. 

Some revelations gotten wrong IMO, are polygamy, restricting blacks from having the Priesthood and receiving temple endowments, Mountain Meadow's massacre, LGBTQ comments that harmed hundreds, maybe thousands watching or listening to General Conference, patriarchy affecting how women plan their lives (don't care to elaborate), and probably could go on but won't.

 

[juliann]

56 minutes ago, Teancum said:

As I have repeatedly said I am just reading the words as they are written and also noting that for we over 150 year LDS prophets, seers and revelators taught that the passages literally meant black skin. I happily conceded that the church leadership now disavows all such racist interpretations.  Yet my guess is a large part of the church membership understands the verses the same way I did, and in the same way I heard it taught when I was growing up.  So as @SeekingUnderstandinghas noted, those who run the church are not succeeding getting the message out.

 

So what?  The whole idea of a restoration is that God was speaking through prophets and apostles. Justifying LDS leaders adopting erroneous racists teachings same as other apostate religions helps with this argument exactly how?

 

The BoM passages in skin color and the priesthood ban were institutionalized dottrine for 150 years.  If the LDS leaders got this wrong and you want to blame it on the time and culture it does not speak well to the usefulness of prophets and apostles. This was not a small issue.

This has not been an argument I have been making.

You have been given a CFR that you blew off and here you are at it again. You have to comply or leave. Posters can be banned for: 

Refusing to provide appropriate references to support your statements

[MrShorty]

16 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Did Pres. Lee die unexpectedly because it was time to end/correct the Priesthood ban and he wouldn't have been as open to it as Pres. Kimball?

An intriguing question. I'm not entirely comfortable specifically addressing the historical questions around Pres. Lee's passing. I don't think they are answerable, and I'm not sure answering these questions is useful.

What I find really intriguing about this question is what it might suggest about our understanding of what it means to be a prophet/apostle and how revelation to the church really works.  Behind this question is a possible belief that a man (because we believe in an all male priesthood) can dedicate his life to Christ and the church and hold a belief so tightly (whether through ignorance or stubbornness) that God cannot reveal a different possibility to him. Or some other variation of one or more prophets and apostles can prevent God from revealing something to the church. If we believe this is really possible, then that suggests to me that every time the church stubbornly sticks to a current belief or practice, we might ask whether or not the church is being stubborn because God wants it to continue that belief/practice, or if it just might be possible that someone (or multiple someones) are preventing God from revealing a change.

Then you couple that with the so-called "Samuel principle" -- where someone(s) in the church stubbornly insist on a certain revelation until God grants the revelation even if He really doesn't want it -- and it becomes increasingly difficult, IMO, to know when the church's claims about belief and practice are actually true or not.

[Smiley McGee]

23 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So... The long and the short of it is those opposed to the Church think they should've had everything perfectly right from the beginning. No allowances can be permitted for the Restoration to be progressive and received line upon line. No allowances can be made for centuries of cultural biases to be progressively overcome. It had to be perfect from the beginning or it's bubkus.

Do I have that about right?

Nope, you don’t. What you are observing is members tolerating overt racism while attempting to keep their conscience clear by redefining words in a way that was unacceptable to over a century of men who were sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators. Men who not only got it wrong but who were dragged kicking and screaming into a more enlightened view of non-white people and who have never explicitly and officially corrected the record. 

Edited February 29, 2024 by Smiley McGee

[juliann]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

As I have repeatedly said I am just reading the words as they are written and also noting that for we over 150 year LDS prophets, seers and revelators taught that the passages literally meant black skin. I happily conceded that the church leadership now disavows all such racist interpretations.  Yet my guess is a large part of the church membership understands the verses the same way I did, and in the same way I heard it taught when I was growing up.  So as @SeekingUnderstandinghas noted, those who run the church are not succeeding getting the message out.

 

 

CFR to establish that "reading the words as they are written" is the only valid and correct way to read scripture.

CFR establishing that a large part of church membership thinks exactly like you do, a former member. 

CFR that official church statements are not getting the message out.

Quote

So what?  The whole idea of a restoration is that God was speaking through prophets and apostles. Justifying LDS leaders adopting erroneous racists teachings same as other apostate religions helps with this argument exactly how?

CFR that Mormonism has a responsibility to hold to inerrancy and infallibility despite their insistence on continuing revelation and restoration. 

Quote

The BoM passages in skin color and the priesthood ban were institutionalized dottrine for 150 years.  If the LDS leaders got this wrong and you want to blame it on the time and culture it does not speak well to the usefulness of prophets and apostles. This was not a small issue.

 CFR on what a prophet should be.

 

[juliann]

13 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

Nope, you don’t. What you are observing is members tolerating overt racism while attempting to keep their conscience clear by redefining words in a way that was unacceptable to over a century of men who were sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators. Men who not only got it wrong but who were dragged kicking and screaming into a more enlightened view of non-white people and who have never explicitly and officially corrected the record. 

Are you comfortable with the Bible being redefined after it was used to justify slavery? Do you object to that redefinition as well? If not, please justify the double standard.

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

The religious assimilation is undeniable.  The religion wasn't enough though, true success was measured by the whiteness of their skin. Kind of gross. 

This is probably the most comprehensive paper on the subject that I have found.  The best part is that it actually interviews those who participated in the program, both the students and the families.   People might find it really interesting.  I have skimmed through most of it and will give it a more thorough read:

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1094&context=etd

I don't think anyone signed up for the program to change their skin color.   

I do recommend you read the entire paper linked above.  Much more informative than the highly biased blog you linked to before. 

I also recombed that you talk to actual Native Americans who have decided to become part of the the dominant culture.  These people are often difficult to identify because most people with brown skin are identified as "Hispanic".  We forget that what we call "hispanic" are mostly people with native American ancestry (which is where the brown skin comes from). 

The program, like most programs designed by men, had mixed results.  We should judge the results by objective criteria, not by loss of "Culture" 

Culture is always being lost and recreated.

 

 

[Smiley McGee]

12 minutes ago, juliann said:

Are you comfortable with the Bible being redefined after it was used to justify slavery? Do you object to that redefinition as well? If not, please justify the double standard.

No double standard. Apologists in all traditions are equally absurd. 

Edited February 29, 2024 by Smiley McGee

[CV75]

26 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

An intriguing question. I'm not entirely comfortable specifically addressing the historical questions around Pres. Lee's passing. I don't think they are answerable, and I'm not sure answering these questions is useful.

What I find really intriguing about this question is what it might suggest about our understanding of what it means to be a prophet/apostle and how revelation to the church really works.  Behind this question is a possible belief that a man (because we believe in an all male priesthood) can dedicate his life to Christ and the church and hold a belief so tightly (whether through ignorance or stubbornness) that God cannot reveal a different possibility to him. Or some other variation of one or more prophets and apostles can prevent God from revealing something to the church. If we believe this is really possible, then that suggests to me that every time the church stubbornly sticks to a current belief or practice, we might ask whether or not the church is being stubborn because God wants it to continue that belief/practice, or if it just might be possible that someone (or multiple someones) are preventing God from revealing a change.

Then you couple that with the so-called "Samuel principle" -- where someone(s) in the church stubbornly insist on a certain revelation until God grants the revelation even if He really doesn't want it -- and it becomes increasingly difficult, IMO, to know when the church's claims about belief and practice are actually true or not.

When someone finds it difficult "to know when the church's claims about belief and practice are actually true or not," I think they need to prioritize the significance of a particular claim, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and branching out from there. For example (for me), His resurrection supports His atonement, which supports the invitations and commandments which support my personal conversion and covenants which support my understanding of what God wants me to do and my eternal progress no matter how ignorant or stubborn I may be in other points of understanding or behavior.

ETA:

26 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

Nope, you don’t. What you are observing is members tolerating overt racism while attempting to keep their conscience clear by redefining words in a way that was unacceptable to over a century of men who were sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators. Men who not only got it wrong but who were dragged kicking and screaming into a more enlightened view of non-white people and who have never explicitly and officially corrected the record. 

How does this sentiment affect the prioritization of what is eternally essential to have right?

Edited February 29, 2024 by CV75

[ZealouslyStriving]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

An intriguing question. I'm not entirely comfortable specifically addressing the historical questions around Pres. Lee's passing. I don't think they are answerable, and I'm not sure answering these questions is useful.

What I find really intriguing about this question is what it might suggest about our understanding of what it means to be a prophet/apostle and how revelation to the church really works.  Behind this question is a possible belief that a man (because we believe in an all male priesthood) can dedicate his life to Christ and the church and hold a belief so tightly (whether through ignorance or stubbornness) that God cannot reveal a different possibility to him. Or some other variation of one or more prophets and apostles can prevent God from revealing something to the church. If we believe this is really possible, then that suggests to me that every time the church stubbornly sticks to a current belief or practice, we might ask whether or not the church is being stubborn because God wants it to continue that belief/practice, or if it just might be possible that someone (or multiple someones) are preventing God from revealing a change.

Then you couple that with the so-called "Samuel principle" -- where someone(s) in the church stubbornly insist on a certain revelation until God grants the revelation even if He really doesn't want it -- and it becomes increasingly difficult, IMO, to know when the church's claims about belief and practice are actually true or not.

Which is why I've stated that I will let the Lord deal with the leadership (when and if He needs to). My job is to stay worthy to administer in the Temple for those awaiting ordinances.

Edited February 29, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving

[Smiley McGee]

24 minutes ago, CV75 said:

How does this sentiment affect the prioritization of what is eternally essential to have right?

High priority.