Matthew Bowman professor at Hampden-Sydney College responds on Mormons and racism.

By Jaime Ortega Simo.

Professor Matthew Bowman

Hi, Jaime – well, this is a lot of material. It appears that you’ve copied and pasted it in its entirety, including typos, from this website: http://yhvh.name/?w=548. In the future, I’d recommend you avoid copying material and dumping it on people; you’d do much better to begin with interviews with the people you want to write about and inquire with them about what other material might or might not be relevant.

Now, on to your questions.

I am unclear about whether you want my response as a Mormon or as a scholar. Your first question – whether I agree with the material you’ve shown me – is a bit intrusive and personal, so I’ll take it that you’re interested in my opinion as a Mormon. I’ll respond first thus.

No, I agree with none of the ideas, sentiments, or theories presented in the material you’ve quoted below. It is not Mormon doctrine. Virtually any Mormon alive today would say likewise. Indeed, many of them would find the compilation and presentation of such material combined with requests to pass judgment on whether it is Mormon doctrine or not rather peculiar and perhaps offensive.  This is because what whoever compiled these quotations has done is roughly equivalent to harvesting various anti-Semitic quotations from nineteenth century Catholic bishops (which, I assure you, exist) and using them to assert that it is present day Catholic doctrine to hate Jews.

As a scholar. I’m glad you’ve approached me with this material, because I’m reasonably confident that since you’ve copied and pasted it, you’re rather unclear on who guys like Orson Hyde and Joseph Fielding Smith are, and are thus unfamiliar with how authoritative Mormons today might take the statements below. Indeed, you refer to them as “verses,” which is an odd word, because it’s usually used for scripture, and nothing you’ve pasted below qualifies as that for Mormons save for the excerpt from the Book of Mormon. The answer as to how authoritative Mormons take these statements to be is “not very.” Virtually all of the men you quote below were born in the nineteenth century. Many Mormons today would have a hard time identifying precisely what Orson Hyde or Mark Petersen thought about anything. and even who they were. To invoke the same metaphor, it’s a bit like brandishing the statements of Catholic cardinals who died before World War II and proclaiming them authoritative Catholic doctrine.

The following things are true:
Many Mormons in the nineteenth century believed that people of African descent were the descendants of some figure cursed in the Bible, either Cain or Noah’s son Ham, or both. This was not uncommon. Many other Christians in the western world believed something similar, and had for centuries; the idea appears in medieval Catholicism, and was commonly invoked by slaveholders in the Americas and Africa.

Because of this belief, in the 1850s Brigham Young, second president of the church, declared that people of African descent could not hold the Mormon priesthood. Various other leaders of the church offered speculations as to why this might be: these are the sources of the various statements you quote below.

This policy lasted until 1978. Many Mormons find its persistence more than a decade after the civil rights movement disappointing; many Mormons felt this way at the time. In 1978, however, it was revoked. Bruce McConkie, one of the men you cite below, immediately revoked his racist statements when this occurred.

Does racial prejudice still exist in Mormonism? Largely, no less and no more than in white America more generally. It is worth nothing that in the past decade two leaders of the church strongly denounced racial prejudice and the sort of speculations you present below.  Since these men were alive in the past few years most Mormons take their statements to be far more authoritative than anything you cite below.

A relevant link:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635196411/Pres-Hinckley-calls-racism-ugly-and-unacceptable.html

I’d recommend if you have further questions to consult Margaret Yong, a professor at BYU, who’s done a lot of work in combating racism in Mormonism today. Her email is margaret_young@byu.edu.

Best
mb