Comments on: What’s up with Brigham Young and all those racist statements he made?

By: taliba

taliba — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:15:06 +0000

Hmmmm. Thinking about that, but sometimes true prophets or saints will disagree with the “mainstream” when it’s wrong; think of the abolitionists and Quakers in the days of Southern slavery. It would have been easier for them to just go along with the flow, but they didn’t.

By: Joshua Steimle

Joshua Steimle — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:48:34 +0000

Hi Taliba, this is a case of Brigham Young’s words being taken quite out of context. I agree they sound shocking and unbelievable, but anytime somebody’s words sound so strange it’s good to take a closer look to see if perhaps by understanding the context in which they were given their meaning becomes something entirely different than what we understand them to be. In the case of Brigham Young’s “death on the spot” comments, this is actually “a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage,” at least according to the explanation over at FAIRMormon.org on Mormonism and racial issues/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death.

As the entry on that other website goes on to say:

This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did. American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.

But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden. His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.

It’s also helpful to understand that Brigham Young’s view on interracial marriage were more or less par for the course in his day. Even Abraham Lincoln made statements against interracial marriage. This isn’t to say they weren’t wrong, but that they can hardly be blamed for accepting what was “common sense” to 99% of the population at that time. Who knows what opinions we hold today, of which it doesn’t even occur to us to think of as containing the possibility of offensiveness, that might be found extremely offensive to those who live 150 years from now?

By: Taliba

Taliba — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:57:50 +0000

How can you be a prophet and say that God would put to death anyone who practised interacial marriage or union “to death on the spot” and that didn’t happen? With all the mixing of blacks and whites and blacks and Native Americans-producing continued offspring then and now; how could people trust those “prophets.”
It’s so crazy to me, and yet I have heard of African Amrticans becoming Mormons!!! When I lived in Nebraska I allowed Mormons to come into my home and discuss their beliefs but I could never consider a possiblility because of that racism and obvious untruth. After all even in the bible when Moses’ sister Miriam made fun of her dark sister-in-law Ziporah; God made her understand why that wasn’t right by making her as white as she could possibly be: with Leprosy. She learned her lesson.

By: Markle

Markle — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:06:44 +0000

Hi Josh,

You stated “Brigham Young’s views were quite mainstream.” The only issue I have with BY’s remarks/actions is that he was supposed to be a Prophet of God. Being a prophet, wouldn’t the spirit tell him that this was not right? One would think that BY’s views would NOT be mainstream as he was a prophet of God.

Yes, Brigham was also a man and therfore made mistakes. I just can’t understand why the spirit wouldn’t “tell” him that his racism was not acceptable. Or do you think it was?