Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
This is a story about an 1947 exchange of letters between Mormon sociologist, Dr. Lowry Nelson and his First Presidency – George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay. First Nelson gets a letter from his old buddy Heber Meeks. Meeks wrote: “At the request of the First Presidency I visited Cuba in view of doing missionary work on that island.” Having learned that Nelson had recently spent time in Cuba, Meeks wanted to pick his brain. With questions like “Are there groups of pure white blood in the rural sections?” “Are they maintaining segregation from the Negroes?” And, will “doing missionary work in Cuba in view of … the ignorance and superstition of the people and their being so steeped in Catholicism?” Sincerely your brother, Heber Meeks, Mission President  Heber Meeks, Mission President Nelson responds: “The attitude of the Church in regard to the Negro makes me very sad.” Nelson did not know “that there was a fixed doctrine on this point” and refuses to believe it. “I do not believe that God is a racist ... If the Church has taken an irrevocable stand, I would dislike to see it enter Cuba or any other island where different races live… For us to go into a situation like that and preach a doctrine of "white supremacy” would, it seems to me, be a tragic disservice ... There are no pure races, on this anthropologists are in general agreement… And to teach them the pernicious doctrine of segregation and inequalities among races where it does not exist would be tragic. It seems to me we just fought a war over such ideas. Sincerely, Lowry Nelson" (Seems like a good time to note that Mormons saw an “unusual opportunity” in Nazi “racial question” as "It was always difficult for genealogical workers to get into (German peoples) archives.” because they didn’t want their dead ancestors baptized by the Mormons. But “due to … the almost necessity of proving that one's grandmother was not a Jewess” those archives were opened.) So, Nelson is really disturb about this “doctrine of ‘white supremacy’” and writes to the Prophet for clarity. “Dear President Smith: Perhaps I am out of order, so to speak. I have done so … with the impression that there is no irrevocable church doctrine on this subject. I devoutly hope that such crystallization has not taken place. The many good friends of mixed blood … (I met in Cuba) would be shocked indeed if I were to tell them my Church relegated them to an inferior status ... As I told Heber, there is no doubt in my mind that our Church could perform a great service in Cuba, particularly in the rural areas, but it would be far better that we not go in at all, than to go in and promote racial distinction.” Sincerely, Lowry Nelson" The First Presidency responds: “The basic element of your ideas and concepts seems to be that all God’s children stand in equal positions before Him in all things.” But this is contrary to the very fundamentals of God’s dealings with Israel… We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. “From the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel. “Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now. They finish by saying, we know you academics are tryna “breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine. Faithfully yours, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay. The First Presidency"  J. Reuben Clark, Jr., George Albert Smith, and David O. McKay. The First Presidency Nelson responds with a fairly long letter. He thanks the First Presidency for their letter, but lets them know it was “a disappointment.” He starts sort of thinking out loud about how it’s strange he’s never had to confront this doctrine before. Like they talked abt it in Priesthood meetings with people who had never seen a Black person, “let alone…lived in the same community.” But there was never really any scripture on it. He then starts getting sociological talking about “certain basic principles” of societies. One of which is “social change…forever in a state of flux.” So, he says, “the early Hebrew” idea of race or ethnicity is rooted in their ethnocentrism – in the fact that they were a monoculture. Because they didn’t spend time with people with different melanin content they assumed people with different melanin were inferior. But Jesus came to end the old ways. And this ethnocentric doctrine “does not square with the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Sincerely your brother, Lowry Nelson. Professor of Sociology The First Presidency respond: “We feel very sure that you understand well the doctrines of the Church.They are either true or not true. Our testimony is that they are true.” So we’re not “impressed by the reasonings of men however well-founded they may seem to be.” They advise Nelson not to get lost in “worldly learning” as he has too much potential to do good. “We therefore prayerfully hope that you can reorient your thinking and bring it in line with the revealed word of God.” Faithfully yours, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY  Lowry Nelson. Professor of Sociology I guess knowing that he’s not convincing his Prophets of anything he publishes an essay five years later title “Mormonism and the Negro” in “The Nation” magazine. I think this part is really important for us to read so I’m posting the whole thing. “A very real difficulty is the fact that those who disapprove of the church's attitude have no way of expressing their point of view. It is safe to say that most of the one million members give passive assent to the present policy. For most of those living in Utah and adjacent states the Negro question is academic; they hardly ever see Negroes, much less live in the same community with them. In any case, they would find comfortable agreement with the white-supremacy idea because of latent historical prejudices which they share with so many other white people. However, my knowledge of the deep humanitarianism of the Mormon people leads me to think that if the question could be openly discussed they would line up on die side of justice. Such open discussion, especially in print, however, is a perilous undertaking for any member. It automatically leaves him open to the charge of "disobedience to constituted authority" which may lead to his being excommunicated. The upshot is that discussions by interested persons are largely subrosa (done in secret).” Collection of images by Lowry Nelson from his year (1945-46) in Cuba. (see more)
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 1936 - This church’s 1st official statement against communism 1949 - 1st official statement on their anti-Black doctrines and policies. 1966 - 2nd official anti-communist manifesto. 1969 - 2nd anti-Black manifesto This church has published two official statements defending their anti-Blackness and two decrying communism. During that time (WWII & Civil Rights era) they released zero statements against Nazism , white-supremacy, or fascism. (Though Deseret News did print articles in support of Nazis) As Civil Rights organizers fought against anti-Black segregation, this church was fighting for their religious freedom to practice and preach anti-Black policies and doctrines. In this church’s collective mind, Black people were in their divine place in God’s “caste system”––they already had all the rights God has given them. Ironically, it was Ezra Taft Benson’s mission trip to post-Nazi Germany that led to him to being so firm in his anti-communism. He blamed the hardships of Germans on the rise of communism from the ashes of fascism. But for some reason he never thinks that maybe Nazism is what created the devastation and starvation in post-war Germany, not the struggling form of communism that rose in its wake. Tho anti-communism and white-supremacy were already a deeply embedded feature of this church when Benson went to Germany. Benson’s mentor, J. Reuben Clark, (known white-supremacist, First President, and US State official) co-authored this church’s 1936 official statement decrying communism as satanic. Clark also co-authored the first public anti-Black statement. And he liked to collected and handed out antisemetic propaganda in the US and Nazi Germany. The year after this church released their 1936 anti-communist statement, President Grant spoke under a Nazi flag to Nazi Mormons in Nazi Germany telling them, ““Stay here…We want to keep the Church intact and the missionaries working.” During this time, this church was helping Nazis do their genealogy work in search of Jews to exterminate. The Venn diagram of Mormonism’s far-right politics, anti-communism, anti-Blackness, white-supremacy, and US-exceptionalism forms a circle.  “In July 1937, the Mormon Prophet Heber J. Grant, spoke to 800 members at a rented meeting hall in Frankfurt. Like all buildings in Nazi Germany, it came with a large swastika flag. On Aug. 7, the Deseret News, the Church-owned Salt Lake City daily, ran this picture. In its news columns, the DN regularly published wire service stories about Hitler’s treatment of Germany’s Jews. But in the religion section, it had no qualms about associating the Church President with Nazi symbolism.” (Nelson, David Conley. Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany. University of Oklahoma, 2015.) CIVIL RIGHTS: TOOL OF COMMUNIST DECEPTION |
 Mormon Scholar, Author, and Apostle Bruce R. McConkie |  Mormon Doctrine, by Bruce R. McConkie |
This text was being published and sold for a profit by this church from 1958 to 2010, when they “quietly” stopped printing Mormon Doctrine citing “low sales.” I found a copy of the 2nd edition at the Mormon-owned thrift store, Deseret Industries. So even as this church has stopped printing the book, they are most certainly still selling it. Which illustrates how 150 years of overt white-supremacy doesn’t just disappear when an organization formally "disavows" their foundational doctrines. Without an active anti-white-supremacist campaign enacted with the same resources and piety as this church invests in conferences, temples / real estate, covering for pedophiles, committing fraud, and the stock market—it won’t just go away, no matter how hard you “disavow” it. It is already a material, doctrinal, spiritual, cultural part of our communities, scripture, economies, and homes.
After selling hundreds of thousands of copies and educating two generations of Mormons this book and its white supremacy are still very much present in their / our doctrines, thrift stores, and bodies.
History is present.
After selling hundreds of thousands of copies and educating two generations of Mormons this book and its white supremacy are still very much present in their / our doctrines, thrift stores, and bodies.
History is present.
Collage by me featuring 2019 image of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Rome, Italy temple laid over an image of the Salt Lake City, Utah temple
In the Book of Mormon when Mormon God cursed the formerly “white and delightsome” Lamanites with “a skin of blackness” He did so to make them “not enticing” to the white Nephites. He went on to warn them that if they “mixeth seed” with the Lamanites their posterity will inherit this curse. Dark skin is scripturally reified as something divinely placed to discourage social and sexual intercourse.
This white-fear of Black sexuality is embedded in so many white-supremacists myths, stories, and lynchings. The KKK film screened by the US President Wilson in the White House was about this white-fear. Emmett Till was lynched nearly 100 years after Thomas Coleman was lynched, both, by white-supremacists who weaponized this religiously, culturally, and legally supported fear.
“Settler colonialism destroys to replace.” White-heteropatriachy fulfills the “replace” half of this process.
As the US Manifested its Destiny through the Homestead Act they intentionally preferenced reproductive heterosexual N. Euro-settlers. Contemporaneous laws limited immigration from any region deemed not white.
Settler-sexuality is about blood i.e. race. US Christianity is as obsessed with sexual purity as they are / have been with racial purity. Eugenics is often used to control the types of bodies which populate a nation–to create a great race.
White-supremacist/nationalist conspiracy theories around eugenics abound
––From the Great Replacement to Depopulation to National Suicide to White Genocide to the Family Proclamation’s warning “that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
––From immigration to interracial marriage to homosexual marriage to trans kids to anti-vaxxers to soy-boi feminization to birth control / abortion to ableism
All of these are about our fears of losing our dominance (which is tied to our fear of others doing unto us as we’ve done unto them) through sexuality.
This is all still with us.
This white-fear of Black sexuality is embedded in so many white-supremacists myths, stories, and lynchings. The KKK film screened by the US President Wilson in the White House was about this white-fear. Emmett Till was lynched nearly 100 years after Thomas Coleman was lynched, both, by white-supremacists who weaponized this religiously, culturally, and legally supported fear.
“Settler colonialism destroys to replace.” White-heteropatriachy fulfills the “replace” half of this process.
As the US Manifested its Destiny through the Homestead Act they intentionally preferenced reproductive heterosexual N. Euro-settlers. Contemporaneous laws limited immigration from any region deemed not white.
Settler-sexuality is about blood i.e. race. US Christianity is as obsessed with sexual purity as they are / have been with racial purity. Eugenics is often used to control the types of bodies which populate a nation–to create a great race.
White-supremacist/nationalist conspiracy theories around eugenics abound
––From the Great Replacement to Depopulation to National Suicide to White Genocide to the Family Proclamation’s warning “that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
––From immigration to interracial marriage to homosexual marriage to trans kids to anti-vaxxers to soy-boi feminization to birth control / abortion to ableism
All of these are about our fears of losing our dominance (which is tied to our fear of others doing unto us as we’ve done unto them) through sexuality.
This is all still with us.
President George Albert Smith with 1st Counselor J. Reuben Clark, and 2nd Counselor David O. McKay
“Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and the White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now...We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency...toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”
- First Presidency, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, David O. McKay (1947)
After Mormons and all US Americans lost their right to enslave Africans (unless they arrested them, then it’s 100% legal) they spent the next 100 years fighting for their right to be segregated from them in order "to preserve the purity of the race that is entitled to hold the Priesthood,” as First President J. Reuben Clark put it. These segregationist “separate but equal” laws and practices are known as Jim Crow laws
Even as Joseph Smith went back and forth on whether he supported Euro-settler enslavement of Africans or not, he was clear about segregation.
“Had I any thing to do with the negro, I would—— confine them by strict law to their own species, and put them on a national equalization.”
- Joseph Smith, 1943
This call for legalized segregation was openly supported until 1963 by this church’s leaders, especially David O. McKay, J. Reuben Clark, Henry D. Moyle, Ezra Taft Benson, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Mark E. Peterson.
- First Presidency, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, David O. McKay (1947)
After Mormons and all US Americans lost their right to enslave Africans (unless they arrested them, then it’s 100% legal) they spent the next 100 years fighting for their right to be segregated from them in order "to preserve the purity of the race that is entitled to hold the Priesthood,” as First President J. Reuben Clark put it. These segregationist “separate but equal” laws and practices are known as Jim Crow laws
Even as Joseph Smith went back and forth on whether he supported Euro-settler enslavement of Africans or not, he was clear about segregation.
“Had I any thing to do with the negro, I would—— confine them by strict law to their own species, and put them on a national equalization.”
- Joseph Smith, 1943
This call for legalized segregation was openly supported until 1963 by this church’s leaders, especially David O. McKay, J. Reuben Clark, Henry D. Moyle, Ezra Taft Benson, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Mark E. Peterson.
Lamanite (left) and Nephite (right) paper cut-out characters for teaching children Mormonism.
A root of segregation that is rarely addressed when colonists talk about this history is its sexuality. A major purpose of segregation is to avoid interracial intercourse–social and sexual. Just as in the Book of Mormon, when Lamanites are cursed with “a skin of blackness” it is to make them “not enticing” unto the white Nephites who are warned that if they “mixeth seed” their children will inherit this same curse.
As Mormons made enslavement of African and Indigenous persons legal they made intermarriage between Euro-settlers and descendants of Africans illegal. Fourteen years later, Utahns murdered newly freed Black man Thomas Coleman 14 years later and pinned a note to his body warning all Black men to stay away from white women. Interracial intercourse was and would be illegal in Utah for another 97 years.
Three years before Brown v. Board of Education, a California Mormon wrote to her First Presidency asking if, “we as Latter-day Saints [are] required to associate with the Negroes or talk the Gospel to them….” Their replied, “No special effort has ever been made to proselyte among the Negro race, and social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes should certainly not be encouraged because of leading to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.”
Directly on desegregation in schools Clark told the Relief Society President: “Since they are not entitled to the Priesthood, the Church discourages social intercourse with the negro race, because such intercourse leads to marriage, and the offspring possess negro blood and is therefore subject to the inhibition set out in our Scripture.”
In 1946 First President J. Reuben Clark spoke about Black people they way current leaders talk about queers: “We should hate nobody, and having said that, I wish to urge a word of caution, particularly to you young girls. It is sought today in certain quarters to break down all race prejudice, and at the end of the road, which they who urge this see, is intermarriage. That is what it finally comes to…(D)o not ever let that wicked virus get into your systems that brotherhood either permits or entitles you to mix races which are inconsistent. Biologically, it is wrong; spiritually, it is wrong.”
This doctrinal segregation continues on today in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" (found on this church's website) in which this church "recommend(s) that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
The preservation of white-supremacy and the supposed “purity of the race that is entitled to hold the Priesthood” is deeply embedded in the religions mythologies, doctrines, practices, policies, and the bodies of those who attend to it.
As Mormons made enslavement of African and Indigenous persons legal they made intermarriage between Euro-settlers and descendants of Africans illegal. Fourteen years later, Utahns murdered newly freed Black man Thomas Coleman 14 years later and pinned a note to his body warning all Black men to stay away from white women. Interracial intercourse was and would be illegal in Utah for another 97 years.
Three years before Brown v. Board of Education, a California Mormon wrote to her First Presidency asking if, “we as Latter-day Saints [are] required to associate with the Negroes or talk the Gospel to them….” Their replied, “No special effort has ever been made to proselyte among the Negro race, and social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes should certainly not be encouraged because of leading to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.”
Directly on desegregation in schools Clark told the Relief Society President: “Since they are not entitled to the Priesthood, the Church discourages social intercourse with the negro race, because such intercourse leads to marriage, and the offspring possess negro blood and is therefore subject to the inhibition set out in our Scripture.”
In 1946 First President J. Reuben Clark spoke about Black people they way current leaders talk about queers: “We should hate nobody, and having said that, I wish to urge a word of caution, particularly to you young girls. It is sought today in certain quarters to break down all race prejudice, and at the end of the road, which they who urge this see, is intermarriage. That is what it finally comes to…(D)o not ever let that wicked virus get into your systems that brotherhood either permits or entitles you to mix races which are inconsistent. Biologically, it is wrong; spiritually, it is wrong.”
This doctrinal segregation continues on today in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" (found on this church's website) in which this church "recommend(s) that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
The preservation of white-supremacy and the supposed “purity of the race that is entitled to hold the Priesthood” is deeply embedded in the religions mythologies, doctrines, practices, policies, and the bodies of those who attend to it.
Brigham Young by Charles Roscoe Savage, 1855
I study Mormon, partly because it is a microcosm of U.S. history. The quotidian white supremacy in our lives, cultures, bodies, and doom scrolls is a foundational part of who we are. The idea that Peoples who lack melanin are superior is ubiquitously written into our founding documents and scriptures.
White supremacy is a death cult/ure. It overtly seeks to destroy / assimilate any body which deviates from its assigned place and covertly seeks to destroy those who wield its power.
I think it’s important, for us Euro-settlers especially, to read these histories in their own words because these ideas live on in US. If you were raised in the US or consume/d US media – you’re indoctrinated into white-supremacy. It's destroying your body and every body we share it with. This truth is at the heart of calls for “accomplices, not allies.”
––
or the idea that: "If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time...But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Aboriginal activists group, 1970s.
Brigham is careful to say that while he does believe in the supposed divinity of the enslavement of African bodies he also believes those bodies should be treated as one would treat their children. This “nice whiteness” is the foundation of Mormon abuses. Their oppressive violences are always framed as paternalist generosity.
White supremacy is a death cult/ure. It overtly seeks to destroy / assimilate any body which deviates from its assigned place and covertly seeks to destroy those who wield its power.
I think it’s important, for us Euro-settlers especially, to read these histories in their own words because these ideas live on in US. If you were raised in the US or consume/d US media – you’re indoctrinated into white-supremacy. It's destroying your body and every body we share it with. This truth is at the heart of calls for “accomplices, not allies.”
––
or the idea that: "If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time...But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Aboriginal activists group, 1970s.
Brigham is careful to say that while he does believe in the supposed divinity of the enslavement of African bodies he also believes those bodies should be treated as one would treat their children. This “nice whiteness” is the foundation of Mormon abuses. Their oppressive violences are always framed as paternalist generosity.
| And the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, was no different. He made it clear that he believed as Young did that N. Euro settlers are inherently superior to Africans. –– “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality…I…am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” - Lincoln 1858 Presidential debate |  |
Seven years after enslavement was legalized in UT Territory by the all mormon UT legislature, and 2 years before the Civil War, Brigham Young said, "We (this Church) consider it (enslavement) of divine institution and not to be abolished” (1859)
As the UT leg. discussed their Act to legalize enslavement, Prophet, Pres., Gov, Brigham Young spoke in their chambers two weeks before the Act passed. He introduced his argument saying, “Inasmuch as we believe in the Bible,…the Ordinances of God,...(and) the Priesthood, we must believe in Slavery.”
Young went on “This colored race have been subjected to severe curses... And until the curse is removed by Him who placed it upon them, they must suffer under its consequences; I am not authorized to remove it. I am a firm believer in slavery…I know it is right, and there should be a law made to have the slaves serve their masters, because they are not capable of ruling themselves…The Black African…are a “servant of servants.”
On Feb 5, a day after the Act passed, Brigham Young again addressed the all Mormon legislature and expanded on his theories on the divinity of enslavement. There he prophesied: “The moment we (Mormons) consent to mingle with the seed of Cain (Africans & ppl of African descent) the Church must go to destruction.”
As the UT leg. discussed their Act to legalize enslavement, Prophet, Pres., Gov, Brigham Young spoke in their chambers two weeks before the Act passed. He introduced his argument saying, “Inasmuch as we believe in the Bible,…the Ordinances of God,...(and) the Priesthood, we must believe in Slavery.”
Young went on “This colored race have been subjected to severe curses... And until the curse is removed by Him who placed it upon them, they must suffer under its consequences; I am not authorized to remove it. I am a firm believer in slavery…I know it is right, and there should be a law made to have the slaves serve their masters, because they are not capable of ruling themselves…The Black African…are a “servant of servants.”
On Feb 5, a day after the Act passed, Brigham Young again addressed the all Mormon legislature and expanded on his theories on the divinity of enslavement. There he prophesied: “The moment we (Mormons) consent to mingle with the seed of Cain (Africans & ppl of African descent) the Church must go to destruction.”
“What is that mark (of Cain)? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see upon the face of the earth, or ever will see. If there never was a prophet, or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you, this people that are commonly called negroes are the children of old Cain.”
- Brigham Young
“Let my seed mingle with the seed of Cain, that brings the curse upon me, and upon my generations, - - we will reap the same rewards with Cain.”
Brigham Young thought interracial relations with Africans was such grievous a sin that it was worth of Blood Atonement. He told his followers that if had a baby with an African woman, “it would be a blessing” if someone “would walk up and say cut off my head, and kill man, woman, and child it would do a great deal towards atoning for the sin.
Brigham Young thought interracial relations with Africans was such grievous a sin that it was worth of Blood Atonement. He told his followers that if had a baby with an African woman, “it would be a blessing” if someone “would walk up and say cut off my head, and kill man, woman, and child it would do a great deal towards atoning for the sin.
Brigham Young by Charles Roscoe Savage, ca. 1865-1877
In 1866 Thomas Coleman, a Black Mormon employed by Young was lynched in Salt Lake after being "found in company of a white woman". His throat was cut from ear to ear as Mormons mimed in their temples for over 150 years. His killer/s pinned a note to his body which read: “Notice to all (redacted). Take warning. Leave white women alone.” The all Mormon jury concluded that those who committed “said murder to the jury are unknown” and no one was held accountable.
Finally I want to compare 2 quotes to show how these supposedly disavowed doctrines perpetuate.
Finally I want to compare 2 quotes to show how these supposedly disavowed doctrines perpetuate.
 | “That part of the Negro race that are in servile bondage, are much more comfortable and better provided for than the lower classes of the nations of Europe.” - Brigham Young, 1852 |
| “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do…And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?” - Cliven Bundy (Far-right Mormon), 2014 |  Cliven Bundy |
Author
I am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. They also sacrificed their humanities as they committed genocide against Kuttuhsippeh (Goshute), Timpanogos Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Ute, Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Diné (Navajo). Because my ancestors made my home through Indigenous genocide in their home/lands––I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled, while helping my fellow settlers do the same through reading, writing, art, and community building.
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