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
Imagine a better future for us all. Who is all there?: Perfection and Futurism in Mormon Cosmology6/14/2023  "Joseph Smith's Vision of the Celestial Kingdom," by Robert T. Barrett. When you imagine a better future for us all, in this life or another, who is there? Are there trans people? Are there disabled people? Are there Indigenous Peoples? Are there countries and religion, too? Is there change, conflict, and diversity? Or homogenous endless perfection? Mormons as, Millenarians & Zionists, are utopic, future-thinking people. Leaders teach to live not for this life but to “Endure To The End.” And this future is homogenous endless perfection. Everyone agrees. The Lion lays with the Lamb. Conflict and diversity are abolished from our bodies. But this story never aligned with my embodied experience. The idea that the “natural man is an enemy to God” in need of perfection didn’t make sense with my experience of the complex mess of joys and griefs of a humanimal earth life. And the more I learned of and unlearned the illusory separation of land and human culture the more this divisive ideology made no sense—was counter to my senses. My senses tell me that the conflict born of the diversity contained within ecosystems is not a fallen state of any past utopia to be overcome in hopes of achieving some future utopia. What’s good for the wolf is good for the deer is good for the river is good for the living ecosystem. In other words the idea that “what’s good for the spider is bad for the fly” is not ecologically sound. Colonial utopias tend to be free from conflict and diversity as diversity and conflict go hand in hand. The colonized mind doesn’t know how to separate conflict from abuse (nor abuse from aid, but that’s another story). But conflict is not abuse. Conflict and diversity are central to the ecology of earthlings. My senses tell me this is also true cosmologically. That the big banging, particle colliding, supernova-ing universe was created through conflict, opposition, diversity. That when misunderstood the trough and valleys of the basic shape of the universe would seem as polemically opposed rather than intrinsically interdependent points on a spiral. When you imagine a better future for us all, in this life or another, who is there? Who and what is included in your sense of perfection?  Image of "premortal life" from LDS.org In Mormonism (and so many others) life on earth begins in stasis, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were born into abled, eternal bodies which experienced neither sickness nor hunger. The Lion laid with the Lamb. It was perfect. Pure. A Utopia. The Mormon “plan” also ends in Utopic deathless perfection. Those who strive to be go(o)d enough enter into the perfectest heaven–the Celestial Kingdom. In this imagined future every body is perfected as God is–heterosexual, abled, cisgender, pure, white The second “great purpose” of this church is the project of “the perfecting of the Saints.” The Family Proclamation states that God’s children became earthlings to “obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection...” Interlude: Mormon Cosmology says “God created man in his own image” is literal. Mormon God is physically embodied—a corporeal, heterosexual, abled, cisgender, white man. Their origin story is pre-Genesis in a pre-mortal life. Mormon God made many spirit children through physical intercourse with many polygynous wives. For us, the spirit children, to become like our God Dad and Moms we had to get and perfect human bodies on earth. A war broke out. Jesus vs. Lucifer. The body we each are born into on earth is a result of our actions in this war. Perfection is frequently used in talks by Prophets and Apostles as an antithesis of disability. Apostle Holland told followers in 2013 that in Heaven their disabled loved ones, “will stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind.” The year before Pres Nelson reassured his followers that “A perfect body is not required to achieve one's divine destiny. In fact, some of the sweetest spirits are housed in frail or imperfect bodies." In Mormonism, the disabled body is rendered the polar opposite of the Edenic body. The most fallen of us all. Well, more accurately, the Black / African, queer, disabled, and apostate body. As, liike many other US eugenic hierarchies, literal disability is metaphorized into a white-supremacist and anti-queer construct. This church’s 1949 anti-Black manifesto describes the “failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings one the priesthood (anyone of African descent was denied this “right”) is a handicap which spirits willing assume (for the privilege of being born on earth.)” Apostle M. E. Peterson said in 1954: “In spite of whatever they might have done in the pre-existence to justify being born over there as Chinamen…with all the handicaps of that race…if they now, in this life (become a good Mormon) that means they can have exaltation. Isn't the mercy of God marvelous?” In 2016 Apostle Bednar shared, “Some people have physical limitations, they may be born with a body that is not fully functional,” and compared this embodied experience to that of being “attracted to someone of the same sex”. In this Church’s 2007 anti-queer manifesto Mormons are taught that, like disability, queerness will also be relieved from the Celestial body. “As we follow Heavenly Father’s plan, our bodies, feelings, and desires will be perfected in the next life.” When you imagine a better future for us all, in this life or another, who is there? Are there trans people? Are there disabled people? Are there Indigenous Peoples? Are there countries and religion, too? Is there change, conflict, and diversity? Or homogenous endless perfection?  Mormon temple interior
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This is my testimony of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which my entire family have been followers of since 1884.  Mormon Mythistries I’d like to bear my testimony: I know this church is an overtly white-settler-Christian-imperial-capitalist-hetero-supremacist corporation which refuses to apologize, acknowledge, or be accountable to the ongoing harms they’ve enacted. I know Joseph Smith was a pedophile, (attempted) murderer, & con-man who stole millions in contemporary dollars from his members and constantly ran from being held accountable for any of his crimes. I know Brigham Young was an imperial genocidal terrorist who also controlled his own people (my ancestors) through blood-atonements (divine murder) & other abuses of power. I know The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and D&C were made up by Joseph Smith as part of his financial con in the form of a religious corporation and they are each book teaches that white-supremacy, heteropatriarchy, settler-colonialism, classism, Christian-supremacy, & antisemitism are divine. I know the Mormon doctrine of eternal families is rooted in anti/philosemitism, misogynistic polygamy, and classist pedophilic eugenics—that Joseph threatened to murder his own wife in the same revelation in Joseph describes the doctrine of eternal families & polygamy. I know Mormon temples, priesthood, and Israeli-identity are examples of anti/philosemitic, hetero-patriarchal, and white-Christian-settler-supremacist practices. I know Mormon end-times beliefs are far-right, Christian-Nationalist/supremacist, anti-queer, and contribute to the destruction of the livability of our planet (the only one we’ll ever know). I know this church sided with & assisted Nazis during & after WWII—that its leaders (using their religious and US gov authority) actively fought against allowing Jewish refugees (even those converted to Mormonism) from emigrating to the U.S. I know the contemporary church uses their mass fortune (the results of the financial con that their founder started) to defend, enable, and assist child abusers while they abuse survivors of child abuse—and to create deadly anti-queer laws globally. I know they use their missionary program to colonize Indigenous Peoples across the world spreading this white-Christain-supremacy & nationalism comminting genocide through cultural assimilation. I know the Mormon God is openly white-supremacist as he uses whiteness as a mark of his Chosen People and uses “a skin of blackness” as a mark of evil. And openly advocates for segregation and anti-miscegenation (in both scripture and the words of his prophets). I know the current Prophet & other leaders were all grown ass men as this church assisted Nazis, committed genocide through the Lamanite Placement Program, openly practiced anti-Black segregation, fought against civil rights, homosexual marriage rights, and women’s rights. And they do it all with the word love on their lips. I know this church learned everything it knows from the U.S. settler-colonial project in which it was conceived. That the only thing Mormon leaders and the U.S. government have ever fought over is who will dominate the masses, the land, and it’s Peoples. I know that it is our responsibility as heirs & products of these projects to, like Jesus, destroy those which seek to hoard and abuse power and wealth through the subjugation and exploitation of people and that which gives us all life. Amen This essay is also featured in Testimony "Vol. 3" by Related Records
 Collage featuring the 2014 First Presidency, the 2019 First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the Christus statue at the Roman, Italy temple, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (TM) logo arranged into the Mormon Seal of the Melchizedek Priesthood. In 2014, 36-yrs after this church’s African Exaltation Ban was rescinded, this church released an essay titled: “Race and the Priesthood” in which they outline their current position on race. It’s a sort of 4th manifesto in this church’s series on Mormonism and persons indigenous to Africa.
“Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse … or that (black people) or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else… “Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form. (This is) epitomized by a verse in (2nd Nephi): '[The Lord] denieth none that cometh unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; … all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.'” Yet, 2nd Nephi also says that God cursed the Lamanites with “a skin of blackness” to make them “not enticing.” –– God even went so far as to say that if the white & delightsome Nephites “mix seed” with the black & loathsome Lamanites their children would inherit the same curse.
2nd Nephi also prophecies that in the last days many Jews “believe in Christ” and thus “become a delightsome people” implying that Jews who practice Judaism are not delightsome –– which sounds like the church continues to teaches that some people are inferior, and that melanin content & religion can be an indicator of inferiority. But the authors of this essay avoid these obvious contradictions by focusing solely on the white-supremacist anti-Blackness in this church and wholly ignoring the white-supremacist anti-Indigeneity and antisemitism. When addressing the legalization of enslavement in Utah by this church (acting as territorial representatives) as the start date of the exaltation restriction, the essay exclusively addresses enslavement of persons descended out of Africa and makes no mention of the Mormon enslavement of Indigenous persons, which was far more common at the time. It also coyly states that enslavement “was soon abolished” without saying that it was abolished by, what Utah Mormons then and now would label "government overreach," federal emancipation. Mormons did not choose to end their practice of enslavement (and realistically did not stop enslaving Indigenous persons. There were certainly Indigenous children working unpaid in settler Mormon homes during the Lamanite Placement Program) Similarly the author/s write that, "President Young" with whom this essay places the origin of the African Salvation Ban, "said that at some future day, black Church members would 'have [all] the privilege and more' enjoyed by other members." Thought, they neglect to mention that Brigham Young also said: "(When) this Church … declare that it is right (that) the black race of Cain... be partakers with us of all the blessings God has given to us. On that very day and hour…the Priesthood is taken from this Church and Kingdom and God leaves us to our fate." Essentially saying that the day this church lets Black people have Mormon Priesthood is the day this church will lose their Priesthood. The author regularly refers to the words of prophets as “theories,” –– but when then-Apostle Oaks was asked whether the ban was doctrine or policy in 1988 he said: “I don’t know that it’s possible to distinguish between policy and doctrine in a church that believes in continuing revelation and sustains its leader as a prophet.” And seven years prior Prophet Benson said: “The prophet does not have to say 'Thus saith the Lord' to give us scripture.” But then what’s more Mormon than doublespeak in service of white Christian innocence? The authors of this essay do an excellent job at seeming to lay it all out on the table and making a simple and direct argument showing that even though this church openly practiced anti-Black segregation for 126 of their first 148 years, this was a mere tangent from their true course. The essay never grapples with any of the scripture emitted from the mouths of dozens their overtly white-supremacist leadership nor does it address any policies or practices put in place to fight the century plus of overt white-supremacy still held in the bodies which fill their congregations. If white-supremacy has only been in this church's past for the last 45 years, why are top 15 leaders all white men and one pale Chinese-American? If this is truly a world-religion, Indigenous to this continent, why are there no Indigenous leaders and so few persons of the global majority leading it?
This post is less about the 1978 Revelation on Mormon anti-Blackness, or Official Declaration 2, as it is about why it happened at all. In that spirit, we're starting where we left off with the two official statements on on Mormonism and anti-Blackness. David O. Mckay signed both the 1949 and 1969 church statements on their anti-Black doctrine and practices. He became President two years after the first statement and died just after the release of the second one. During McKay's presidency (‘51-’70), which aligns almost directly with the Civil Rights Era, membership in this church tripled. So, one can assume that the amount of money this church was recieving in tithes also tripled. This assumption is backed up by the fact that, by the late ‘70s this church’s investment account, now known as Ensign Peak Advisors, was estimated to be worth over $1B. Today, its estimated worth is $100B. Also by the 70's the church leadership realized that a major impediment to their membership growth, and thus economic growth, was their white supremacy. If you limit who can be a full member of your organization, you limit how many people will be a paying member of your organization. Thus, I believe the overt anti-Blackness of this church was ended not due to social pressure nor to God’s will, but because their white-supremacist practices were in the way of their money. This church’s population grew nearly 3x in the previous two decades. To continue to grow, especially in so-called Latin America, they had to expand who could join & pay tithes to their church. Ongoing in the present, in 2018 President Nelson told members in Kenya that “Dowry is not the Lord’s way” and that instead they should be focused on tithing. "We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," Nelson said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing." (See also: prosperity doctrine). Never mind that colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism has repeatedly stolen the wealth of these peoples, destabilized their governments, and destroyed their cultures and lands.  President Spencer W. Kimball searching, pondering, and praying The 1978 Revelation on |
| PROTEST: The UT NAACP threatened to picket the Oct ‘63 gen con but dropped the plan when Pres. Brown promised to read a statement supporting full civil rights. In 1965, the same year as the Selma March, 300 protesters marched to the Church Office Building demanding that the Church endorse a civil rights bill then languishing in the Utah legislature. Later protests were concentrated against BYU athletics, as the school practiced Anti-Black segregation. From ‘68 & ‘70 at least 12 protests occurred during BYU’s sports games. Opposing teams would refuse to play or wore black armbands in protest. Many students petitioned their universities to refuse to play BYU. Stanford did stop playing BYU. But by the late 70’s, when the ban was lifted, protests were few and far between. |  Selma March, 1965 |
2019 First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at their new Rome, Italy temple. Of the 15 men, 14 are of European-descent even after 45 years of disavowing their white-supremacy.
| BLOOD TROUBLE: As this church further grew into an international imperialist institution they began to run into trouble determining if a person has “one-drop” of African blood. In the segregated US and South Africa this wasn’t an issue because the white population was deeply white-supremacists and legislated segregation. But in places like Brazil where race was determined by colorism rather than by genealogy and interracial marriage was common this church struggled to know who could and couldn’t hold priesthood. Additionally church members in Brazil, having not culturally internalized anti-Blackness in the ways we have in the US, found the church’s white-supremacist practices to be icky. |  Jim Crow sign I altered for this post |
In ‘75 Pres. Kimball announced the construction of a temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil. About 80% of Brazil’s population was estimated to be at least partly of African descent, though records are sparse. This lack of genealogical records and the difference in cultural understandings of race made church leaders realize that enforcing their temple ban would be very difficult. The Sao Paulo temple was completed the same year the Priesthood Revelation was released.
 São Paulo, Brazil temple under construction |  São Paulo, Brazil temple |
BLOOD MONEY:
To raise funds for this temple, in the late 70’s some South American members donated the gold from their dental work to this church. In ‘97, Pres. Faust showed off some these gold teeth to encourage members to sacrifice for their church.
That same year, Faust also helped found this church’s investment fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, which by the late 70’s was estimated to hold about $1B
To raise funds for this temple, in the late 70’s some South American members donated the gold from their dental work to this church. In ‘97, Pres. Faust showed off some these gold teeth to encourage members to sacrifice for their church.
That same year, Faust also helped found this church’s investment fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, which by the late 70’s was estimated to hold about $1B
President James E. Faust at the São Paulo, Brazil temple in 1978 with a Black family.
| REVEALED & RESCINDED: Spencer W. Kimball got a special key for a special room and prayered there at night for many nights until he invited all the top 15 together for a prayer in which it was revealed that this church needn’t practice overt anti-Black segregation anymore. (Only heteropatriarchal segregation from this day forth) |  |
 President Dallin H. Oaks with a smug grin. | OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FUTURE: In 2018, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Revelation, Oaks spoke of those who wish to look back and understand why the ban was there at all. He advises: “most in the Church, including its senior leadership, have concentrated on the opportunities of the future rather than the disappointments of the past.” Which is advisable in a church that officially does not give apologies. |
Does neoliberal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion actually fight white supremacist capitalism––or––does it just expand who gets to wield the white-supremacist capitalist power to oppress while bringing Black, Indigenous, Brown, and queer people, and women into environments designed to harm and exclude those persons?
Did the rescinding of the anti-African ban create less whites supremacist violence in this church?
Did the rescinding of the anti-African ban create less whites supremacist violence in this church?
Second Official Church Statement on Mormonism & “the Negro” from the First Presidency, 1969
6/4/2023
First Presidency: David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, & N. Eldon Tanner
On December 15, 1969 the First Presidency released a second, longer statement defending this church’s overt anti-Blackness & their practices & doctrines of divine white supremacy & segregation.
Apparently some “confusion (had) arisen” and the 1969 Presidency (with David O. McKay represented in both ‘49 & ‘69 Presidencies) decided to reiterate their 1949 statement.
Today these official statements are brushed away as simply “theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions.”
––––––––––––––––
I think this part of the statement is especially pertinent to the contemporary queer civil rights fight this church and many of its members are politically and financially involved in:
“We feel nothing but love, compassion, and the deepest appreciation for the rich talents, endowments, and the earnest strivings of our Negro brothers and sisters. (If this were our church) it would be a simple thing to act according to popular will. But we believe that this work is directed by God”
––––––––––––––––
This is how they were able to be an openly white supremacist organization yet preach Christlike love in rhetoric. And this is exactly how they are able to be an openly anti-queer organization and preach that same Christlike love today.
White supremacy doesn’t just fade out of generations of bodies, ideologies, theologies, texts, and imagery, when a rule changes. We must put as much effort into disassimilating from it as effort was put into assimilating us all into it.
And in my experience, born just 5 years after the end of the African Exaltation Ban, and raised Mormon in Utah’s Dixie, there has been zero efforts to be accountable to and responsible for our culture’s ongoing history of divine white supremacy.
Apparently some “confusion (had) arisen” and the 1969 Presidency (with David O. McKay represented in both ‘49 & ‘69 Presidencies) decided to reiterate their 1949 statement.
Today these official statements are brushed away as simply “theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions.”
––––––––––––––––
I think this part of the statement is especially pertinent to the contemporary queer civil rights fight this church and many of its members are politically and financially involved in:
“We feel nothing but love, compassion, and the deepest appreciation for the rich talents, endowments, and the earnest strivings of our Negro brothers and sisters. (If this were our church) it would be a simple thing to act according to popular will. But we believe that this work is directed by God”
––––––––––––––––
This is how they were able to be an openly white supremacist organization yet preach Christlike love in rhetoric. And this is exactly how they are able to be an openly anti-queer organization and preach that same Christlike love today.
White supremacy doesn’t just fade out of generations of bodies, ideologies, theologies, texts, and imagery, when a rule changes. We must put as much effort into disassimilating from it as effort was put into assimilating us all into it.
And in my experience, born just 5 years after the end of the African Exaltation Ban, and raised Mormon in Utah’s Dixie, there has been zero efforts to be accountable to and responsible for our culture’s ongoing history of divine white supremacy.
First Presidency: David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, & N. Eldon Tanner
Second Official Church Statement
on Mormonism & “the Negro”
from the First Presidency, 1969
"To General Authorities, Regional Representatives of the Twelve, Stake Presidents, Mission Presidents, and Bishops.
"Dear Brethren:
"In view of confusion that has arisen, it was decided at a meeting of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve to restate the position of the Church with regard to the Negro both in society and in the Church.
“First, may we say that we know something of the sufferings of those who are discriminated against in a denial of their civil rights and Constitutional privileges… We as a people have experienced the bitter fruits of civil discrimination and mob violence.
“We believe that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired, that it was produced by ‘wise men’ whom God raised up for this ‘very purpose,’ and that the principles embodied in the Constitution are so fundamental and important that, if possible, they should be extended ‘for the rights and protection’ of all mankind… It follows, therefore, that we believe the Negro, as well as those of other races, should have his full Constitutional privileges as a member of society…
"However… The first amendment… specifically provides that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'
"(Thus this church’s anti-Blackness) falls wholly within the category of religion. It has no bearing upon matters of civil rights…the question of bestowing or withholding priesthood in the Church is a matter of religion and not a matter of Constitutional right.
"A word of explanation concerning the position of the Church.
"From the beginning of this dispensation, Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents of the
Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man.
“Our living prophet, President David O. McKay, has said, ‘The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God…Revelation assures us that this plan antedates man’s mortal existence, extending back to man’s pre-existent state.’
"President McKay has also said, ‘Sometime in God’s eternal plan, the Negro will be given the right to hold the priesthood.’
“Until God reveals His will in this matter, to him whom we sustain as a prophet, we are bound by that same will. Priesthood, when it is conferred on any man comes as a blessing from God, not of men.
“We feel nothing but love, compassion, and the deepest appreciation for the rich talents, endowments, and the earnest strivings of our Negro brothers and sisters.
"(If this were our church) it would be a simple thing to act according to popular will. But we believe that this work is directed by God and that the conferring of the priesthood must await His revelation.
“In developing that love and concern for one another, while awaiting revelations yet to come, let us hope that with respect to these religious differences, we may gain reinforcement for understanding and appreciation for such differences.
Faithfully your brethren,
The First Presidency
David O. McKay
Hugh B. Brown
N. Eldon Tanner”
"Dear Brethren:
"In view of confusion that has arisen, it was decided at a meeting of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve to restate the position of the Church with regard to the Negro both in society and in the Church.
“First, may we say that we know something of the sufferings of those who are discriminated against in a denial of their civil rights and Constitutional privileges… We as a people have experienced the bitter fruits of civil discrimination and mob violence.
“We believe that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired, that it was produced by ‘wise men’ whom God raised up for this ‘very purpose,’ and that the principles embodied in the Constitution are so fundamental and important that, if possible, they should be extended ‘for the rights and protection’ of all mankind… It follows, therefore, that we believe the Negro, as well as those of other races, should have his full Constitutional privileges as a member of society…
"However… The first amendment… specifically provides that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'
"(Thus this church’s anti-Blackness) falls wholly within the category of religion. It has no bearing upon matters of civil rights…the question of bestowing or withholding priesthood in the Church is a matter of religion and not a matter of Constitutional right.
"A word of explanation concerning the position of the Church.
"From the beginning of this dispensation, Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents of the
Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man.
“Our living prophet, President David O. McKay, has said, ‘The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God…Revelation assures us that this plan antedates man’s mortal existence, extending back to man’s pre-existent state.’
"President McKay has also said, ‘Sometime in God’s eternal plan, the Negro will be given the right to hold the priesthood.’
“Until God reveals His will in this matter, to him whom we sustain as a prophet, we are bound by that same will. Priesthood, when it is conferred on any man comes as a blessing from God, not of men.
“We feel nothing but love, compassion, and the deepest appreciation for the rich talents, endowments, and the earnest strivings of our Negro brothers and sisters.
"(If this were our church) it would be a simple thing to act according to popular will. But we believe that this work is directed by God and that the conferring of the priesthood must await His revelation.
“In developing that love and concern for one another, while awaiting revelations yet to come, let us hope that with respect to these religious differences, we may gain reinforcement for understanding and appreciation for such differences.
Faithfully your brethren,
The First Presidency
David O. McKay
Hugh B. Brown
N. Eldon Tanner”
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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