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 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
0 Comments
 Twelve years after successfully arguing for a Mormon exemption to the Indian Child Welfare Act, Diné man, Mormon General Authority, & Lamanite Placement Program graduate George P. Lee was excommunicated.
In the early ‘80s as “friend of the Indians” & Mormon Prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, was very sick. Future Mormon Prophet Ezra Taft Benson & others began to cut funding to the Lamanite programs Kimball had spent his life building up. George P. Lee, as a member of the 70, protested these changes demanding: “Who is turning their backs on the Lamanites–the very people on whom your own salvation hangs?” Lee believed that the purpose of the Mormon church was to “bring the message of the Book of Mormon to American Indians” so that they may “blossom as a rose,” turn “white and delightsome” and prepare for the Americas for the gathering of Israel in the New Jerusalem and the Second Coming of Christ. Lee understood the Mormon church to be divinely for, and eventually run by, Lamanites – aka the Tribe of Manasseh. Lee also believed, as the early leaders taught, that the salvation of Euro-Mormons depends on the salvation of Lamanites. “(You) have no sense of responsibility to (Indigenous Peoples) because you displaced them and set yourself up as Ephraim more superior to the Lamanites and thus you are telling (Indigenous Peoples) that you are No. 1 and they are second class. It is getting to the point where every Gentile that is baptized is told and taught that he is the literal seed of Ephraim unless he is a Jew, Indian or Black. This… encourages an attitude of superior race, white supremacy. “You have cut out Indian or Lamanite programs and are attempting to cut them out of the Book of Mormon. You are trying to discredit or downplay the role of Lamanites in these last days and downplay their role and importance in the building of the New Jerusalem.'' Partly, for this kind of protest George P. Lee was excommunicated. He was the first Mormon leader to be excommunicated in forty-six years. Although I believe the true purpose of this church is to make money and power for itself and its leaders, I do agree with Lee’s understanding of the explicit purpose of the church as founded in the Book of Mormon. Even today this church still teaches that the Book of Mormon “was written primarily to the Lamanites.” For this church to be aligned with its Book of Mormon message, at least half of the quorum of twelve ought to be Native by now and they should be doing everything in their power to cause the Lamanite to “blossom as a rose.” But this isn’t the case, because as Lee points out in his excommunication letter, these leaders are more there for money, than “the Lord’s work.” “I am not sure how many of us would really do the Lord's work if we were not being paid.” - George P. Lee, 1989 To read the full length essay with sources see “Mormonism and Indigenous Assimilation”  Spencer W. Kimball with Diné Lamanite Placement Program students In 1947, Diné girl Helen John stayed w/ a white, Utah-Mormon family to go to school. This is marked as the unofficial beginnings of the Lamanite Placement Program. I place it w/ the beginnings of this church. In 1830, Joseph Smith sent Mormon leaders to convert, marry, & save Lamanites so “that their posterity may become white & delightsome.” Twenty-one years later, Brigham Young called on members to buy, adopt, educate, and convert Indigenous women and children thru enslavement so that they “become a white & delightsome people.” In the 1850s-Emancipation, after the Pioneers massacred an Indigenous village, they’d “adopt” the surviving women & children in order to enslave, marry, educate, & “teach them the gospel.” In the 1950s, “Adoption represented the ultimate solution to the Indian problem (in the U.S.) Children would have no contact with other Indians, & they would grow up in middle-class homes. Thus, officials believed, Indian children would become truly assimilated into mainstream American society.” (Margaret D. Jacobs) From 1947-1954, the Lamanite Placement Program was run illegally. When the Relief Society finally got licensed to run the Program, 68 children were already placed.  Arthur Vivian Watkins, by Granger. 1951. In the early ‘50s Utah Mormon, US Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins was working to pass Tribal Termination legislation to end reservations and force Indigenous Peoples to integrate and assimilate into settler-society, thus destroying the Indigenous Nations. Sen. Watkins thought he was helping by destroying collective Tribal identities, and replacing them with settler individualism. Watkins even compared Tribal Termination to the Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1953, Tribal Termination became law. In 1954 Watkins wrote to Church leaders: “the time has come…to help the Indians stand on their own two feet and become a white and delightsome people as the Book of Mormon prophesied they would become. Of course, I realize that the Gospel will be the motivating factor, but it is difficult to teach the Gospel when they don't understand the English language and have had no training in caring for themselves.” “I firmly believe that tomorrow there will be no reservations… I believe that integration into our economy and community life is essential and I look forward to the day.” - Spencer W. Kimball, ‘62. By the 1960s, 25%–35% of Indigenous children were living apart from their families and People. The Lamanite Placement program became official the year after Tribal Termination was legislated. Tribal termination and the Lamanite Placement Program were both Mormon-created programs meant to assimilate Indigenous Peoples to white-settler society by destroying their tribal identity as Indigneous persons. To read the full length essay with sources see “Mormonism and Indigenous Assimilation”  “Ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites…that their posterity may become white and delightsome.” - Joseph Smith, 1831 "(B)uy up the Lamanite children, educate them, and teach them the gospel so that… they should become a white and delightsome people. Buy them up to save their souls." - Brigham Young, 1851 “The day of the Lamanites is nigh… (T)hey are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised” - Spencer W. Kimball, 1960
This is the part 1 of a series on the Lamanite Placement Program (1947-2000) thru which this church & it’s participants baptized, educated, and fostered 30,000-70,000 Indigenous kids (mostly Diné, aka Navajo). This program is often addressed as one of good intentions that had some less than good results. Thru this series I want to show that: 1) the intentions were violent as these supposed good intentions were based in anti-Indiegenous white-settler-supremacy, anti-collectivism, and historical igrorance. 2) this program is rooted in polygamy, rape, enslavement, and genocide with goal of stealing more Indigenous land 3) this program is embedded in a deeper U.S. settler project of biological genocide, enslavement, tribal termination, and the epidemic of settler adoption of Indigenous children which removed 25-35 percent of Indigenous children from their people by the ‘60s and led to the creation of ICWA 4) that Tribal Termination of the ‘50s has its roots in Mormonism 5) the current ICWA battle headed to Supreme Court is using the same tactics the Mormon church used to secure an exemption to ICWA so they could continue their assimilation practice in the form of the Lamanite Placement Program. To read the full length essay with sources see “Mormonism and Indigenous Assimilation”  The Lamanite Placement Program (LPP) or Indian Student Placement Program was a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-run Indigenous foster schooling program. From 1947-2000, about 30,000-70,000 Indigenous kids, mostly Diné, were baptized and fostered in white-Mormon homes to attend settler schools. Like Boarding Schools, students were discouraged from practicing their People’s traditions, languages, or visiting home during holidays.
This Program was founded in the Mormon belief that Indigenous Peoples are related to settler-Mormons in the Tribes of Israel, but are no longer white because their ancestors rebelled against Christianity and so were cursed with dark skin. Settler-Mormons believe it is their divine duty to convert & assimilate Natives to restore their supposed original “white and delightsome”-ness. This program is often framed by sympathetic writers as an effort to uplift Indigenous Peoples. But as Margaret D. Jacobs writes, “Whether exploitative or benevolent, or both at the same time, the incorporation of … thousands of (Indigenous) children into Mormon homes served larger goals of the fledgling Mormon community—the displacement of (Indigenous) peoples from land that Mormon families sought to settle upon and develop.” Many settlers also try to diminish the severity of assimilation by saying “that isn’t genocide, genocide is about killing.” But separating cultural genocide from biological genocide “confuses definition with degree… In practice, (assimilation) is certainly going to have a direct impact on that People’s capacity to stay alive.” (Patrick Wolfe) Thus, assimilation is about killing as it operates to “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Or in this case: “Kill the Indian, save the Lamanite.”
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?
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.
Archives
June 2023
May 2023
July 2022
June 2022
Categories
All
American Exceptionalism / Constitutionalism
Anti Communism / Imperialism
Antisemitism
Art / Personal
Brigham Young
BYU
Curse Of Cain / Ham
Dallin H. Oaks
End Times / Latter Days
Ezra Taft Benson
Joseph Smith
J. Reuben Clark
Lamanites And Indigeneity
Pure / White Supremacy
Settler Colonialism / Zionism
Spencer W. Kimball
The Family Proclamation / Marriage / The Gay Agenda
Under The Banner Of Heaven
Utah's Dixie
W. Cleon Skousen
RSS Feed