Divine Whiteness in the Promised Land

Lamanite (left) and Nephite (right) characters as paper cut out images for teaching children about the Book of Mormon

2 Nephi 5:21 - And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity … wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. 
22 And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.

So God cursed the bad guy Lamanites “who are among the ancestors” of Indigenous Peoples of this continent & Pacific Islands, with “a skin of blackness.” By turning away from the Mormon God, the Lamanites also turn away from their ancestral “exceedingly fair” whiteness. 

Mormon God chose “a skin of blackness” in hopes that it “might not be enticing unto” His chosen white people. In the next verses Mormon God condemns interrelations with these un-enticing, black-skinned Lamanites.

23 And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.

This curse also turned the Lamanites into “an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey.” This is in contrast to a description of the Nephites a few verses earlier as “industrious” with “exceedingly fine” workmanship.

Mormon antisemitism is mixed with Mormon anti-Indigeneity twenty-five chapters later in 2 Nephi 30. After plagiarizing several chapters from the Book of Isaiah with some antisemitic Christian-supremacy mixed in, Nephi prophesies that both the Lamanites and Jews, after having fallen from Chosen status because of their shared disbelief in Christainity, will “begin to believe in Christ” and become “a delightsome people” 

Indigenous Peoples are promised that they, as descendants of Lamanites, will once again hold 2 Nephi 30:6 the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had among their fathers. And then shall they rejoice ... and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people.
(This verse originally read: “they shall be a white and delightsome people” but was changed to "a pure and a delightsome people" briefly in the 1840’s and long-term in 1981)

Mormon God returned Christianity to this Promised Land and its Peoples through Columbus which was prophesied in Nephi’s latter-day vision. 

1 Nephi 13:11 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.
12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and awrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

Nephi then sees Indigenous genocide at the hands of Euro-Christian colonists:
14 And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten. 

Then Nephi justifies it as divine white-Christian supremacy
15 And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people [the Nephites] before they were slain [by the Lamanites]
(which is how the Book of Mormon explains how white, ancient Israelis could migrate to this continent and yet in 1830 there are no white Peoples living on this continent.)

---

Lamanite Warrior action figure by Latter Day Designs (Ages 4 & up)

Nephi Action Figure by Latter Day Designs (Ages 4 & up)

The Lamanite Warrior Action Figure has a very racist description printed on each package. The racist text comes directly from the Book of Mormon. 

The Mormon-owed book store corporation, Deseret Book, was selling this toy with its overtly racist description until with one day of online organizing someone who knew the President of Deseret Book reached out and the toy was quietly removed overnight without any publicity or accountability for selling it in the first place, nor for the overt racism of the Book of Mormon on which this toy's racism is based.

---

Nephite Soldiers Fight the Lamanites, by Jerry Thompson

Through these verses Euro-Christian & Euro-Mormon settler colonization and Indigenous genocides are justified as Divine intervention. Mormon mythologies create a Lamanite, the supposed common ancestors of contemporary Indigenous Peoples. 

The Lamanites used to be white, ancient Israelis but emigrated to this so-called “Promised Land” to avoid the fall of Jerusalem. 

Here these Lamanites rebelled against the Nephites and their Mormon God. 

So Mormon God cursed the Lamanites with “a skin of Blackness” to keep them segregated. 

But as Mormon God is a merciful white-supremacist he promises to return “the knowledge of Jesus Christ” to the Lamanites in some prophesied future after they’d been “scattered and smitten” by “white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful” Euro-Christian settlers, “they shall be a pure* and a delightsome people.” For most of the existence of the Book of Mormon this verse promised whiteness rather than purity to the Lamanites, but as Mormon apologists have said, whiteness and purity are used interchangeably in the Book of Mormon. 

But I think the whiteness is important here especially because the very next verse, 2 Nephi 30:7, Nephi also envisions “the Jews which are scattered also shall begin to believe in Christ;... and as many as shall believe in Christ shall also become a delightsome people.” 

Jews are simply promised to become a delightsome people upon conversion to Mormonism whereas Lamanites are promised a return to their Chosen Israeli status and its whiteness and delightsomeness. 

Jews and Lamanites, like Pure and White, also share a lot of defining characteristics in the Book of Mormon. Both are cast as a formerly Chosen Peoples of the House of Israel who’ve lost their chosen status because of their rejection of Christ or His Church. Both are giving roles in Mormon Millenarianism. The state of Israel and the gathering of the Jewish People are both prophecied antecedants to the Mormon Second Coming. Similarly, conversion and gathering of Indigenous and Euro-Mormons in a New Jerusalem here in Mormon Zion must occur to prepare the land for Mormon Jesus’s return as God-King of the whole world