Race
Mandela Elevated; Brigham Thrown Under the Bus
Racial issues were prominent this past weekend. Nelson Mandela passed away at the age of 95. He was universally praised by both republicans and democrats. Harry Reid tweeted In a way, Mandela was both the “George Washington” and “Abraham Lincoln” of his country. We’re so fortunate to have lived in his time. John Boehner […]
Are These Mascots Offensive?
Usually when I talk about racism, I talk about the past policy to deny black Mormons the priesthood and temple ordinances. However, there are other types of racism, and Native American racism is in the news. Many people consider that the name NFL’s Washington Redskins is a racial slur. President Obama weighed in on the […]
How Racism, Sexism, and other Stereotypes Hurt Our Performance
We all know that racism exists. Jeff (The Race is On) and I (The Black 14 of Wyoming) wrote about racism last week at Wheat and Tares. But one commenter in particular said that race is not a problem. (I don’t know what planet he lives on–apparently he lives in an area with few minorities, […]
The Black 14 of Wyoming
Margaret Young organized a special meeting at BYU on Saturday night. She invited Mel Hamilton to discuss his experiences as part of the Black 14 protest against BYU in 1969. Mel grew up Catholic in North and South Carolina. In 1965, he was recruited to be part of the University of Wyoming football team. Arriving […]
The Book of Mormon: An Imperfect Book?
Signature Books sent me an advance copy of An Imperfect Book by Earl M. Wunderli, and it is due to be released tomorrow, June 17. (Perhaps it’s a great gift for that non-believing dad for Father’s Day.) The subtitle to the book is “What the Book of Mormon tells us about itself.” Wunderli takes the […]
MHA 2013: Ethnicity, Martin Harris, and Banyan Trees
I was pleased to attend the 2013 MHA Convention in Layton, Utah this week. It was good to catch up with friends. I was only able to attend on Friday, because I had to work on Saturday, but wanted to share my notes from the conference. By Common Consent has some additional reports from Ben […]
Jefferson’s Paradoxical Views on Race
I came across an interesting documentary called Thomas Jefferson: A View from the Mountain on Netflix. I watched it because I could see it was no longer going to be streamed, and I’m glad I did. (I hope it will be available again.) While the LDS Church often gets a bad rap about the ban […]
Ken Burns on the Context of the MMM
I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ 1996 documentary series on The West. Â It’s a 9 part series, so it takes a bit of effort to get through. Â Of course Burns spends some time discussing the Mormons, and I found his treatment of Mormons within the context of the western United States very interesting. In Part 4: […]
Rehabbing Elder McConkie
I took a break from the Kimball biography to discuss the recent Sunstone and FAIR conferences, but now it is time to get back to Lengthen Your Stride by Edward Kimball, and I wanted to discuss Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s role in the events leading up to the 1978 revelation. Elder McConkie has been much maligned […]
Mormon Heretic 