Randy Bott like most other Mormon men of his generation

[_Daheshist]

I converted to the LDS Church when I was 18, in California. I knew I think "one" Mormon before that, and not well. As a young Mormon in the late 1970s and 1980s, I spoke with many older Mormon men, 10 years to 40 years older than me, and asked them about many things. Generally speaking, this is how they "thought":

*Negroes are child-like, less intelligent, must be lead to do good, lazy, prone to laciviousness, blessed with "limited wisdom" (that's like saying a guy is "blessed with stupidity).

*Women are much like children, less intelligent than men, you need to tell them what they want to hear in order to control them and make them follow you.

I think Randy Bott is at least 65, at least 14 years older than me. His expressions that blacks asking for the Priesthood before 1978 are like children asking for their father's car-keys, is TYPICAL of the older Mormon males I knew back in the late 1970s and 1980s. Some exceptions, sure, but not many. Had Randy Bott said what he told the Washington Post, during a Priesthood-Meeting in 1979, a fewer of the younger Mormon men may have been offended, but not most of the one's over 30. They would have wholeheartedly agreed with him! And some of the older farts would have accused Bott of candy-coating history, and insisted that the Negro is cursed not because he is a child (which they agree he was), but because he is a CURSED child of Cain!

When Bott said he "didn't know the reason why" blacks were banned from the priesthood until 1978, he is _____LYING____. Pure and simple. He is simply saying what the Church wants him to say. I'm sure he is looking eternity in the eye. He can go there as a God, or an eternal eunuch. I'm sure he wants to become a God with many wives. I'm sure he enjoys being a religion teacher at BYU, and doesn't want BYU to suddenly "Retire" him and send him to Bungabunga Nigeria on a welfare mission washing AIDS victims. Bott is no dummy. He knows how the Church operates. If the Church says "Negroes are cursed" then Negroes are cursed. If the Church says, "Negroes are NOT cursed and NEVER WERE and furthermore WE NEVER TAUGHT THEY WERE!" then Negroes are not cursed, and never were, and, dammit, the Mormon Church NEVER taught otherwise! Bott is no dummy. He knows "who" butters his bread!

[_moksha]

Bott's statement does tend to pale in comparison to statements I heard at Church when I was young.