U of W shows Church how to apologise for past racism

[_I have a question]

In 1969 the black players of the University Of Wyoming started the beginning of the end for the racist based doctrine and practice of the Church.

Nearly 50 years ago, in 1969, 14 black football players at the University of Wyoming wanted to protest a racist policy.

The team was set to play Brigham Young University, a university affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which at the time had a policy prohibiting black people from becoming priests. Students were planning a protest outside the football stadium, and the players wanted to wear black armbands during the game in support.
When the players approached their coach to ask for permission, they were immediately kicked off the team.
The campus fell into disarray -- there were protests calling for the reinstatement of the players, and the situation garnered national attention.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/us/unive ... index.html

It took the Church nearly a decade more to get the message, and another 4 decades to disavow its past behaviours and the leaders who instructed it. But no apology. Not from the University nor from the Church.

None of them ever received a public apology. Until Friday.

The University of Wyoming held a commemorative week in honor of the 14 players, dubbed the "Black 14," this year, marking the 50th anniversary of the incident. The week, attended by eight of the 11 living players, culminated in a dinner Friday, when the university's athletic director Tom Burman read from an official apology letter from the school.
The letter applauds the former students for their actions and says they were "deprived" of their college experiences because of events that weren't their fault.
"To have your collegiate careers derailed as both students and athletes is a tragedy," it says.
It concludes with the following: "Please accept this sincere apology from the University of Wyoming for the unfair way you were treated and for the hardships that treatment created for you. We want to welcome you home as valued members of this institution, and hope you accept our old Wyoming saying, 'Once a Cowboy, always a Cowboy.'"

What are the chances the Church will offer the same to all those people it treated unfairly and who suffered hardships as a result of the priesthood and temple ban? What about the removal of racism from the Book of Mormon and an apology to all those members who it institutionally coerced (and who it still coerces) into believing that a black skin was (and according to scripture, still is) a sign of a curse from God as a result of ancestral bad behaviour?

[_moksha]

It is a standing policy that the Church does not apologize for anything. They offered a mea culpa for the Mountain Meadow Massacre, but not an apology.

The only Universities that actually withdrew from participation against BYU back then were San Jose State and Stanford University. The University of Washington decided to honor their contractual obligations and then to decide whether to place BYU on its taboo list.

The University of Wyoming shot itself in the foot for over a decade through the coaches knee-jerk reaction to the players.

[_Dr Moore]

If there is one thing that causes me to feel embarrassment by association, it's this.

Our most senior leaders claim to be Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. They preach about forgiveness and apologizing.

Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!
Lead by example!

(15 copies, one for each of them)

[_Stem]

I love that story from '69.

When the players approached their coach to ask for permission, they were immediately kicked off the team.

you mean they dared ask? What was wrong with that coach?

I mean its too bad this apology came 50 years later, but it came. Maybe in 2027 the Church will come around.

That picture of the fellas is awesome.

[_ldsfaqs]

1. No "apology" is required because the Church NEVER was racist...

2. Church leaders HAVE apologized a few times for some statements in the past made by some which were or where seemingly racist.
Thus, the premise of this thread is false.

3. The premise of this thread is also false because the Church had NO POLICY against "blacks".

- The policy prohibited those of African Lineage, including WHITES to not have the Priesthood.
- Blacks in parts of Central/South America, the Islands, India, etc. WERE given the Priesthood.
- The above two means it was a lineage and scriptural thing, not based on "skin color", thus not actual racism.
- The Levites of the Bible were the ONLY ones who could have the Priesthood during their times. Was God "racist" against all the other Tribes (a.k.a. Lineages)?
- Jesus restricted the Gospel to be given only to the Jews (a.k.a. the Jewish Lineage), was Jesus a "racist" and it taking Peter to get a revelation AFTER Christ's death to officially take the Gospel to the Gentiles? Yes, there were exceptions who recieved the gospel, just like there were those in the early church who got the Priesthood even though they were of African Lineage.

As a side note, did you ever think God might have had his reasons, given that the Priesthood ban ENDED the very same time "racism" ended in the U.S.
I.e. the 70's?

[_moksha]

As a side note, did you ever think God might have had his reasons, given that the Priesthood ban ENDED the very same time "racism" ended in the U.S. I.e. the 70's?

LDSfaqs, any chance God will bring back those dark loincloths you have told us about in past discussions on racism (perhaps under the Beehive-Speedo brand)?

[_Dr Moore]

1. No "apology" is required because the Church NEVER was racist...

2. Church leaders HAVE apologized a few times for some statements in the past made by some which were or where seemingly racist.
Thus, the premise of this thread is false.

3. The premise of this thread is also false because the Church had NO POLICY against "blacks".

- The policy prohibited those of African Lineage, including WHITES to not have the Priesthood.
- Blacks in parts of Central/South America, the Islands, India, etc. WERE given the Priesthood.
- The above two means it was a lineage and scriptural thing, not based on "skin color", thus not actual racism.
- The Levites of the Bible were the ONLY ones who could have the Priesthood during their times. Was God "racist" against all the other Tribes (a.k.a. Lineages)?
- Jesus restricted the Gospel to be given only to the Jews (a.k.a. the Jewish Lineage), was Jesus a "racist" and it taking Peter to get a revelation AFTER Christ's death to officially take the Gospel to the Gentiles? Yes, there were exceptions who recieved the gospel, just like there were those in the early church who got the Priesthood even though they were of African Lineage.

As a side note, did you ever think God might have had his reasons, given that the Priesthood ban ENDED the very same time "racism" ended in the U.S.
I.e. the 70's?

ldsfaqs,

How then do you explain the abundant documentary record of church leaders linking the priesthood ban specifically to blacks, negroes, negroid, black African, body features such as nose, inherent laziness, and numerous direct ties to slavery? Racism does not have to be about every person with a particular skin color, racism against Black Africans will do just fine.

I have often wondered whether the ban would have been directed at some other race, if the colonial slave trade had originated elsewhere, for instance one of the Asian locales where Europe sourced slaves. We have only the clues left behind linking policy and doctrine to the same blacks who were slaves in America at the time of Joseph Smith and BY. But the clues are rather damning evidence that the ban was a convenience born of blacks already viewed, even constitutionally, as less than human at that time.

Where and when did church leaders apologize? I am interested and this is the first time I’ve heard reference to past apologies for racist statements. Why were these past apologies not mentioned in the recent Blacks and Priesthood essay?

Is there an example of a white person having ever been denied the priesthood, even whites of African descent? My understanding is that white people, even in Africa, received it.

Biblical comparisons are weak, in my opinion, because each of the examples gave preference to a chosen people first, not exclusion to a cursed people.

Yes I have thought about whether God had his reasons, given that the ban ended at the same time as racism ended in the US. It is a losing argument however.

Racism in the US originated with the slave trade, so such an argument makes God a racist and ties the ban inextricably to slavery. Hence we must conclude that either it’s all made up (dressed up racism) or that God inspired the slavers to choose Africa over Asia in order for Brigham to have living examples of less than human negroes to justify the ban.

Also, it was not a lock step progression. In fact it cannot be over stressed that the US led the church by decades in progressing away from racism. Read the documentary history in the 1960s and 1979s for thousands of evidence points that church leaders resisted equal rights, doubled down on racist theories, and claimed God as their authority and inspiration for doing so. The equal rights movement peaked in the 1960s whereas the ban was not lifted until the late 1970s. NOT the exact same time, at all. Is God so silent that his own church requires the evil world to lead the way?

The evidence points overwhelmingly to misguided attempts at dressing up racism. An apology is warranted and would do much good.

[_Stem]

1. No "apology" is required because the Church NEVER was racist...

Wow. Not sure I've seen statement more ridiculous than that.

- The policy prohibited those of African Lineage, including WHITES to not have the Priesthood.

That would exclude everyone on earth, of course. THat's perhaps the funniest part of the ban--they claimed God's approval and yet were absolutely that ignorant--perhaps as ignorant as saying the church never was racist.
Unfortunately for you and the Church this little premise destroys the Church's grounding.

[_Dr LOD]

As a side note, did you ever think God might have had his reasons, given that the Priesthood ban ENDED the very same time "racism" ended in the U.S. I.e. the 70's?

LDSfaqs, any chance God will bring back those dark loincloths you have told us about in past discussions on racism (perhaps under the Beehive-Speedo brand)?

I loved that apologist argument of the "skin" meaning the skin of their loincloth. I had a BYU professor/FAIR contributor try to use that one. He really had to tie himself up in a knot for that to work.

[_Dr Moore]

Skin as loincloth, wow. Mind blown.

Is this published somewhere?

The theory is wholly inconsistent with volumes of early statements about Lamanites by the way.

Does this mean Zelph had a white loincloth when discovered?