A new thread would be great. Especially since Midgley’s habit of re-telling a story until gross exaggeration blooms into florid lies is in full evidence.
And when I noticed Modsha opining, I was suddenly reminded of all that hatred about about the glorious experience that seventeen of us had fourteen days, ten of which were in New Zealand.
Hatred about 17 people and their fourteen day experience?
Midgley is like a little kid, backed into a corner, who suddenly is sure that “an alien landed in the backyard and ate ALL THE COOKIES, mommy. It wasn’t me, mommy, It wasn’t!” Little kids grow out of it. Midgley didn’t.
No Midge-boy. The comments on the KiwiMormon blog were about one person, and concerning one thing. You, and your stalking of Gina Colvin.
I hate to feel compelled to call people out for their utterly baffling obtuseness about racism in America, but here we are. It is grotesque for any white person to compare their experience and the struggle they have gone through with the experience of Black Americans and First Nations peoples. The United States was built on the blood, sweat, tears, suffering, torture, dehumanization, murder, and traffic in Black and native peoples. Those who exploited these people for their own benefit and enrichment were and are white. The struggle continues. The racism continues. The exploitation continues. The white obliviousness continues. Anyone who flippantly appropriates the experience of Black and First Nations peoples needs to repent.
The United States of America was founded as a nation of white supremacy. It continues to be a nation of white supremacy. We have a long way to go before it ceases to be a nation of white supremacy. Whites have systematically stolen from, excluded, raped, murdered, and razed Black and First Nations communities. The first bombs to be dropped on American soil were dropped by whites on the thriving black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, OK in June or 1921, 99 years ago, and over half a century after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The LDS Church has not recanted the doctrines that supported the denial of the priesthood to Black Americans. It has not apologized for them. It has not acknowledged that the denial of the priesthood to Blacks was wrong and not of God. Mormonism is a white supremacist religion, and it will continue to be so long as its overtly racist texts and teachings are not corrected. The first, best step that could be taken is to acknowledge the fallibility of scripture and prophets, whose errors can be corrected today in light of a better, nobler understanding.
What should a white Mormon say when the topic of racism comes up? I can't say for certain, but it is probably something like this: "I am ready to listen and learn. I want to be a part of the solution by working with oppressed peoples toward true equality under the law and substantive equality of opportunity."
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
The first bombs to be dropped on American soil were dropped by whites on the thriving black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, OK in June or 1921, 99 years ago, and over half a century after the Emancipation Proclamation.
What should a white Mormon say when the topic of racism comes up? I can't say for certain, but it is probably something like this: "I am ready to listen and learn. I want to be a part of the solution by working with oppressed peoples toward true equality under the law and substantive equality of opportunity."
Juliann over at the Mormon D&D board has suggested this remedy:
1. Stop pretending the priesthood ban was anything but racist to the core. Put the Gospel Topics where people can see them rather than have to know they exist to find them.
2. Remove any equivalency about how the ban started so that members can't hide behind "God did it." There is too much scholarship to play this game anymore.
3. Instruct local units in what racism is and start talking about it. (All one has to do is read Desert News comments to see the problem we have, it's not like there aren't blaring examples in front of our faces.)
4. The biggest force for good, General Conference. Start. Talking. About. Racism.
I hate to feel compelled to call people out for their utterly baffling obtuseness about racism in America, but here we are. It is grotesque for any white person to compare their experience and the struggle they have gone through with the experience of Black Americans and First Nations peoples. The United States was built on the blood, sweat, tears, suffering, torture, dehumanization, murder, and traffic in Black and native peoples. Those who exploited these people for their own benefit and enrichment were and are white. The struggle continues. The racism continues. The exploitation continues. The white obliviousness continues. Anyone who flippantly appropriates the experience of Black and First Nations peoples needs to repent.
The United States of America was founded as a nation of white supremacy. It continues to be a nation of white supremacy. We have a long way to go before it ceases to be a nation of white supremacy. Whites have systematically stolen from, excluded, raped, murdered, and razed Black and First Nations communities. The first bombs to be dropped on American soil were dropped by whites on the thriving black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, OK in June or 1921, 99 years ago, and over half a century after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The LDS Church has not recanted the doctrines that supported the denial of the priesthood to Black Americans. It has not apologized for them. It has not acknowledged that the denial of the priesthood to Blacks was wrong and not of God. Mormonism is a white supremacist religion, and it will continue to be so long as its overtly racist texts and teachings are not corrected. The first, best step that could be taken is to acknowledge the fallibility of scripture and prophets, whose errors can be corrected today in light of a better, nobler understanding.
What should a white Mormon say when the topic of racism comes up? I can't say for certain, but it is probably something like this: "I am ready to listen and learn. I want to be a part of the solution by working with oppressed peoples toward true equality under the law and substantive equality of opportunity."
Very well said, Reverend. I know that I've very much missed your--dare I say "morally uplifting"?--voice as of late, and I'm sure that the multitudes feel the same.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
The United States of America was founded as a nation of white supremacy. It continues to be a nation of white supremacy. We have a long way to go before it ceases to be a nation of white supremacy. Whites have systematically stolen from, excluded, raped, murdered, and razed Black and First Nations communities. The first bombs to be dropped on American soil were dropped by whites on the thriving black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, OK in June or 1921, 99 years ago, and over half a century after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Thanks for saying this so well.
Of my native ancestors about half died due to the Indian Removal period, actions. Of my spouse her people had about a 90% reduction in population due to similar policies and military actions.
About the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. Sometime back I had a nursing home patient who was a survivor when I met him he was 101 years old. He was a famous Jazz Musician. I listened as he gave me his first hand account. I really wish I wrote some of it down. But fortunately his story was recorded somewhere else. If one could put a value on a memory, listening to his stories are some of my most valuable. I’m not sure what he got from that young naïve doctor.
The Reverend's speech should be framed and hung in every LDS home in place of the reprehensible Proclamation of the Family.
Dr. LOD was right to call out Mr. Midgley on this. I saw the comments but totally missed his reference. The thing is, the real shame rests at the feet of Bill Hamblin, DCP, and Kiwi57. They are the ones who have pushed the idea of Mormon apologists as victims of the same order as Jews who lived through the holocaust. Midgley is a follower, he's not the kind of guy who does well driving his own boat. Whatever his friends say, Midgley blindly invests himself into it 110% and goes over the edge. What's reprehensible is that his friends are right there waiting to push him over.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
The Reverend's speech should be framed and hung in every LDS home in place of the reprehensible Proclamation of the Family.
Dr. LOD was right to call out Mr. Midgley on this. I saw the comments but totally missed his reference. The thing is, the real shame rests at the feet of Bill Hamblin, DCP, and Kiwi57. They are the ones who have pushed the idea of Mormon apologists as victims of the same order as Jews who lived through the holocaust. Midgley is a follower, he's not the kind of guy who does well driving his own boat. Whatever his friends say, Midgley blindly invests himself into it 110% and goes over the edge. What's reprehensible is that his friends are right there waiting to push him over.
But they then throw him a life vest and he "feels the love" and so thinks they are his friends. They kept me from drowning! I think I will turn around and defend them too now!
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
SeN wrote:I am entirely in favor of meting out severe punishment to policemen who abuse the power that society has entrusted in them in order to do unjustified injury, to exploit, or to oppress. The death of George Floyd appears to represent such a case, and I will be happy if, the courts having done their job properly and the perpetrators having been found culpable, just penalties are imposed that will have a deterrent effect on others. Moreover, if there are systemic problems that need to be addressed, I am entirely in favor of addressing and fixing them.
Demonstrations have their place, I suppose, although I now wonder how much good could have been done if all of the energy invested in the current round of demonstrations had instead been deployed elsewhere — e.g., in community clean-up, running errands for shut-ins, service at soup kitchens and food banks, and so forth. (Such things could easily have been done in the name of George Floyd.)
But there is no place for riots and destruction — destruction that often damages the very communities that can afford it least and for which the rioters claim to feel concern. Supermarkets that are destroyed may not return. Minority-owned businesses that have been torched represent the death of dreams and a real setback for minority economic progress.
The rest of the blog entry links to a series of articles highlighting the worst of the protestors and/or ridiculing aspects of the protests. In other words: what would happen if you focused on the Heartlanders or the Mopologists in an effort to understand what Mormons are like.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
The protestors could have cleaned up communities and served in soup kitchens, instead of protesting? Man, how white privileged can you get? And this from a man, who stands in the public eye to elevate a church organization which sits on literally more than $100 billion in liquid investments, that could all be used to clean up communities and open new soup kitchens, rather than sitting there while leaders pretend to be doing the work of Jesus in the world.
The people are not protesting George Floyd. Wake up. They’re protesting because “all of it” needs to stop, because racism is still a huge problem, and to suggest those people should all go back home and serve in soup kitchens to honor George Floyd misses the whole damned point so incredibly that it is safe to say the person behind that statement is squarely part of the problem and not the solution.
