For Coggins: about hamitic lineage and black skin

[_Zoidberg]

You dummies! Haven't you read the FARMS apologetics re: the words "skin of blackness"? It was actually a black leather belt they their forefathers had chosen to wear to set themselves apart from God's people, not their actual own highly-pigmented epidermis!

Sethbag is right about the black leather belt but it's more modern these days: it's those that use the black leather mouse.

So since the mark of Cain is not permanent, it seems, can you be adopted into his lineage by acquiring one of those, kind of like the Gentiles are adopted into the house of Israel when they get baptized? Cuz I want a dominatrix mouse.

It's my repressed sexual desires that charity was able to discern talking, of course ;)

[Anonymous]

It wasn't the mark of Cain that was explained away as the black leather belt actually. It was the "skin of blackness" that came upon the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, as per some apologists on the MAD board. Just do a search over there on the terms "skin of blackness" and you'll see what I mean. I brought it up in this thread because of Brigham Young explicitly using "skin of blackness" to refer to a person's own pigmented epidermis.

[_Runtu]

It wasn't the mark of Cain that was explained away as the black leather belt actually. It was the "skin of blackness" that came upon the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, as per some apologists on the MAD board. Just do a search over there on the terms "skin of blackness" and you'll see what I mean.

You mean you were serious?? Holy crap, now I've heard everything.

[_Sethbag]

Here's a representative post from MAD poster "Warship" putting forth the "leather belt" argument.

That is a good article and similar to the second half of my original post on another web site that argued against racism on the assumption that the dark skins actually did refer to the epidermis. I did not print that second half here. Thanks for posting a link to an argument based on that presumption.


But after carefully looking over every verse in the Book of Mormon I cannot find one that has to with a literal epidermis of any color.

I have yet had anyone to combat me using the text, only early church leaders interpretations which don't mean jack squat to me.

I have yet to find anyone answer my question as well.

How does a red dot in the forehead equal the "curse" if the "curse" is supposedly that of actual black skin?? The passage I quoted (in op) makes it quite clear the skins of the lamanites are girdles around their loins.

Someone said just take those skins off and the curse is gone...but I guess they didn't read my op that showed the real curse was being cut off from the presence of the Lord..which will not be undone by taking off these girdles.

The "mark" is not the curse and could probably have been fulfilled in any number of ways..such as the girdles of lamb skins or a red dot in the forehead..the mark merely needs to denote that they arent nephites. [emphasis added]

[_Alter Idem]

I'm sorry to piss on your chips, Coggins, but there were restrictions against people with black skin not of African descent. Fijans were defined by the FP as ineligible for the priesthood in 1953.

This footnote from Lester Bush's article "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: a historical Overview" states differently;

209. This point was made public by President Harold B. Lee, in an interview reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, 24 Sept. 1972, which reported, "President Lee said skin color is not what keeps the Negro from the priesthood. It [is] strictly a matter of lineage and involves only African Negroes. In comparison, he noted, dark or black islanders, such as Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, or Maoris, are all permitted full rights to the priesthood ." Another policy change which had no contemporary impact, but which would have posed an interesting problem for nineteenth century literalists, was the decision to stop segregating negro and white blood in the Church hospitals' blood banks. This decision, prompted by Public Health Service rulings and affecting many hospitals nationally, has no doubt resulted in many instances wherein priesthood holders have had several drops of "Negro blood" in their veins, at least for a few weeks.

[_karl61]

interesting: I was looking up - don't know the saying - but people that have white skin but look black in other ways, don't know how to say it and I came upon this site that basically says that the jews were black.


http://www.hebrewisraelites.org/physicalapp.htm

[_Zoidberg]

Someone needs to lure Warship over here. Seriously. Now that's a pearl of great price! I'm sure (s)he has many more to offer.

Alter Idem, your footnote does not state anything different. The statement was made in 1972, and by then Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, or Maoris were all indeed permitted to hold the priesthood because it was McKay who instituted the policy changes. And we all know how omitting some significant portions of history is not whitewashing at all.

This is the exact quote from the book:

The Church had been inconsistent over the years in its policy toward Fijians, and as recently as 1953 the First Presidency defined them as ineligible for the priesthood. President McKay, however, was convinced by his visit to Fiji and by certain anthropological evidence that the Fijians [p.152]should be reclassified as Israelites. He subsequently issued a letter to that effect

I had no idea black and white blood used to be segregated. Wow.

I suppose the way that literalists would solve this problem would be to point out that the blood wouldn't have been inherited from their ancestors, which seems to be the main crux of the issue here.

[_Zoidberg]

interesting: I was looking up - don't know the saying - but people that have white skin but look black in other ways, don't know how to say it and I came upon this site that basically says that the jews were black.


http://www.hebrewisraelites.org/physicalapp.htm

Holy molly, good website. Liver pills can apparently turn people white and delightsome. At least partially. That's what SWK should have used on the "Lamanites" instead of the lame foster placements.

I don't think it really matters what color the jews were for theological purposes because everyone was black at the beginning, it seems.

[_Jason Bourne]

Fijans were defined by the FP as ineligible for the priesthood in 1953.

Forgive the diversion, but aren't Fijians of the same African stock as Australian Aborigines and the Ainu? I was under the impression that the Fijians (as well as the Aborigines and New Guineans) arrived thanks to the Malaysian land bridge that existed during the last Ice Age.

Nah they are Nephites descended from the fellow, what is his name in the end of Alma, that built ships and sailed away? Course it is a problem that Polynesians were on these islands thousands of years before this. Guess the Nephites just mixed it up with the locals like they did when they came to central America.......

[_Blixa]

You dummies! Haven't you read the FARMS apologetics re: the words "skin of blackness"? It was actually a black leather belt they their forefathers had chosen to wear to set themselves apart from God's people, not their actual own highly-pigmented epidermis!

OMG. I have now Officially Heard Everything.