What constitutes characterizing Brigham as a critic of racism? These quotes:DP wrote:It’s been fashionable in recent years to demonize Brigham Young as a racist, even a vicious one — and, in some cases, essentially to forget that there was anything else to the man.
In racial matters, Brigham Young said some things that jar us today, and that we cannot endorse. There’s no denying this. He was, as we all are — even the prophets among us — a man of his time and culture and background.
But he was a good man, a remarkable man, indeed a great man, a sincere disciple of the Lord and a prophet who sought to do God’s will.
I choose to stand with him.
I recommend this wonderful article in Dialogue as a rebuttal to DP's cherry picking.President Young counseled the Saints to “use the man with respect.” “Its nothing to do with the blood,” replied President Young, “for of one blood has God made all flesh.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/452267 ... s=&origin=
Here's a short summary.
A smarter argument for DP to have made would be not to argue that Brigham was a "critic of racism" but instead that he was merely as racist as everyone else was at the time.There once was a time, albeit brief, when a "Negro problem" did not exist for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During those early months in New York and Ohio, no mention was even made of church attitudes towards blacks. The gospel was for "all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples,"1 and no exceptions were made.
After the prophet's death, most of his philosophy and teachings were effectively canonized. There was one significant subject on which this does not appear to have been the case - the status of the Negro. A measure of the influence of Joseph Smith's personal presence in shaping early Mormon attitudes on this subject can be obtained by contrasting the church position prior to his death with the developments which followed:
Any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain]. . .in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it. - Brigham Young, 1852The "laissez-faire" approach to slavery in Utah was short-lived and came to an end early in 1852. As the Mormons quickly learned, Mexicans had carried out slaving expeditions into the region for decades, buying Indians from local tribes who staged raids for "captives of war." Periodically, children were offered for sale to the Mormons. The enslavement of Indians, a "chosen people" in Mormon theology, posed a much more serious problem than had Negro slavery. Governor Brigham Young took action to stop the raiding parties and in January 1852 requested legislation on the slavery question.History and common observation show [Noah's curse to] have been fulfilled to the letter. The descendants of Ham, besides a black skin which has ever been a curse that has followed an apostate of the holy priesthood, as well as a black heart, have been servants to both Shem and Japheth, and the abolitionists are trying to make void the curse of God, but it will require more power than man possesses to counteract the decrees of eternal wisdom. Times and Seasons 1845
The suitable regulations were shortly forthcoming, and within a few weeks Young signed into law acts legalizing both Negro and Indian slavery. No other territory legalized both Indian and Negro servitude.It has long since ceased to become a query with me, who were the most amenable to the laws of righteousness; those who through the instrumentality of human power brought into servitude human beings, who naturally were their own equals, or those who, acting upon the principle of nature's law, brought into this position or situation, those who were naturally designed for that purpose, and whose capacities are more befitting that, than any other station in society. Thus, while servitude may and should exist, and that too upon those who are naturally designed to occupy the position of 'servant of servants' yet we should not fall into the other extreme, and make them as beasts of the field, regarding not the humanity which attaches to the colored race; nor yet elevate them, as some seem disposed, to an equality with those whom Nature and Nature's God has indicated to be their masters, their superiors. Brigham Young 1852
As early as "our first settlement in Missouri. . .we knew that the children of Ham were to be 'servant of servants,' and no power under heaven could hinder it, so long as the Lord should permit them to welter under the curse, and those were known to be our religious views concerning them." Brigham Young 1855Brigham Young derived a second, far-reaching implication from the genealogy of the Negro. Asked what "chance of redemption there was for the Africans," Young answered that "the curse remained upon them because Cain cut off the lives of Abel with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood."The Lord put a mark upon [Cain], which is the flat nose and the black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race - that they should be the "servant of servants;" and they will, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree. Brigham Young 1859
While it is now popular among Mormons to argue that the basis for the priesthood denial to Negroes is unknown, no uncertainty was evident in the discourses of Brigham Young. From the initial remark in 1849 throughout his presidency, every known discussion of this subject by Young (or any other leading Mormon) invoked the connection with Cain as the justification for denying the priesthood to blacks. "Any man having one drop of the seed of Cain in him cannot receive the priesthood " (1852);87 "[w]hen all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood. . .it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity" (1854);88 "[ujntil the last ones of the residue of Adam's children are brought up to that favourable position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood" (1859);89 "[w]hen all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain" Brigham Young (1866)."The Negro cannot hold one part of Government" (this immediately followed the above quotation); he would "not consent for the seed of [Cain] to vote for me or my Brethren"; "the Canaanite cannot have wisdom to do things as white man has"; miscegenation required blood atonement (offspring included) for salvation; and the curse would some day be removed from the "seed of Cain." Brigham Young 1852
Notwithstanding the repeated denunciations of racism by the modern church, the evidence for "racist" attitudes among nineteenth-century Mormon leaders is indisputable. Despite the implications of these attitudes for modern Mormonism, their significance in the nineteenth century was negligible. "Mormon" descriptions of Negro abilities and potential can as readily be obtained from the publications of their learned contemporaries. Such a book, not atypical of this era, could be found in Brigham Young's library: Negro-Mania: Being an Examination of the Falsely Assumed Equality of the Various Races of Men. While blatantly racist by any modern standard, this work cited men of acknowledged intellect from a variety of fields - Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Baron Cuvier, Champollion, Samuel G. Morton, Rosellini, George Gliddon, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Thomas Jefferson, to name but a few. Brigham Young could find ample support for his racial views in this collection alone, and it was by no means exhaustive. Many others could have been included. The American scientific community, while divided on the question of slavery, was virtually unanimous in ascribing racial inferiority to the Negroes.