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Thank you for your website! Many people need to know the real LDS church. Racism is not accepted in church.
Comment by Anonymous
Thank you for a fabulous web page. It is especially good in addressing the issue of the true diversity of the LDS church membership. I am a Japanese-American Mormon. My parents met when my dad was with the us air force in occupied Japan after world war II, and my mom, whose family was Russian Orthodox (from the conversion of her great grandfather), worked at the air base. My dad was called as a missionary to Japan just before I was born. I returned to Japan on my own mission from 1969-70 and returned with the air force in 1980 just before the dedication of the Tokyo temple.
When I grew up in Salt Lake in the 1950s, there were several black families in our ward. When I was in the air force in Colorado in 1974, I helped baptize a black army sergeant. We lived in a ward in Maryland with black families in 1978-80.
The church has over half its members who speak a language other than English in the home, and over half the members live outside the USA. There are a million in Mexico, nearly a million in Brazil, and millions more in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, etc. There are about a million Mormons in Asia, and a quarter million in African nations including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, etc. Any visitor to the BYU campuses can see the church's diversity, especially in Hawaii, where "whites" are in the minority in the student body.
Even among those "white" Mormons in Utah, with English, Welsh and Scandinavian heritage, many of the missionaries who volunteer to teach the gospel for two years are assigned to nations around the world, on every continent. Walking through a Salt Lake lunch crowd, you can call for help in any of a dozen languages, and someone will respond who can speak to you. That was displayed during the 2002 Olympics. "White" Mormons have more intimate friendships with people of all races and nationalites than most other Americans. The LDS church membership is far more diverse than the population of the USA.
And this is not new. Mormon missionaries have been seeking out American Indians since 1830, Polynesians since 1844, Japanese since 1901. The first temple outside the continental US was in Hawaii in 1910 for the many Polynesian members there.
I remember a street meeting in Japan in 1970 when a Japanese man accused Mormons of being racist. He was saying this to Elder Kapolulu, a Chinese-Hawaiian whose skin was as dark as most African Americans. Elder Kapo pointed to his nose and said "mite goran!" (look!) The pedestrian was clearly not thinking.
Those who attack Mormons as being "racist" are idiots who don't have any idea what Mormons look like, what languages we speak, where we have lived, and who we are married to. How do they think they can tell us Mormons, who are of every race and ethnicity, that we are "racist"?
It is especially hypocritical coming from people who claim that Mormons are tainted with racism for a policy that ended a generation ago. Southern Baptists still had segregated congregations in 1980, and most congregations are still all white. Hollywood has been criticized until the very recent past for only grudgingly ending discrimination against minorities. The modern civil rights act only came into being in 1964, only 14 years before the revelation on priesthood in 1978. How does that 14 years make any difference when the nation had laws for a century after slavery that segregated by race and discriminated by race in voting and jury duty and every other civil right, while there was no racial segregation in LDS congregations?
Comment by Raymond Takashi Swenson — 8-14-2008, 07:14:48 PM
I am a black LDS church member and have always felt nothing but love and acceptance from the church.
Comment by Andrea Montes — 6-16-2009, 03:45:14 PM
Also to note, though, is that this misconception mainly comes from the fact that Priesthood was not extended to all worthy males until the 1970's. The thing about that is of course it was not due to racial preference, but because the Lord in His wisdom did not extend it until then. People who have a problem with us have a problem with the Lord. But it is important to trust in Him always. His decisions are not ours, and we cannot see what He sees, but we must trust that it was for a wise purpose. Many faithful African American members can see that too. Though we may not know the reason, maybe it was because of the racial conceptions America had during the time. If you think about it, it might have been disastrous or unacceptable to the rest of the world to allow the Priesthood to all worthy males. Whatever the reason may be, it is beyond us and we must trust that the Lord knows what He is doing. =)
Comment by Austin — 7-3-2011, 05:09:25 PM
