We are really going to miss this series. It’s been informative and entertaining. We have learned so much about GAs… some good. Some bad. Some sad. As we process all this information, it makes us pause and think… where were we at in the 60s and 70s. I remember when the ban was “stopped because of revelations “. I never believed that. My thought was, Finally! This series has certainly made us better. Thank you.
My sister and i had a falling out and I refused to interact with her unless she apologized, 8 years of estrangement later: she finally apologized and i let it go. The thing is, it's difficult to forgive and move past when the other party doesn't feel they did anything wrong... To me it was a clear indication that she fully intended to carry on as usual without changing that behavior which she owed the apology for. And i think that applies to the church too, it's a tacit signal that everything is fine and will continue on as was. Church should follow it's own repentance process
And the option of going along to get along without the apology occurred to me, and that was just as painful... Especially being surrounded by people who weren't sticking up for me and were accepting that treatment on my behalf. Hard not to draw a parallel to the way the members accept the non-apology apologetics
You didn’t ask for my opinion 😂 but as someone who adores their sister and whose sister has shown to adore her back, I completely agree with your decision! My sister and I have had a couple (two) falling outs where we didn’t talk for a year and it was a MUST for each one of us to apologize our respective time for our respective reason. I’m the older sister and I’m not above it… She’s the baby and she doesn’t get a pass to treat me any which way either… We’ve gone through SO MUCH with our narcissistic mother and we choose daily to be better people, to grow and to show up for each other unlike our mother could. We always say we have built this relationship - it surely wasn’t handed to us by the mere fact we share genes. I am so proud that you chose YOU, even when people were ok with not having your very important self respected.
Some context on the apology hoax. It was originally supposed to be more obvious that it was fake. It was obviously written to sound like the church, but was only going to be presented as a "wouldn't it be great if the church said something like this?" Very late in the plan for its release, someone suggested that it would be trivial to make a website with an identical look and URL to the church PR website. There was excitement for how much this would stick it to the church by forcing them to denounce something that sounded so good and morally correct. Within hours, and without fully thinking through the possible ramifications and fallout, the hoax was online. The wording and presentation ended up being more convincing than intended, and instead of landing like scathing satire, it became an unintentionally cruel hoax. Nobody involved intended to fool or hurt the African American community. It has become a great lesson in how activism can harm if not centered on the feelings and needs of those it intends to help.
I watched the "apology " podcast it was as bad if not worse than the actual apology itself. He posted videos of black women who had agonized over the initial fake apology, without their knowledge or permission to absolve himself of the initial act. It was a continuation of not reading the situation why is it still ok to use black people as a way to get back at the church then use them again to try and excuse it? So obtuse. Not one black person was on the podcast. At they very least they could have invited the black ladies who's videos they found to talk about it in a balanced discussion. No it was just white men talking about them. This kind of stuff matters when you talk about race and this church.
As a black member, born and raised, who was out of the church by the time the fake apology came out I loved it. It felt like a direct apology to me for and in behalf of the church who could not do it. I have a printed copy in my files and I still read it occasionally and feel those same feelings from the first time. Someone gets me.
The apology hoax was a turning point for me. After I found out it wasn't real, I unceremoniously deleted my social media. It got me thinking in earnest about my shelf items, and helped me realize I was never going to get what I needed from the church.
Somehow, this final episode to the first iteration of the series was the best of them all. ~90% of my new deeper understanding of the Black ban has come from this series, and a surprising ~50% of my understanding of how the the General Authorities of the church operate today have come from Matt. Even if, for some reason, black history in the church isnt of interest as a topic to someone, this series would still blow church headquarters wide open to anyone who watches it. When are Matt & Nate starting their own Mormonism & Race podcast?
Thank you for your kind words. It has been such a joy doing these episodes working with John, Julia, and Gerado, along with the guests: Darron, Summer-Rayne, and Nate. All incredible people.
This series has been amazing. So informative, so insightful, and so heartbreaking in many ways. Overall just an awesome series, Dr. Matt Harris is a wonderful and thoughtful speaker, and I appreciate everyone who's been featured and given their insight, too!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Bravo Matt. I have donated, and I have watched every episode. This has been eye opening and informative and so refreshing to hear from a scholar that put so much time and energy into this work. I am sending everyone I know who is reading this book to watch this series because of all the additional content and stories you say had to be cut out. (Which is sad, because I’m sure a LOT of people would read it!) Keep doing the great work! ❤️❤️
The Mormon church will have to deal with its racism. African Mormons will eventually realize the racism and join other church’s if this isn’t addressed.
Enjoyed the discussion on Elder Uchtdorf, that was the best conference talk I’ve heard in the last 20 years. I wish he would have gone further but men like Uchtdorf give me hope. So many people love the church and the core gospel, imagine if we just called the ban and polygamy what they are decades ago, it would essentially be a non issue, rather than the roadblocks that they are.
As long as they keep their racist scripture then they (LDS people) will always have some degree of racism. That’s the whole point of the Critical Race Theory - get to the root cause of racism. In the case of the LDS church the root of their racism is their scripture, it’s not just because Brother Jensen down the street is racist.
Every member ought to listen to this series and Year of Polygamy. Both are done with high standards in academic content and objectivity, allowing the listener to come to their own conclusion using all relevant information free of bias to the extent possible. You can’t get that in the Church, unfortunately. As long as the Church refuses to acknowledge mistakes such as polygamy and racism, the default assertion is that these were divine practices.
EVEN if it was not fake, it's too late to be honest.
3 дня назад+2
One thing I can add re: Oaks and boundaries. When he was sent to the Philippines for multiple years to get things in order, one of the first things he did was discontinue “English speaking wards” and tell all the expats to go to their local wards. It stayed that way until about 12 years ago or so.
I will go back and listen to this series again. I learned so much from Matt. What a fantastic historian and all-around great human being. Thank you also to Nate for coming on to share with us his experiences and insights. Great work MS team for this important work.
I don’t find it a compelling rationale that Oaks is willing to throw a bone to the racist LDS members. I find it much more logical that he identifies with their views.
I was confused by the suggestion of Church units based on race when there is no language barrier. I thought there was a firm consensus that segregation and “separate but equal” are evil. Seems like a blatant contradiction to propose one and condemn the other. The specialized branches/wards and stakes are purely with regard to language in accord with D&C 90:11 (“that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language”), not for the purpose of separation by race, ethnicity, culture, etc.
The stake president of the Charlotte NC Central Stake, where I served my mission, told me that they did have an inner-city black branch at one point. I believe he had been the branch president (he was white). IIRC, he said they brought in a lot more gospel songs and the singing was a lot more enthusiastic, but that was the only real difference in how the meetings were conducted than an average ward. I threw out all my mission stuff a few years back, and can't find the guy's name anywhere, but Matt, if you can find the stake president for Charlotte Central Stake circa 2002, you might get some interesting follow-up.
To that closing question, Im not black, but the doctrine tied to skin color would still put me off, believe it or not. On top of a pile of other theological beliefs that all speak of a very worldly invention, not a divinely revealed worldview.
I like most of Matt shares. But I don’t agree that because someone disagrees with Colin Kapernick or certain movements that they are racist or need sensitivity training. You can have different views on the issues and approach and not be racist…. Not all blacks agree with these movements in the same way.
It would be *so* easy to say that God speaks through prophets, but prophets are human, so sometimes, God has to speak several times, through several prophets, before the whole message gets transmitted. But, no, the church goes all in on absolute power and control. They profit in the short term, but it will always come back to bite them
Or the world view that we are all tainted and God will only talk to one (98 year old geezer no less) was always an invention to create that power and control.
Oaks talk title doesn’t work either way. If you tell blacks to love their racist persecutor it’s bad. If you’re framing blacks as enemies it’s bad. Oaks is just an old man with outdated beliefs and ideas. Sucks he will be the next “prophet”
I finished Second Class Saints a little while ago. It’s an astonishing piece of scholarship. I’ve been investigating the Church for a number of years now off and on. The early racism in beliefs and practice was one of the things that I really struggled with, it’s still a stumbling block to me. I really wanted to know why the priesthood and temple ban came into place, why it took so long to be lifted, and what occurred in 1978 to make that change. Unfortunately it was a topic that few missionary pairs (or members) wanted to talk about. Often the responses to my questions where “the Church wasn’t ready yet”, or “we don’t know why God put this in place”, or “it would have split the Church if it got lifted too early yet”. I’m realizing often these answers had faith goals in mind, for me and I imagine for themselves. I can’t think of anyone until recently that ventured into the “possible mistake” response. I’ve really been enjoying all of these episodes with Matt Harris, and after reading this book and listening to everything he’s talked about I feel that my questions have been meticulously answered. Matt, for that I am forever grateful.
We are really going to miss this series. It’s been informative and entertaining. We have learned so much about GAs… some good. Some bad. Some sad. As we process all this information, it makes us pause and think… where were we at in the 60s and 70s. I remember when the ban was “stopped because of revelations “. I never believed that. My thought was, Finally! This series has certainly made us better. Thank you.
My goodness, what nice praise. Thank you.
My sister and i had a falling out and I refused to interact with her unless she apologized, 8 years of estrangement later: she finally apologized and i let it go. The thing is, it's difficult to forgive and move past when the other party doesn't feel they did anything wrong... To me it was a clear indication that she fully intended to carry on as usual without changing that behavior which she owed the apology for. And i think that applies to the church too, it's a tacit signal that everything is fine and will continue on as was. Church should follow it's own repentance process
And the option of going along to get along without the apology occurred to me, and that was just as painful... Especially being surrounded by people who weren't sticking up for me and were accepting that treatment on my behalf. Hard not to draw a parallel to the way the members accept the non-apology apologetics
You didn’t ask for my opinion 😂 but as someone who adores their sister and whose sister has shown to adore her back, I completely agree with your decision! My sister and I have had a couple (two) falling outs where we didn’t talk for a year and it was a MUST for each one of us to apologize our respective time for our respective reason. I’m the older sister and I’m not above it… She’s the baby and she doesn’t get a pass to treat me any which way either… We’ve gone through SO MUCH with our narcissistic mother and we choose daily to be better people, to grow and to show up for each other unlike our mother could. We always say we have built this relationship - it surely wasn’t handed to us by the mere fact we share genes. I am so proud that you chose YOU, even when people were ok with not having your very important self respected.
Some context on the apology hoax. It was originally supposed to be more obvious that it was fake. It was obviously written to sound like the church, but was only going to be presented as a "wouldn't it be great if the church said something like this?" Very late in the plan for its release, someone suggested that it would be trivial to make a website with an identical look and URL to the church PR website. There was excitement for how much this would stick it to the church by forcing them to denounce something that sounded so good and morally correct. Within hours, and without fully thinking through the possible ramifications and fallout, the hoax was online. The wording and presentation ended up being more convincing than intended, and instead of landing like scathing satire, it became an unintentionally cruel hoax. Nobody involved intended to fool or hurt the African American community. It has become a great lesson in how activism can harm if not centered on the feelings and needs of those it intends to help.
I watched the "apology " podcast it was as bad if not worse than the actual apology itself. He posted videos of black women who had agonized over the initial fake apology, without their knowledge or permission to absolve himself of the initial act. It was a continuation of not reading the situation why is it still ok to use black people as a way to get back at the church then use them again to try and excuse it? So obtuse. Not one black person was on the podcast. At they very least they could have invited the black ladies who's videos they found to talk about it in a balanced discussion. No it was just white men talking about them. This kind of stuff matters when you talk about race and this church.
As a black member, born and raised, who was out of the church by the time the fake apology came out I loved it. It felt like a direct apology to me for and in behalf of the church who could not do it. I have a printed copy in my files and I still read it occasionally and feel those same feelings from the first time. Someone gets me.
The apology hoax was a turning point for me. After I found out it wasn't real, I unceremoniously deleted my social media. It got me thinking in earnest about my shelf items, and helped me realize I was never going to get what I needed from the church.
Thanks Matt! Learned so much. The subject matter was informative, but also the method of telling it was very engaging.
Thank you. You're very kind.
I wish someone had retorted to Oaks"What about the word repentance, does that appear at all in the scriptures?"
Somehow, this final episode to the first iteration of the series was the best of them all. ~90% of my new deeper understanding of the Black ban has come from this series, and a surprising ~50% of my understanding of how the the General Authorities of the church operate today have come from Matt. Even if, for some reason, black history in the church isnt of interest as a topic to someone, this series would still blow church headquarters wide open to anyone who watches it.
When are Matt & Nate starting their own Mormonism & Race podcast?
Thank you for your kind words. It has been such a joy doing these episodes working with John, Julia, and Gerado, along with the guests: Darron, Summer-Rayne, and Nate. All incredible people.
This series has been amazing. So informative, so insightful, and so heartbreaking in many ways. Overall just an awesome series, Dr. Matt Harris is a wonderful and thoughtful speaker, and I appreciate everyone who's been featured and given their insight, too!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Bravo Matt. I have donated, and I have watched every episode. This has been eye opening and informative and so refreshing to hear from a scholar that put so much time and energy into this work. I am sending everyone I know who is reading this book to watch this series because of all the additional content and stories you say had to be cut out. (Which is sad, because I’m sure a LOT of people would read it!) Keep doing the great work! ❤️❤️
It was my pleasure. I appreciate your kind words, and thanks for all the support!
The Mormon church will have to deal with its racism. African Mormons will eventually realize the racism and join other church’s if this isn’t addressed.
Love seeing Nate on ms
Enjoyed the discussion on Elder Uchtdorf, that was the best conference talk I’ve heard in the last 20 years. I wish he would have gone further but men like Uchtdorf give me hope. So many people love the church and the core gospel, imagine if we just called the ban and polygamy what they are decades ago, it would essentially be a non issue, rather than the roadblocks that they are.
As long as they keep their racist scripture then they (LDS people) will always have some degree of racism. That’s the whole point of the Critical Race Theory - get to the root cause of racism. In the case of the LDS church the root of their racism is their scripture, it’s not just because Brother Jensen down the street is racist.
Every member ought to listen to this series and Year of Polygamy. Both are done with high standards in academic content and objectivity, allowing the listener to come to their own conclusion using all relevant information free of bias to the extent possible.
You can’t get that in the Church, unfortunately. As long as the Church refuses to acknowledge mistakes such as polygamy and racism, the default assertion is that these were divine practices.
I'm sad that this series is coming to an end.
Me too!
When we finished our last episode in July, it felt weird. We had done so many, and now it had come to an abrupt end. Thank you for tuning in.
Most Americans could not pass the Citizenship exam.
I hope Gerardo and hubs have a great vacation!❤
More Matt Harris! More Matt Harris!
This academic perspective is sorely needed, evidence-based, informative, healing, and helps inform the future!
Thank you. John and the team were so gracious and good to work with. I’m glad you enjoyed the series!
Wonderful series!
Thanks!
Thanks for your support of this series!
EVEN if it was not fake, it's too late to be honest.
One thing I can add re: Oaks and boundaries. When he was sent to the Philippines for multiple years to get things in order, one of the first things he did was discontinue “English speaking wards” and tell all the expats to go to their local wards. It stayed that way until about 12 years ago or so.
I will go back and listen to this series again. I learned so much from Matt. What a fantastic historian and all-around great human being. Thank you also to Nate for coming on to share with us his experiences and insights. Great work MS team for this important work.
You are much too kind. Thank you. I’m pleased that you enjoyed this series.
We are not people in sorrow🎉
I don’t find it a compelling rationale that Oaks is willing to throw a bone to the racist LDS members. I find it much more logical that he identifies with their views.
Jonathan Streeter has since gone on Mormonism live, talked about the apology, and apologized for it.
I was confused by the suggestion of Church units based on race when there is no language barrier. I thought there was a firm consensus that segregation and “separate but equal” are evil. Seems like a blatant contradiction to propose one and condemn the other.
The specialized branches/wards and stakes are purely with regard to language in accord with D&C 90:11 (“that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language”), not for the purpose of separation by race, ethnicity, culture, etc.
The stake president of the Charlotte NC Central Stake, where I served my mission, told me that they did have an inner-city black branch at one point. I believe he had been the branch president (he was white). IIRC, he said they brought in a lot more gospel songs and the singing was a lot more enthusiastic, but that was the only real difference in how the meetings were conducted than an average ward.
I threw out all my mission stuff a few years back, and can't find the guy's name anywhere, but Matt, if you can find the stake president for Charlotte Central Stake circa 2002, you might get some interesting follow-up.
Also it can be said Canada is a lot like the USA. The black experience is the same.
To that closing question, Im not black, but the doctrine tied to skin color would still put me off, believe it or not. On top of a pile of other theological beliefs that all speak of a very worldly invention, not a divinely revealed worldview.
Are the women’s leadership positions salaried?
Nope
I like most of Matt shares. But I don’t agree that because someone disagrees with Colin Kapernick or certain movements that they are racist or need sensitivity training. You can have different views on the issues and approach and not be racist…. Not all blacks agree with these movements in the same way.
Ookdork isn’t being nice. He’s just better at talking. Look, you even believe him. That’s what he wants , not truth.
“Looking forward” sounds a lot like Kamala’s “turn the page”
🙏🏼😮💨💪🏼
It would be *so* easy to say that God speaks through prophets, but prophets are human, so sometimes, God has to speak several times, through several prophets, before the whole message gets transmitted. But, no, the church goes all in on absolute power and control. They profit in the short term, but it will always come back to bite them
Or the world view that we are all tainted and God will only talk to one (98 year old geezer no less) was always an invention to create that power and control.
I see🎉
Oaks talk title doesn’t work either way. If you tell blacks to love their racist persecutor it’s bad. If you’re framing blacks as enemies it’s bad. Oaks is just an old man with outdated beliefs and ideas. Sucks he will be the next “prophet”
I finished Second Class Saints a little while ago.
It’s an astonishing piece of scholarship. I’ve been investigating the Church for a number of years now off and on. The early racism in beliefs and practice was one of the things that I really struggled with, it’s still a stumbling block to me. I really wanted to know why the priesthood and temple ban came into place, why it took so long to be lifted, and what occurred in 1978 to make that change. Unfortunately it was a topic that few missionary pairs (or members) wanted to talk about. Often the responses to my questions where “the Church wasn’t ready yet”, or “we don’t know why God put this in place”, or “it would have split the Church if it got lifted too early yet”. I’m realizing often these answers had faith goals in mind, for me and I imagine for themselves. I can’t think of anyone until recently that ventured into the “possible mistake” response. I’ve really been enjoying all of these episodes with Matt Harris, and after reading this book and listening to everything he’s talked about I feel that my questions have been meticulously answered. Matt, for that I am forever grateful.
Thanks!
Thanks for your support!