Download Print-Friendly Version

This article is part of a four‑part series that draws from insights in our forthcoming book, Exemplary, Strong Black Marriages & Families (Routledge, in press).

Research on family stress indicates that many African American families face racism and systemic stressors. These families susceptible to the cumulative burdens of stress spillover—defined as profound stress in one area of life “spilling over” and leading to poor outcomes in other domains.

In this article, we take an in-depth look at 46 strong, exemplary religious African American families to determine what actions and attitudes helped these families be optimistic about life and cope with racism and other hardships. These married couples and families were referred by their respective clergy as among the strongest and most faithful families in their congregations. This approach is consistent with “exemplar research,” where researchers study participants who embody the characteristic under study in an exceptional manner.

It has taken our American Families of Faith research team more than two decades of dedicated interviewing, transcribing, and coding to gather the strong choir of 97 rich voices behind this study of Black families. Our efforts have taken us to living rooms from Wisconsin to Louisiana, from California to Delaware, and from Oregon to Georgia. We have written elsewhere regarding the exemplary Black families of faith that we have interviewed:

For these families, the United States is not a “post-race” nation. Poverty, often deep poverty, as well as unemployment, inadequate educational opportunities, discrimination, incarceration, and many other social ills are far too familiar to them and their loved ones. Further, these marriage-based families are often the first to receive “knocks of need”—requests for money, help, and even temporary housing—from the less fortunate who surround them. Their lived religion is not a sanitized, upper middle-class spirituality, it is a desperate, deep, and pleading faith of survival that—even [in 2026]—still contains echoes of the mournful notes of the shame of American slavery. Theirs is not merely a faith that enriches or adds meaning to life. Their faith is often life itself. While few can claim to envy the plight of one of the most discriminated groups in U.S. history, we do envy the profound depth of their living faith in a God that reportedly hears and sustains them through profound challenges—challenges that … are ever present for most of these families.

These exemplary Black families have taught us much. For the balance of this article, we will share their voices and their words regarding their central sources of strength in dealing with life’s challenges, including their experiences with racism and discrimination. Gwen, a Baptist wife, said:

[Racism is] just one of those things where, yes, you will encounter it, and I know I will until Jesus comes and gets me out of here. But until then, it’s like, I have to realize that they’re the ones with the problem. I can’t become bitter about it or anything because God is not going to put up with that. … So, I have to just rest in the Lord on that one. … It’s tough, it hurts, but… I know it’s gonna hurt more for them than for me [at judgment day]. 

Many participants exemplified resilience in their responses to racism. Joelle, a Baptist wife, explained:

[I experience racism] every day, pretty much. … I used to be a manager at a [J.C. Penney]. They had a big controversy going, so they called for the manager and [when] I got there the white people were so mad. They didn’t know what to do. ’Cause here was [a] Black woman [who] is going to make a final decision. … To me, it’s not personal, it’s their ignorance. I have never doubted who I am or how important I am and how much I deserve to be on this earth. … So, to me, I’m perfected in Him because [God] thought of my color. … He [chose] it.

Orlando, a nondenominational Christian husband, said: 

Being a Black man, I can always recognize racism in full panoramic view. … If I were to allow the world to tell me how I was supposed to act, then I would have came home [and] I would have kicked the dog, I would have argued with my wife, I would have pulled out my belt, and I would have came home and beat my kids, and I’d have hit holes in the wall—but I wasn’t going to let society dictate how I was going to respond to situations. Because … society tries to write a script … [about what] certain racist behavior is supposed to trigger. And that’s where I hold on to God—because I know God gives me peace. And through God’s peace and through God’s love, I am able to just pray for that person who tries to make me unhappy, because they’re more unhappy than I am … if they feel they need to mistreat me to make themselves feel good. … [I am] trying to tell my children, ‘People are going to put things in your way. It’s not what they do to you, it’s how you respond to it.’ So, I try to set the example—not to respond to it [and not to get] to where I feel like I’m powerless. … No. You can’t go there. I can’t go there. 

Dean, a Catholic husband, spoke of empowering the next generation. A central part of his message to combat racism was to focus on self-worth. He said:

All the kids I come across, I be talking to them: ‘Don’t you ever take no back seat to nobody. God created one yellow flower better than the red one? [No!]. He created them all equal. … Try to have some vision in yourself.’ … I can say that I encounter [racism] daily in some form or some fashion. [It] has to do with arrogance: somebody thinks they are one up on somebody, [but] they really aren’t up on nobody. … It doesn’t affect us negatively ’cause … when you understand who you are inside spiritually, then no external forces, no crap, is going to make you all the sudden [be] disenfranchised emotionally. So, in that way, [God] gives strength. 

As mentioned by Orlando, Dean, and others, a strong sense or “vision” of belonging to God was a partial buffer against racism. Similarly, feelings of belonging to one’s family were frequently mentioned by participants.

Catrina, a wife and dental assistant, said that after daily experiences with racism for her, her husband, and their children, they would unite and rally together: 

So, coming home, … we just come and talk about what may have happened, then realize that it is not our problem—it’s theirs—and [we’re] just gonna have to give it up and praise God anyway. And [we] just pray about it and encourage each other to do our best and … take those things to the Lord. 

Chris, a Baptist husband from Louisiana, referenced his Black heritage as a source of strength to him and his family. Significantly, even when he was speaking about ancestors long past, he often used the pronouns “we” and “us.” Chris said:

I think it’s more of a historical thing for us. Back in slavery when we were just against all odds, out there in the fields … being tortured, and we sang hymns. You heard the stories about how they overcame all the prejudice. … One thing that was always constant was their belief system, and I … I always fall back on that. … I think that sometimes, a lot of the young people today don’t really understand the struggle that some of our foreparents went through, [but I do] I think [about] that history of just dealing with all the, the prejudices … we’ve just endured. And through it all, we still seem to maintain. That’s the one thing we have that’s always been a strength for us.

Derek, a Baptist husband from North Carolina, wanted to impart a similar message to Black youth. He emphasized individuality and intentionality in the context of a strong heritage: 

To young Black couples, the young kids now, I would say go back and … look at your history. And see what the Black family was. And then turn around. Because you ain’t what somebody [else says] you are. You can be whatever you wanna be. And history plays a part of it. You pick out the good and throw away the bad. And don’t forget where you come from. Don’t forget who you are. 

Brianna and Ted, a Christian couple from Louisiana, described how they buoyed each other up by reaffirming their belonging with each other and with God. Ted said:

As I tell [my wife] all the time, ‘You know who you are, and that’s what you have to stand on. Know who you are in God and don’t worry about what nobody else says.’ And a lot of times with me, she’ll tell [me], ‘I don’t worry about people. I know who I am in Christ, and that’s what most matters to me.’ I know who I am.

Gary, a Methodist husband from Massachusetts, talked about how feeling accepted by God influenced him positively when he felt keenly aware of his weaknesses. Gary said: 

God puts up with me, and I’m a big pain in the butt. I’m imperfect and all other things, and so it really helps me. … It’s His open acceptance of me, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything that I’ve done [that blesses me]. He knows and He still loves me? W[e] are all sinners [but still] Christ died for us. … That [has] a direct influence [on me]. 

What We Learn About Coping with Racism

Collectively, the voices of these families reveal that racism is not an abstract construct or imaginary fixation; it is an experience that—sometimes daily—places undue stress and strain on Black families navigating a society that often sees color over character. However, these families also note that stress spillover from racism can be met and responded to with a divine sense of self-worth, deep self-respect, support of family, and profound faith in a God who knows and helps.

For these exemplary Black families, their reliance on a loving Creator is not simply embedded in hope for the afterlife, but rather in a resilience that helps them to interpret hardship, regulate difficult emotions, and to continually choose love over hatred. These families embody the wisdom captured by the late Annie Mae Denton who grew up in Jim Crow-era Mississippi but served as a vibrant model of loving all around her—in spite of the racism she faced throughout her life. Her creed? “Never let someone else’s bad moment get between you and the Lord.” 

The post Leaning on the Lord: Lessons from Exemplary Black Families on Faithfully Coping with Racism appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Dog whistles can be contentious because they often address legitimate issues, like welfare reform. So, claims of dog whistles can stifle debate on genuine concerns.

Still, I believe there is value in identifying dog whistles that signal anti-Mormon bigotry. My intention is not to stifle debate but to make people more aware of what might be motivating the arguments and phrases used in discourse around the Church of Jesus Christ and how those phrases are heard by those who do harbor those feelings.

Below is a list of phrases that often function as anti-Mormon dog whistles. This list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather a basic introduction to promote ongoing discussion. 

“Weird”/ “Robotic” / “Secretive”  

The words “weird,” “robotic,” and “secretive” are often attached to Latter-day Saints without referencing the Church specifically. The goal is to associate an individual with the anti-Mormon beliefs they already have without having to specifically reference those anti-Mormon beliefs.

This was most commonly done when Mitt Romney was a major national political figure, and his political opponents hoped to capitalize on anti-Mormon bigotry without being painted as anti-Mormon bigots themselves.

“Weird” tends to refer to the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ that is rejected by other US religionists. “Robotic” tends to refer to the tendency of Latter-day Saints to live up to their high standards. “Secretive” is a reference to nineteenth-century stereotypes of the Church while also suggesting the private temple ceremonies Latter-day Saints participate in. This usage was first identified by the “Washington Free Beacon.”

“Nice” / “Clean Cut” / “Polite” / “Mormon Smile”

These positive descriptions of Latter-day Saints are often used by those meaning sincere praise, but they can and have also been used as dog whistles. 

These descriptions can be used to generate suspicion. As in, why are they so nice, clean cut, or polite? 

These phrases are often used to hint at a perceived insincerity in Latter-day Saints.

Because of the Church’s active missionary program, some have suspicions about the motivations behind their interactions with Latter-day Saints. These comments can activate those suspicions in those listening. 

In other cases, these comments are used to plaster over deeper bigotries, such as, “What they do is great, but what they believe is crazy.” 

These types of comments can also play into benevolent prejudice that seeks to limit the types of ways certain people can participate in society by putting them in a specific box of behaviors they are allowed. 

“Can Take a Joke” 

Latter-day Saints have very little cultural cachet. A 2023 Pew Survey noted Latter-day Saints have the lowest net favorability rating of major US religions, beneath Muslims and Atheists, the only other groups with negative ratings.  

Saying that Latter-day Saints “can take a joke” or similar derivations often functions to remind Latter-day Saints of their position at the bottom of the cultural hierarchy and the fact they can do nothing about it. 

This comment often references the Church’s response to the anti-Mormon play “The Book of Mormon Musical,” in which they ran an ad saying, “The book is better.” It’s a funny joke, but it only exists because Latter-day Saints had no other reasonable alternative in responding. Indeed, any other response probably would have been perceived as “prudish” in the public eye.

“Persecution Complex” 

Describing that Latter-day Saints have a “persecution complex” works to reinforce that cultural hierarchy by preventing Latter-day Saints from taking proactive steps to address the harm done to them.

The phrase “persecution complex” is most often used by those within the Latter-day Saint community. Some of those who use the phrase want to maintain their Latter-day Saint identity but prioritize how they appear to those in power. This phrase signals that they’re not like “other” members of the Church because they believe other members deserve the harm done to them. 

Describing Latter-day Saints’ complaints about their treatment as a persecution complex erases both historical and present discrimination that exists.

This dog whistle is particularly insidious because it insults Latter-day Saints while rhetorically stopping them from standing up to the insult because doing so would only reinforce the insult. It’s a silencing technique.

“Cult” 

Cultic studies, which were prominent in the 1980s, sought to describe anything other than the dominant religious tradition as a cult. This description was used to describe everything from Catholics to Muslims to Latter-day Saints. 

Today, the phrase means little beyond “I don’t like your religion.”

However, during the 1980s, there was an effort in the Evangelical community to create “cultic studies.” This was a pseudo-academic discipline that attempted to delineate between legitimate religion and cults. 

These studies conveniently described everything outside of Protestant Christianity as a cult in an effort to delegitimize their participation in the public square on the same terms as other faiths. 

“LDS Inc” / “Too Much Money” / “Tax Churches” 

Many complaints about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints revolve around their money management. 

Like the term “welfare queen,” which refers to legitimate public policy, some of these issues can hint at legitimate public policy questions. But oftentimes, these phrases seek to avoid rather than engage these questions. 

These types of epithets are often focused on the Church and not on other non-profit groups with similar non-profit status and money management techniques. 

So, in practice, these issues often rely on invoking anti-Mormon bigotry to justify their conclusions because of how rarely they are brought up in contexts with organizations that do not face the same kinds of bigotry.

“Tapir” 

The tapir has become a kind of inside joke among ex-Mormons. The reference refers to scholarship around The Book of Mormon.

Some ex-Mormons find this argument unconvincing and use the tapir to represent their dissatisfaction with the Church.

The tapir, as an anti-Mormon dog whistle, even appeared in a report to the IRS, but journalists reporting on the subject missed the reference and were thus unaware of the anti-Mormonism that motivated the report.

“Force your religion on others” / “Stay out of Politics” 

Critics of the Church of Jesus Christ often frame themselves as the victims of the Church. This criticism often comes from the political left looking for approaches to discredit critics of state-recognized same-sex marriage.

But this criticism has been repurposed as a dog whistle. The critique to “stick to yourself” often hints at the Church’s missionary program. 

Given how many churches are much more involved in politics, breaking the Johnson rule with impunity, and how frequently non-profit organizations of every stripe engage in political lobbying, the use of this critique against the Church of Jesus Christ often relies on activating the anti-Mormon bigotry of those listening. Because the listener does not want the Church involved in politics because of disagreements, they rely on these claims even though they would not apply them to others.    

These and other forms of criticism are ways for those higher in the cultural hierarchy to try to control the terms under which Latter-day Saints are allowed to participate in the public square. While seemingly innocent on a superficial level, the use of dog whistles ultimately seeks to undermine the credibility of a minority faith and its adherents.

The post Subtle Bigotry: How ‘Polite’ Society Marginalizes Latter-day Saints appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

His remarks remain both poignant and relevant today. 

Perhaps the most quotable words from his remarks were simple, “Of course, Black lives matter! That is an eternal truth.” His remarks came on the heels of a summer marked by protests over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. The organization Black Lives Matter, which was founded in 2013, rose to national prominence, with its name becoming a rallying cry for racial justice. By echoing those same lines, he connected the political moment to theological teachings.

Many prophetic statements only have their complete meaning fully understood with the passage of time. More than three years later, the political conflicts that backgrounded Oaks’ original remarks no longer provide the same context. This separation may allow us to start the process of understanding the fuller theological ramifications of his remarks. 

Oaks is a former lawyer and judge and has a reputation as a very careful speaker. So, our analysis takes for granted that his word choice was quite intentional. And we intend to focus on his remarks about the phrase “Black lives matter.”

Perhaps an understated element of his remarks was the legitimization of a thing that could be described as a “Black life.” 

By saying that “Black lives matter,” Oaks establishes as a first principle that Black lives exist. These lives are marked by challenges specific to their set of circumstances. Oaks quoted Russell M. Nelson, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ, as saying, “I grieve that our Black brothers and sisters the world over are enduring the pains of racism.” Just three weeks prior, in the faith’s General Conference, Oaks had said, “We must do better to help root out racism.” His formulation here seems to suggest that the necessary a priori understanding is that Black lives exist and experience the racism that is to be rooted out.

Once Oaks has identified Black lives as a matter worthy of consideration, he states that these lives “matter.” Matter, in this context, is fairly amorphous. That something “matters” is ultimately a pretty low bar and demands very little of the acknowledger. So, Oaks is sure to expand on this in his remarks. 

He explains that we should not believe that different races qualify as “first-class” or “second-class.” He concludes, “We condemn racism by any group toward any other group worldwide.” While his remarks were clearly influenced by the political circumstances in the United States, where Oaks and other senior leaders of the Church are headquartered, their ramifications expand to multiple similar conflicts in many nations across the globe.

For Oaks, “Black lives matter” appears to mean that the quality of being Black does not affect importance in the eyes of God, nor should it in the eyes of others.

Oaks also positions his remarks within the larger tradition of racial equality within the Church of Jesus Christ. He does not address the Church’s race-based priesthood ban directly. However, his statement that “Any … official practices of racism involve one group whom God created exercising authority or advantage over another group God created” demonstrates a separation from those policies. He describes official policies that create first and second-class races as “outlawed” by the Lord in D&C 101. Rather than focus on that history, Oaks seeks to connect with the progressive racial policies of the faith’s founder Joseph Smith, who strongly advocated against slavery and did ordain Black men to the priesthood.

Latter-day Saints believe in an ongoing process of revelation from prophets and apostles who guide the Church in the here and now. Declaring that these statements against racism are authoritative, Oaks communicated to his Latter-day Saint listeners that they should be treated with the same respect and deference as scripture.

Each of these remarks was given in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Oaks’ remarks clearly indicate his belief that our faith should impact how we behave as political actors. As a new election season begins, their teachings ought to become foundational to our own process in choosing the leaders who will create the kind of society where people of all races are free from racism.

The post How Latter-day Saint Doctrine Confronts America’s Racial Divide appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Later, I learned that my biological grandmother had been a drug addict who couldn’t cope with motherhood. Even sadder but still a fairly simple story. 

 Only recently have I learned that the life of this grandmother-I-never-knew is also a story of the violence and abuse produced by racism and sexism—a reminder that our individual histories can’t be understood separate from the cruel, oppressive forces that shape society.

 But this fuller picture of my family, which I have pieced together from my prison cell, also has reminded me that beautiful things can be born through something broken.

 Let’s go back to that simple story.

My mother, Rebekah Patrice Davis, was raised by her adoptive mother, Geraldine Davis, who was a loving and kind Black woman. (Mom’s adoptive father died when she was very young.) My mom always yearned for a relationship with the family she was born into but was plagued by the thought that maybe her biological mother really didn’t want her. This fear of rejection, along with difficulty finding information about her birth family, discouraged her from trying to identify and contact her mother.

 But it didn’t end there. The case worker gave her four telephone numbers that possibly belonged to relatives. No one picked up at the first two numbers, but the third call was answered by a man named Ronnie. My mother hesitantly explained who she was, and her half-sibling abruptly interjected, “I’m your brother and Mom never wanted to give you away!”

 That was the beginning of the end of the simple story.

 Seven years later, I sat on the edge of my steel bunk, staring at the old photo of my biological grandmother that my mother had sent me. My grandmother’s long ember-colored hair flowed over her shoulders and rested on her back as she sat on the sidewalk, holding a 4-year-old who I would learn was my Uncle Marcus, another of my mother’s four half-siblings whom I had known nothing about. I had been incarcerated for nearly 15 years, and this was my first encounter with these relatives, through a photo that came in a large manila envelope to my prison cell.

 To sum up the simple story, my mother always knew she had been adopted at birth and believed that it was because her mother was too young to provide for her child. After talking with her half-siblings, she assumed that her mother’s drug problem was also a factor. But when I started talking with my newfound aunt and uncle, that story of how racism and sexism fueled the abuse and violence that shaped my grandmother’s life emerged. Should I have been surprised? These forces run deep in American history, of course, but we don’t always realize how powerful are the corrosive effects on individuals in our lives.

 I ran my fingers lightly across the photo, fascinated by the striking resemblance between my mother and grandmother. The brim of their noses, almond-shaped eyes, rosy cheeks, and thin lips made them look nearly identical. The only exception was that my grandmother was White, and my mother was Black. 

 I set the picture of my grandmother on the gray steel table next to the prison phone and dialed my Aunt Rhonda’s number. My mother had given me contact information for Rhonda and Ronnie, who could help me learn more about our family history. As the phone rang, I took a deep breath to relieve my nervousness. I didn’t know what to expect from this initial conversation. After my aunt accepted the collect call, we spent a few minutes in small talk before I jumped right into inquiring about the life of Donna Phillips, the woman in the photo whose blood runs through my veins

 I wanted to be respectful and began by asking what my grandmother was like—what things she loved to do. The awkwardness that can exist between two strangers was broken when my aunt, in her boisterous voice, said that my grandmother loved Keith Sweat, an R&B singer who released his breakout album in the late 1980s. The two of us began singing “Make It Last Forever,” drawing out the “ever” part melodramatically.

Rhonda told me that her mother/my grandmother really enjoyed music, fashion, and artwork. But above all, Donna felt most alive being outdoors, by the lake, surrounded by trees. My aunt talked about how my grandmother dreamed of living in a house where she could see the mountains from the backyard and wake up to the scent of crisp air and the feel of morning dew on green grass. “These were the things that made her happy,” Rhonda said. “These were the things that put a smile on her face.”

 When Rhonda talked about how much my grandmother loved and valued her children, I couldn’t help but wonder: “If her children meant so much to her, why did she give my mother away?” Rhonda began unpacking the traumatic circumstances surrounding my mother’s conception, details that Ronnie also would discuss with me. The information shattered my preconceptions about who my grandmother was, leaving my heart aching over what she was forced to endure as a child.

My great-grandmother apparently agreed with James’ views and didn’t challenge the emotional abandonment, frequent beatings, and sexual abuse that crushed Donna’s childhood spirit in ways hard to imagine.

 I could feel the lump form in my throat as I listened to my uncle talk to me in a separate conversation about the numerous times my grandmother was locked in a basement for hours. Apparently, this was her mother and stepfather’s way of disciplining her, either for misbehavior or whenever she became an inconvenience. It wasn’t long before her two stepbrothers began emulating the same abusive behavior. Both boys were physically aggressive toward Donna, and one forced her into a closet and raped her when she was 9 years old.

 The more I listened to my aunt and uncle describe my grandmother’s upbringing, the more I realized that I had too easily accepted the idea that my grandmother had been a selfish, irresponsible drug addict. I had failed, out of ignorance, to consider the traumatizing events that she’d experienced before her introduction to drugs. Sadly, this is too often what society trains us to do—define and categorize a person by what we hear and what we see, rarely considering the circumstances that may have shaped them as children.

 By the time my grandmother turned 15, she was having sex with multiple men, including Murray Givre, a 22-year-old Jewish man who had Nigerian, Sierra Leonean, and Somali heritage. My grandmother told her family that she had met him in high school, and apparently, no one had been concerned about his age or questioned the story about how they had met. According to my uncle, my grandmother’s stepfather had taken a liking to Murray in spite of James’ atheistic and White-supremacist views. My grandmother’s parents considered him Black and his Jewish heritage didn’t change that. In their eyes, there were no important distinctions between Blacks and Native Americans, Hispanics, and Jews. If you weren’t White, you were Black, plain and simple.

 Despite those prejudices, James often invited Murray over to play poker and go fishing on their days off work. Though Murray was a regular visitor to my grandmother’s home, no one suspected that he and my grandmother were sexually involved, even when my grandmother unexpectedly became pregnant.

 According to Ronnie, my grandmother’s high school teachers noticed her pregnancy first. My great-grandmother was furious, though her indignation apparently had nothing to do with a 15-year-old getting pregnant but rather that the child might be Black. For my great-grandmother, a Black child being raised in a White home was unacceptable. In the 1960s, these dividing lines between color were societal norms for many White families, not just in the South but also in northern states such as Washington. These prejudices led my great-grandmother to put my grandmother into a home that prepared White girls to give up their babies at birth, typically through adoption. On November 22, 1968, my grandmother gave birth to my mother and returned home without her child, a devastating loss that would dramatically alter her life.

 Rhonda emphasized that my grandmother never wanted to give up her baby and that having her daughter pried from her arms left a tremendous hole in her heart, exacerbating my grandmother’s childhood trauma. Donna Phillips teetered on the edge of hopelessness.

My uncle explained that through the chaos, Murray Givre continued to play poker with James Neely and work odd jobs around the house. The Neelys were bent on believing that my grandmother was pregnant by Ronnie Larry, a Black man who later fathered Rhonda and Ronnie. Murray continued his secret sex life with my grandmother, apparently unaware that he was the father of the child my grandmother was forced to give up.

 Within two years, my grandmother gave birth to Uncle Ronnie. But by this time, the trauma my grandmother had endured over the years had undermined her ability to mother. As these adverse experiences weighed on her teenage shoulders, she began escaping into drugs, promiscuity, and a criminal lifestyle. Going to jail became a part of her normal routine, which eventually led her to doing time in the penitentiary.

 After Ronnie was born, my grandmother gave birth to Rhonda, Markus, and Marketta. Although she eventually lost custody of all her kids because of her lifestyle, Ronnie, Rhonda, and Markus had opportunities to visit their mother. Marketta, on the other hand, was taken at 10 months, never to see her mother again except for once when she was 18. And there was other sadness in their lives. According to Rhonda, her and Ronnie’s father was murdered in Seattle in the 1980s, and they grew up without him, while the father of Markus and Marketta was rarely around to help raise his children.

 When I asked my aunt about her childhood memories of time with her mother, she responded by saying, “Some days were rough!” She said that my grandmother’s home was a “shooting gallery” where other drug addicts would come and shoot dope. Ronnie, who had been exposed to drugs as a child, eventually began using with my grandmother, developing the same habit and lifestyle.

 But Rhonda said that among the nightmarish moments, there also were plenty of positive memories. She recalled how excited she would be to sit by the lake and feed the ducks with her mom. She described a moment when her mother was sick and didn’t have the strength to step outside and watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. So, my aunt fired a few small ones out the window so my grandmother could see them. These were the moments when she and her brothers would feel the love they yearned for. Those experiences of family time brought an occasional semblance of stability into their chaotic world.

 My grandmother tried to be a better parent, but my great-grandmother, Mary-Ann, never really supported her. She had practically exiled my grandmother, not only because of her drug problem but because her children were Black. According to Ronnie, the Neelys made it clear that none of my grandmother’s children were welcome in their home, and that’s the way it stayed for much of their lives.

 Things began to change for my grandmother when her health deteriorated, and she was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. She began to reflect on her choices, reevaluating what was important to her. My aunt said that around this time, my grandmother began expressing interest in God, making frequent comments about Christ and His ability to forgive her for all her transgressions. Ronnie said that in the last three months of her life, she periodically would apologize for the lifestyle she had exposed him to, speaking of her deep regret for the way she had raised her children. She also spoke about my mother, trying to imagine what life would have been like had they not been separated. When my uncle told me about his response to my grandmother’s apologies, I felt his compassion and the ring of truth in his words: “Mom, you did the best you could with what you had.”

 Those words resonated deeply with me. Too often, people who are down in life are told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even if they have no boots. Now when I think about my grandmother, I account for all the trauma—the loss of her father and brother, being abused and raped as a child, routine mistreatment and abandonment, and then having her daughter pried from her hands because of racist parents. How could she have been better when better was never modeled for her? How could she love properly when she had never been properly loved? We all are, in some ways, limited in what we can do by what we have had done to us.

 Two weeks after my 21st birthday, I was sentenced to 63 years in prison as an accomplice to first-degree murder and on multiple counts of attempted murder in the second degree. Although I accept accountability for my actions, I cannot ignore the adverse experiences that molded my childhood and adolescent mind. Unfortunately, much of American society ignores these dynamics, choosing only to see incarcerated individuals through the lens of what they have done rather than the social forces that shape the communities they come from.

 After my last conversation with Rhonda, I paced the floors in my cell before picking up the photo of my grandmother again. Growing up, my five siblings and I knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding our mother’s conception. We were clueless about the life of our grandmother, including the childhood trauma she experienced.

 Herein is a testimony that no matter what life looks like, there is hope that beautiful things can still be born through something broken.

The post Racist Roots: A Prison Cell Journey Into My Mother’s Past appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

His transformative words, however, lose their potency when quoted without recalling Dr. King’s determination to enact long-overdue change without engaging in violence. Over half a century later, the lesson is clear: his peaceful means of protest held more persuasive power to change hearts and minds than the compulsion of violent acts or contention could have ever accomplished.

Latter-day Saints are familiar with the scriptural directives and historical examples that point to this truth. It is often a test of Christian character to work patiently for change within an evidently unjust system.

The determining struggle of Dr. King’s work, individually and between members of his movement, was balancing the need to thrust uncomfortably the hypocrisy of American racism into the public eye but to do so within the moral structure.

First, Dr. King invokes a fraternity of man image. His oratory is intentionally infused with quotations from the Bible that place the suffering of African Americans within the historical background of scripture. This provides both a sense of unity and hope for black listeners and a sense of brotherly suffering for white listeners, a powerful “their suffering” is “our suffering” effect. 

Today this type of persuasive argument is rare in public conversations. Too often, spokespersons lash out to publicly label supposed perpetrators of pain, causing an immediate “us” versus “them” dynamic where society has to decide which side they are on. 

President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Russel M. Nelson’s recent comment on the ineffectiveness of anger is clear: “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.” Instead, serious solution-seekers should follow Dr. King in appealing to the better angels of our nature, as President Abraham Lincoln demonstrated before the American Civil War.

Next, Dr. King’s “Dream” speech places his petition for redress within the historical framework of the country. Similar to how Lincoln reapplied the founder’s vision to his current conflict around the Civil War, Dr. King does the same with references to the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence. 

These rhetorical devices act as figurative object lessons underlining his belief that his civil rights dream aligns with the founders’ dream of a nation where “all men are created equal.” Dr. King utilizes this line of logic repeatedly, referring to the prosperous conditions the founders enabled through the Constitution and saying he was merely there to “cash the check” given to him as a citizen of the United States.

Lastly, Dr. King appeals to the conduct of Heaven to be society’s guide. Alluding to Galatians 3:28, he expresses hope for the day “when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews, and Gentiles, Protestants, and Catholics, will be able to join hands.” His argument strikes to the core of the Christian commandment to love all of God’s children as He loves us. How can a Christian, Dr. King’s argument rhetorically asks, withhold his approval from another whom God loves? The logic also appears to parallel the Lord’s censure of the Apostle Peter: “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.”

Dr. King’s admonition to love others as Christ commands was not empty rhetoric. His lyrical reading of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’” in the speech most likely invoked personal reflections for him. Years earlier, while he was conducting the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, a stick of dynamite blew up his front porch endangering his family. The local paper quoted him calming the gathering crowd bent on revenge by saying, “I want you to love our enemies.” Afterward, a spontaneous singing of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’” commenced—a favorite of the civil rights movement that stressed their belief in participating in the U.S. Constitution’s quest to craft “a more perfect union.”

The Latter-day Saint observer can recall the words revealed to Joseph Smith in Doctrine and Covenants section 121 after he pleaded with the Lord to right the wrongs committed against him and his followers. The Lord tells Joseph to wait patiently and later instructs him that our interaction with others, especially those we disagree with, should be “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” And that we should show an “increase of love toward him” we may disagree with so, “he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.”

Both examples show that peacemakers’ persuasion techniques may not move others to respond quickly, but love alone has the capacity for permanent growth and change. Its power may be best illustrated by this ancient couplet: “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.” The potency of a gentle antagonist willing to patiently work to persuade is clearly superior to the all-to-common temptation to compel each other.

If the best test of character is how a man treats those who can do nothing for him, what then best measures the character of a nation? 

The founders’ careful structure of the Constitution and establishment of federalism appears to answer: that it is best measured by how a nation treats any given minority. Additionally, Dr. King has demonstrated that a society’s character is best measured by how it protests, argues, and attempts to persuade its fellow citizens.

If not for Dr. King, the last sixty years may sadly have been very different. Had he or others partaken of the common vice of contention and violence, generations of Americans, white and black, might today have hardened hearts full of bitterness and vengeance. Contention begets contention, and it could still be going on today. All would still be wearing the shackles of hatred toward their neighbor.

The last lines of Dr. King’s speech were meant to help us imagine what could be: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

To me, these lyrics, taken from a well-known African-American folk song of the time, sing to all Americans. 

Free from segregation.

Free from hatred that poisons the soul.

Free from contention.

Free to enjoy communion with our neighbors.

The post The Symphony of Protest: MLK’s I Have a Dream appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Replacing racism in our society with the “liberty and justice for all” that our Constitution promises is a process that is neither simple nor easy. A major complication to this process is the intense public debate over the meaning of anti-racism, as well as its ideological excesses and unintended consequences. I am still in the thick of navigating these debates. But I feel confident in saying this about solving the problem of racism: if being “color blind” means not recognizing that people of color continue to deal with uniquely disproportionate suffering, then I am not color blind, and I don’t want to be. 

Reflecting on my own past commissions of racist attitudes and behaviors and the equitable ideals of my faith have made me realize that I can do more to make this world a better and kinder place. In the words of author Colin Seale’s summary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s views on racial equity, I have decided “not to be color blind, but to be color kind.”  And as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I see the ultimate expression of being “color kind” as bringing people to know the pure love of Jesus Christ and His doctrine that can turn us from sins such as racism. From personal experience, I know that Jesus can heal wounds of every kind, redeem all human suffering, and reconcile the whole human family with God and with each other.

The MLK Model for Racial Redemption

Without a doubt, one of the most important voices ever to be raised against racism was that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His beliefs about race and civil rights, as well as his approach to activism, were steeped in his training as a Christian minister and fit into the broader Christian emphasis on the eventuality of universal human redemption. As stated in his 1967 address “Beyond Vietnam,” Dr. King looked to God, and specifically to Jesus Christ, as the source of the “all-embracing and unconditional love” that he believed would enable the integration of various races into society. From the perspective of Christian theology, Dr. King’s philosophy and approach to achieving racial justice are both nobler and more sensical than some strident voices which call for retribution.  The fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, can help add to this approach

As summarized in their fourth article of faith, Latter-day Saints have a systematized approach to applying the teachings of Jesus Christ that I believe can promote racial harmony. Living the doctrine of Christ first involves placing one’s faith in and devotion to Jesus Christ and, by extension, sustaining His anointed prophets and apostles as His earthly representatives. That faith grants us access to the grace, or enabling power, of Christ’s atoning sacrifice to cleanse us from sin and change us for the better. Second, there must be individual repentance, including working to eliminate unkind feelings and attitudes (such as racial prejudice) toward others. Third, there must be sincere covenant-making and keeping with God, which invites a person’s consecration of his or her life to loving and indiscriminate service towards all others. This assumption of stewardship over one’s moral environment enables a person to be cleansed not only of his or her own sins but, like the prophet Ezekiel, of the sins of that person’s generation (see Ezekiel 3:17-19). Fourth, there is a receiving of the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which in the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ, invites actual divine assistance to overcome the selfish and prejudicial attitudes of the natural man. Last, there is a requirement to endure to the end of one’s life in obedience to this doctrine and the Christian fellowship it requires, reflecting an unshakable commitment to Christ and one’s fellow beings. These five points constitute the Latter-day Saint doctrine of Christ.

Real Efforts Towards Racial Redemption

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints both teaches and models obedience to the doctrine of Christ in a variety of ways, not the least of which is humanitarian service to the poor, marginalized, and disempowered. I see Christ’s ability to work miracles for the marginalized when I read of the life of Brazil’s Helvécio Martins, the Church’s first black General Authority. I see Christ’s capacity to overcome the pain and oppression of racism in the life of America’s Eddie Leroy Willis in his autobiographical work Panther to Priesthood. And I have personally witnessed Christ’s enabling power in the lives of the Cape Verdean people whom I served on my church mission and those about whom I read in Carlos Freire Veiga’s work Do Ramo ao Templo (From Branch to Temple). I know of the power of Christian racial redemption because I’ve seen some of the Church’s sizable efforts to alleviate poverty and social ills throughout the African continent. Finally, I have felt my own racist judgments, fears, and guilt abate as I have remembered that all of us are children of God and that I am bound by my covenants with Christ to bear the burdens of my black brothers and sisters. 

President Russell M. Nelson has taught boldly that following the example of Jesus Christ is the only final solution to the racial conflicts throughout the world, be they of whatever nature they may. When the day comes that all people choose to make the doctrine of Christ their way of life, then, and only then, shall wickedness of every kind be extinguished from the world, every nation and race will be gathered and reconciled at the Savior’s feet, and there will finally be peace on earth (see 1 Nephi 22:26).  I hope we all will unite in prayer, faith, and good works to prepare for that glorious day.

The post The Doctrine of Christ as a Roadmap to Restorative Racial Justice appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

They determined that their next action was to go together to a segregated bus terminal waiting room. There, they would kneel together and pray.

When they arrived, there were a few other people waiting for busses. The group walked into the waiting room and knelt. Police officers were called and arrested the black clergy. 

Soon after, the Supreme Court found that the law cited in the arrest of the clergy was unconstitutional. The arrested clergy, now released, sued the police officers under a U.S. law that made it illegal to deprive anyone of their constitutional rights.

The case of the clergy, Pierson v. Ray, eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. There the Supreme Court created a new legal principle, “qualified immunity.” Qualified immunity prevents lawsuits in instances where officers act based on their current understanding of the law. 

Immunity has long been an important legal principle to promote certain social goals that may be more important than the law in limited circumstances. For example, diplomatic immunity helps to promote relationships between countries by ensuring that diplomats from one country to another will not be prosecuted for crimes they are not aware of. Witness immunity is an important tool for law enforcement to get witnesses to crimes to cooperate by ensuring they can not be prosecuted based on their testimony. 

Similarly, as originally intended, qualified immunity allows police officers to do their jobs. 

In the case of the black clergy, the Supreme Court reasoned that the police officers who arrested the clergymen should not have to predict that the laws they were enforcing would be found unconstitutional years later. So while the courts would ultimately agree that the civil rights of those arrested clergymen were violated, the officers shouldn’t be held responsible for violating those rights because they were acting based on their best understanding of the current law. 

With this backdrop, calls to end qualified immunity may seem like a needless attack against police officers. But while the qualified immunity principle first imagined by the Supreme Court feels like a common-sense protection, the qualified immunity of today is very different. 

Forty-nine years after that case in Mississippi, Laszlo Latits was pulled over by police for making an illegal turn. They saw bags in his car, and one officer pulled his gun on Latits at point-blank range suspecting drugs. Latits then drove away from the scene. The officers began to pursue. They were directly ordered not to make contact with his vehicle but violated orders by ramming his car repeatedly. 

The officers ran Latits off the road and surrounded the car on three sides. He put the vehicle into reverse, and an officer shot him in the chest three times. 

Laszlo Latits’ widow sued the responsible officers. There was no question that the officer shot and killed Latits. There was no question that it was illegal to shoot and kill Latits as he was fleeing. 

And yet the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the officer’s favor. How? Qualified immunity.

The court reasoned that because no cases had previously found that it was illegal to shoot and kill a suspect that was fleeing after ramming the suspect’s vehicle, the circumstances were unique enough that the officer could not have been expected to predict that his behavior would be illegal in this situation.

In his dissent, Eric L. Clay wrote, “Every case is distinguishable from every other. But the degree of factual similarity that the majority’s approach requires is probably impossible for any plaintiff to meet.” And Clay’s words can be seen in action. A Reuters study found that courts have increasingly sided with police over victims in qualified immunity cases over the last decade. 

What seemed like a common-sense approach fifty years ago to prevent officers from having to predict what the Supreme Court would decide has evolved into a heavy thumb on the scales of justice. 

In a joint op-ed between leaders of the NAACP and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, these voices of faith assert:

The wheels of justice should move fairly for all. Jesus of Nazareth came that we might have life, and have it “more abundantly.” We should follow His example and seek for an abundant life for all God’s children. This includes protecting our brothers and sisters who have been wronged and bringing to justice those who have taken life or broken the law, thus robbing others of an abundant life.

Perhaps this is one opportunity to improve fairness in our legal proceedings. As Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the Michigan Law Review, “qualified immunity created such powerful shields for law enforcement that people whose rights are violated, even in egregious ways, often lack any means of enforcing those rights.”

And while qualified immunity primarily lives in the courtroom, its effects find their way into the field, affecting the kinds of decisions that police officers make.

Clark Neily, writing for the Cato Institute, explains:

“Qualified immunity sends police officers false signals about the constitutionality of their actions. Think about it from a cop’s perspective: The law says I’m liable for the deprivation of any right; this guy sued me for violating his rights, but the judge tossed the case; ergo, I must not have violated any of his rights. That is a grave mistake for one officer to make in a single case; the consequences when countless officers commit the same fallacy in hundreds of qualified immunity cases across the nation are horrendous.”

And given the documented inequities of law enforcement in relation to the African American community, qualified immunity disproportionately works as a cudgel against African Americans. 

So while many protests and frustrations take a broad look at racism in policing, the specific doctrine of qualified immunity exacerbates and institutionalizes those biases. 

As the events of the last week have shown, the frustration with this imbalance has reached a tipping point. 

Jay Schweikert, who has a J.D. from Harvard law school and is a member of the conservative Federalist Society, has made it his mission to dismantle qualified immunity. His blog “Unlawful Shield” details the ongoing progress in rethinking this doctrine. He recently wrote, “I fear I may have become trapped in a time loop, in which every week I am doomed to write the same blog post about how the Supreme Court has delayed consideration of its qualified immunity docket.” This delay likely proves frustrating for those looking for change.

But in some respects, this current moment provides an opportunity for improvement.  

The Supreme Court has currently scheduled three different cases that directly ask the Supreme Court to reconsider qualified immunity. And while consideration of those cases has been delayed, decisions on when to consider them will come.

And as the New York Times pointed out, support for rethinking qualified immunity is coming from interesting sides of the court, with both Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayer expressing desires in the last five years to revisit the doctrine. 

Meanwhile, the legal foundations for qualified immunity are increasingly coming under question. A 2018 paper published in the California Law Review argues that the principle upon which the Supreme Court originally based qualified immunity may not have as strong a historical basis as they believed at the time, calling the existence of the entire principle into question. 

And while removing qualified immunity may feel like an attack on police departments and officers, Joanna C. Schwartz has found that many of the protections the Supreme Court has hoped qualified immunity would give wouldn’t actually be harmed by pairing the principle back.

For example, the Supreme Court had hoped that qualified immunity would prevent police departments from having to go through the substantial efforts of preparing documents and getting ready for court in the cases of these lawsuits.  But in a study she published for the Yale Law Journal, she found removing qualified immunity wouldn’t increase the burden of trial preparation at all. 

The other major concern for officers is the personal financial burden. But in an earlier paper for the NYU Law Review, Schwartz found that the large majority of police departments indemnify their officers, and in the rare cases where they don’t, and qualified immunity does not apply, actual officers pay very little themselves—less than .02% of settlements. Suggesting that the removal of qualified immunity would not significantly harm police officers financially.  

To be sure, the concerns that prompted the original finding of qualified immunity still exist. We should not expect police officers to be able to predict changes in constitutional law in order to do their job. But I would argue this principle can be considerably narrowed back to its original intention, providing crucial accountability without substantially burdening police officers or departments. 

This would not strip police of reasonable legal protections important to the role they play but would appropriately adjust the law to ensure unreasonable and excessive protections don’t exist. 

For those looking to renew public trust in law enforcement, this provides an opportunity to take a measured, wise step.  And for those looking for a way to focus their generalized frustration about policing and race, the Supreme Court’s current consideration of one of the major doctrines contributing to the current imbalance in policing may provide a unique opportunity. 

Chief Justice John Roberts has proven to be a pragmatic and political leader of the court. Many critics have suggested that in high-profile cases, his rulings have been based as much on political expediency as legal reasoning. That means, perhaps more than in recent memory, the Supreme Court is susceptible to the kind of vocal political agitation that we are seeing. 

Our more than fifty-year experiment with qualified immunity is failing. The Supreme Court’s doctrine has evolved into something far beyond what it was originally intended. This doctrine has allowed a culture to evolve that regularly results in deep injustices. 

And when it comes to legal steps to promote more fairness in our legal processes, this may be a new opportunity to do just that as ideology, law, and activism converge around qualified immunity.

The post A License to Kill: Reevaluating Qualified Immunity appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

In his now well-known and oft-cited message in which we were told to “let God prevail” in all aspects of our lives, Russell M. Nelson asked faithful disciples of Jesus Christ “everywhere to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice.” 

A Process of Healing

My personal scripture study over the past couple of years has, in some measure, dealt with the Sermon on the Mount and how I, as a follower of Jesus Christ, can learn the traits He preached about therein. Like much of Jesus’s personal ministry, this sermon focuses on forms of healing that transcend the world through the actions of His followers. Terryl Givens states that in seeking our own salvation or healing: “We crave wholeness so that we might be healers with Him.” We can be agents of Christ as healers of the world from the sin of prejudice and racism.

Pres. Nelson has assertively reminded us that prejudice against another race is a cause for repentance. Going a bit further back, this important truth was emphasized in 2000 by Elder Alexander B. Morrison of the Seventy: “Unfortunately, racism … remains one of the abiding sins of societies the world over. The cause of much of the strife and conflict in the world, racism is an offense against God and a tool in the devil’s hands. In common with other Christians, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regret the actions and statements of individuals who have been insensitive to the pain suffered by the victims of racism and ask God’s forgiveness for those guilty of this grievous sin. The sin of racism will be eliminated only when every human being treats all others with the dignity and respect each deserves as a beloved child of our Heavenly Father.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American novelist Toni Morrison wrote, “Cycles of violence play out across generations. The wounds do not simply go away.” These wounds have become all too evident in recent years as our nation has had to come to terms with what Dallin H. Oaks called a “history of racism [which] is not a happy one.” 

Loving healing is not only avoiding new wounds but healing existing ones. One part of healing the profound divides in our society is nurturing a society that goes out of its way to explicitly and actively include those who have previously been left out. Simply not excluding is not enough. Now is not the time for benign neglect; it is the time for loving welcome! Elder Quentin L. Cook has taught that “we can achieve greater unity as we foster an atmosphere of inclusion and respect for diversity.” The majority culture proclaiming “color-blindness” and pretending like the wounds are too old for concern isn’t healing anyone: though not an overt act of racism, this attitude perpetuates the woundedness.

There’s a lot of healing and including out there to be done. And now is the day of healing. As Christians, every day can be a day of healing, in our own lives, in our circles of influence, and in our community at large. To this end, and based on my own experience over the last couple of years, I might humbly recommend some things that have proved useful in my own attempts to root out attitudes of prejudice and hopefully help heal with Him.

Mourn (Learn), Comfort (Empathize), Comfort (Engage)

Followers of Christ covenant to “mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” 

But in order to do this, I need to know who is mourning, who stands in need of comfort. 

I have sought out stories and true-life accounts of people of backgrounds much different from mine and all equally worthy of love as children of God. These stories have helped me to better understand, and in the words of Russell M. Nelson, “grieve that our Black brothers and sisters”—and other minorities—“the world over are enduring the pains of racism and prejudice.”

These accounts range from stories of Somali orphans caught in colonial Africa during World War II and forced to serve as cannon fodder in colonial armies to the caste and ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka to the still current US Supreme Court case law that American colonies cannot be states because they are “savage” and “uncivilized tribes.” These accounts have helped expand my vision of how broad this problem is across the world and how much of this problem remains today. 

Once we know who is mourning, there are countless ways we can act to heal our world, to bring love to those who have been through the unspeakable and who bear the scars of generational wounds. In rooting out racism, we can’t all be freedom riders or Martin Luther King, Jr. We don’t all have a national platform or audience to preach to. But we can take up Jesus’ healing ministry of love, seeking justice, and making peace. We can all find ways to demonstrate kindness and a willingness to heal the divides in our communities. 

These possibilities are not complicated but can require focused efforts to reconsider our attitudes. Perhaps foremost is simply listening and believing the stories of those in the BIPOC community. But we can also operate to enact cultural changes by lovingly offering course corrections when confronted with racist jokes, stories, terminology, or practices. We can also “root out” sources of racism from our media consumption. 

While these steps can help us mourn, our duty and the path to healing also include comforting those in need. It is worth pointing out that in the times and places of the scriptures, providing comfort meant providing material and labor support as well as emotional support.

To that end, we can volunteer for community agencies that serve underprivileged communities. We can provide mentoring and pro bono assistance in our professions. And we can advocate for changes in school curriculums and workplace training that will do a better job of addressing issues of systemic racism. 

Many of those fleeing from racism and ethnic strife come to our communities as refugees. A warm welcome to the newest members of our community is in order. We can stop the racist cycle and work to heal their wounds! Be a friend and a good neighbor: help with housework, shopping, transportation, or tutoring. Foster neighborhood and community gardens where those who come from predominantly agricultural backgrounds can grow the foods they know. Donate needed supplies such as backpacks, school supplies, household supplies, and baby goods. And, of course, provide financial support to local agencies that provide the framework to undertake such endeavors. One of my favorites is the Utah Refugee Connection.

As we seek to make generational change, perhaps most importantly, involve your children in these activities. My then seven-year-old daughter learned a lot, gained empathy, and really valued the chance to help with assembling kits of backpacks and school supplies for refugee children in our community.

Repentance means to change our minds and to change our purpose. Let us go forward with changed minds and hearts and a purpose of loving others this year and every year. Every day, we can be a little better. Every day, a little more love and kindness, wherever we have the opportunity. “[B]y small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” We can heal our world and root out racism, one attitude, one person, one act, and one day at a time.

The post Beyond Color Blindness: Healing the Wounds of Racism appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

So learned BYU when it found itself the center of unwanted attention after Rachel Richardson, a member of Duke University’s women’s volleyball team, reported being the target of racist heckling at an August 26, 2022, match between the two schools. 

Denunciation of the incident was both swift and vociferous. Not only did the whole affair go viral, with national and local news outlets reporting on it (ESPN, NPR, CNN, Salt Lake Tribune, NYTimes, yahoo!sports, Good Morning America, CBSSports), but the target of criticism soon expanded to include not just the offending fan alleged to have uttered the racial slur, but also  the student section for not silencing him; BYU’s and Duke’s coaching staffs for not stopping the match; BYU students, faculty, and administration for creating a culture that would allow such slurs to be uttered; and the university as a whole for not adequately reckoning with its past.

And then something happened. The chorus of harmonious condemnation began to strike some errant notes when the account that so many had taken at face value turned out not to be quite what it seemed. After investigating the incident, the police cleared the fan identified by Duke as racist zero. BYU then conducted an investigation of its own, reviewing all available video coverage and interviewing over 50 people, including Duke staff and players. Apparently, the only one who heard the racist slur was Ms. Richardson. 

As if on cue, a bevy of internet hoax hunters picked up on the perceived gaps in Ms. Richardson’s story, which led to significant blowback against her (see here and any number of Youtube videos the reader is welcome to research on her own). Past unsavory tweets by her godmother, Lesa Pamplin, were dredged up as evidence of Ms. Richardson’s nefarious motives. Accusations of race hustling and hoaxing multiplied, prompting reverse claims of an overwrought right-wing conspiracy. 

As the exculpatory evidence came increasingly into focus, at least one journalist felt BYU was owed an apology. The normally swaggerous Stephen A. Smith of ESPN fame did manage, if not an apology, a meager mea culpa of sorts. (“Meager” because it lacked his customary bombast, and “of sorts” because the culpa was more nostra than mea.) The hardest-hitting piece of self-reflection came from CNN’s John Avalon, who called on the Fourth Estate to renew its “fidelity to the facts,” proclaiming that “when the facts don’t fit … we [the media] need to set the record straight with as much intensity as the initial reports.” 

Although passions have somewhat cooled now that the matter has largely passed from public attention, it would be hard to speak of a satisfactory resolution. The dueling statements between BYU, which was careful not to opine on Ms. Richardson’s memory or motives, and Duke, which was equally careful to stand by its student-athletes “when their character is called into question,” have the feel of a Mexican standoff without providing any of the psychological closure that comes from justice being served. 

This nagging sense of justice ill-served, however, is, I believe, merely a symptom of a deeper and thus more disconcerting problem, namely, that of cultural illiteracy and its corrosive influence on human relations. The truth about what happened at BYU matters, and it matters desperately in our day and age—especially as we witness the erosion of positive race relations both in perception and in deed. But what do we do when the truth remains elusive? How do we live together in a post-truth world that has seen the proliferation of communities, all with their own alternative facts? Nominally, yes, we live in the United States, but at a deeply disturbing level, our country increasingly resembles a metaphorical Babel marked not just by tribalism but by “the fragmentation of everything.” In such a world, can the ties that bind us together hold, or will they sunder? The events both on and after August 26 offer reasons to worry. 

One concern is highlighted by Latter-day Saint scripture, which reads: “he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.” The aftermath of August 26 saw plenty of preaching but little by way of understanding or mutual edification. 

Take, for instance, BYU’s exhaustive investigation; the results probably provide cold comfort both to Richardson and, ironically, BYU. In Richardson’s case, the lack of corroborating evidence for her claim casts a shadow of doubt over her integrity. Like it or not, as a black woman, she bears the unequal burden of being disbelieved at times by default. Appeals to a more nuanced, and thus compassionate, reading of her situation are too easily dismissed as so much special pleading. Even if the slur was never uttered, we know enough of human cognition to cut some slack to a 19-year-old young woman. 

We could say the same about BYU, too, which operates under its own cloud of incredulity. Although over 70% of its non-white students express satisfaction with the current climate on campus, news reports of the alleged incident have tended to overlook the university’s progress in favor of focusing on its problematic past or its still-imperfect present (as outlined in BYU’s own 2021 report on Race, Equity, and Belonging). To the university’s dismay, what’s past is all-too-regularly prologue, and the low-hanging fruit of Richardson’s claim proved too desirable for those already possessed of “prior beliefs about bigoted red-state Mormons.” 

It is a sad commentary on our shared state of affairs when we are too drunk on our own moral rectitude to exercise the sort of circumspection one might hope for on such a hot-button issue as race. Even so, in these as-yet United States, the whiff of racial scandal often proves too intoxicating, and we rush headlong into judgment, blind to the fact that our righteous indignation may be neither indignation nor righteous. Rather, it is retributive anger, the sort of anger that fails to deliver justice and deforms our soul in the process. 

Speaking of cultural literacy, the signature scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ offers a way to reframe what happened on and after August 26 in the spirit of Ephesians 6:12. In the Book of Mormon, what begins as a family feud escalates into a civilizational struggle that lasts for 600 years. Blood relations give way to political divisions, which ossify into antagonistic identities. And then, at the story’s climax, the warring Nephites and Lamanites manage to establish a peace that lasts for multiple generations.

In response to the events that engulfed his university, Tom Holmoe addressed the fans at the next volleyball match, telling them: “If you would have met her [Richardson], you would have loved her.” Those unfamiliar with the faith’s sacred texts saw in his words some “weird plea to the racists.” What they fail to understand is the Book of Mormon story I’ve cited here. They don’t know, for example, that it ends in tragedy. After two hundred years of peace, the old identity categories return, and with them, the familiar social strife, which intensifies this time until it culminates in the Nephite genocide. 

Did Holmoe’s words fall short? For those more familiar with the doctrinaire strictures of third-wave anti-racism than Latter-day Saint beliefs, perhaps. For the BYU crowd, however, most of whom were probably members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his call to love would have stirred them up to remember the apocalyptic warning of the Book of Mormon: when our -isms serve to antagonize our -ites, we find ourselves on the royal road to social ruin. 

The post BYU, Racism, and the Road to Social Ruin appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

And this one didn’t. That’s unfortunate. Despite national headlines that focus on negative accusations and controversial claims about BYU, the school is getting a lot of really important things right. 

Pointing to exactly what America needs. BYU Journalism professors Alan Neves and Melissa Gibbs, along with five of their journalism students, worked for over a year to gather the story of The Black 14. Their travel included eleven states in ten days and hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and edits. All this hard work brought together details of a profound story that began in 1969 when fourteen Black University of Wyoming football players had concerns about an upcoming game against BYU, based on policies about race by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They wanted to wear black armbands during the upcoming game to signal their protest and approached their coach with the request. Yet they were caught off guard by an unexpected tirade of racist rage from their own coach toward the team members—including hours of berating and humiliating rebuke. This was followed by every one of them immediately being removed from the team, expelled from school, and reeling from an outcome they couldn’t have seen coming.

Understandably, years of anger and resentment plagued many of the fourteen. Although they each achieved a measure of success in making peace with the past, questions and frustration remained. Bitterness toward the school, their coach at Wyoming, BYU, and the Church was difficult to assuage. In 2019, the first formal efforts of reconciliation were made when many of the fourteen men returned to the University of Wyoming to receive letterman jackets and an official apology. As part of that visit, a relationship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began when students from the Church’s affiliated Institute of Religious Studies also invited them to speak and, in a gesture of goodwill, welcomed them by wearing black armbands to the event. Later the former players were hosted in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy, himself a former BYU quarterback (who played several years after the controversy). As part of that meeting, a sincere question of how the Church could help was answered by Mel Hamilton, one of the fourteen. He and several of the other men had begun an effort to help with food insecurity in their communities, and he wanted to know if the Church could do anything to help in that effort. A truckload of food and supplies from the Church went a long way to feed souls and heal hearts. The documentary tells this story in play-by-play detail and packs a punch—inspiring in its viewers a desire for continued efforts and participation in good-faith racial reconciliation. 

I arrived early to see the premiere of this documentary, planning to stand in line for a seat and hoping not to get ushered to the overflow. But, worries unfounded, I easily got a seat toward the front of the theater. Posters, invitations, and press releases to the public resulted in the auditorium filling to about two-thirds of its capacity. A couple of rows in front of me sat President Worthen, along with administrators from the Business, Communications, and Athletics departments. Guests from Church Public Affairs, the University of Wyoming, and, most exciting, two members of The Black 14 were there. It was a meaningful event that merited significant time and attention.

Distracted by the drama. I wasn’t the only one who responded with emotion to the film, and I participated in a standing ovation at the conclusion of the live thirty-minute Q&A that followed the documentary. Many stayed to visit with other guests afterward, just wanting to linger in the goodwill displayed. It was one of those moments you just want to share with others. But where were they? Media reps, journalists, and lots of others? Where was the crowd? Why wasn’t the theater and overflow packed? 

The story was filled with everything culturally relevant; a thoughtful study of history that provides a concrete illustration of actionable solutions for the future—but critical guests were missing, and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. 

Even so, I recognize criticism and controversy are sure paths to attention—evident in the recent news cycle. Indeed,  a review of national headlines about BYU in just a little more than a month reveal plenty of attention for critics like a Duke volleyball player, Oregon fans, pamphlet distributors, disgruntled employees, and the Black Menaces (who were invited to the screening but seemed to have more pressing engagements). In each case, there’s seemingly plenty of time for staging and reporting protests and stirring the collective pot of mounting American hostility, but that doesn’t leave much time and interest for an event that features hope and healing.

Why is that? Honest question. We hear so much these days about mounting racial hostilities.  In a day and time when there are so many fears about these escalating conflicts, you would think that any concrete illustration of a better way would be received like water in a parched desert. It certainly felt that way to some of us in attendance. Yet the reality is that for far too many people, the conflict is what they’ve signed up for. And if your attention, energy, and resources are going towards that, it’s understandable why you’d not only have little bandwidth for anything else—you might even see the hard, soul-stretching work of real racial reconciliation as, at worst, a threat, and at best, a distraction (the revolution calls!). 

Appreciating the innovative steps being taken. I’m writing not as an apologist for BYU but to ask that we give credit where credit is due. This documentary and the hospitality surrounding it represented encouraging opportunities to focus on the positive and were hosted in part by BYU’s new Office of Belonging. Blake Fisher, an administrator in the new office, explains how this office is different from what one might typically think of as Diversity and Inclusion efforts. As Elder Clark Gilbert has said: 

The DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs in the world are not the way BYU should do it. We should find a gospel-centered approach. We should be better than we are now, and we should be a light to the world but not replicating the world.

University President Kevin Worthen has also recently elaborated, “Our belonging plans and efforts will be based on gospel principles at every step. That will necessarily mean we do some things differently than would be done in other places.” He then underscored the importance of “ensur[ing] that we remain in alignment with gospel methodology, concepts, and insights” in a way that “will help us avoid the divisive and polarizing forces generated by some approaches to this important issue.” Ultimately, he reminded the audience the aim is to “have a truly unified, and unifying, gospel-based belonging effort that will have long-lasting effects.”

Saying more about diversity and inclusion, Fisher told me, “They are beautiful ideas but not the goal. Diversity at its root is a focus on the ways we are different. We are working to create a place where everyone feels they belong by placing emphasis on our common purposes and goals as a body of Christ. In that effort, language matters.” As he continued. “So we are rethinking invitations, processes, and initiatives,” admitting that they won’t always get it right but reassuringly adding that “there are a lot of things going well.”  

It’s true there are deans, professors, students, parents, and interested members of the community (across the spectrum of opinion) who will be watching this new office very closely. Some will be looking for secular creep, while others are concerned that legitimate episodes of discrimination will be ignored. Either way, Fisher assures that the office won’t mind being held accountable to their Statement on Belonging, which reads as follows: 

We are united by our common primary identity as children of God (Acts 17:29; Psalm 82:6) and our commitment to the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ (BYU Mission Statement). We strive to create a community of belonging composed of students, faculty, and staff whose hearts are knit together in love (Mosiah 18:21) where:

• All relationships reflect devout love of God and a loving, genuine concern for the welfare of our neighbor (BYU Mission Statement);
• We value and embrace the variety of individual characteristics, life experiences and circumstances, perspectives, talents, and gifts of each member of the community and the richness and strength they bring to our community (1 Corinthians 12:12-27);
• Our interactions create and support an environment of belonging (Ephesians 2:19); and
• The full realization of each student’s divine potential is our central focus (BYU Mission Statement).

Admittedly, the efforts of this office are positioned for criticism from both within and without. But Fisher is hopeful. “People come with a framework that’s different from what we are trying to do. We believe it is possible to stress primary identities that honor individuals and align with principles of truth. And if we can accomplish this, the Office of Belonging could really help us all prepare to live together as a Zion people.” Die-hard critics aside, elements of Zion were on display at the premiere, and the goals of belonging are worthy of attention. Next time, if we can pack the house, I’ll happily sit in the overflow.

The post Is America Really Interested in Racial Healing? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Now that more information has come out, a few cooler heads have stepped back and even apologized for tarring the student body in this way. Others, including Duke University, are digging in their heels. But this is not our first rodeo, let alone volleyball game. This incident fits a common but unfortunately destructive pattern: (a) something innocent or even nonexistent is interpreted by someone as being an example of a racist/sexist/homophobic hate crime; (b) the story goes viral; (c) outrage ensues with lots of condemnation of the alleged perpetrators of the depravity; (d) many commentors opine about how the incident is proof of a much deeper and wider evil which stains a broader group of people: a political movement, a university, a religion, or an entire race; (e) others, eager to show they are enlightened and loving rush to condemn these alleged perpetrators and show sympathy to the victims; (f) the accused group resent being tried and convicted of a crime they had nothing to do with; (g) the incident turns out to be a misunderstanding or a hoax, and finally (h) both sides end up being more upset and angry. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Despite this BYU–Duke volleyball game having all the hallmarks of other false or overblown incidents, lots of people still fell for it. It is not my purpose to list all the examples of furious piling-on because that would only continue the cycle of bitter recrimination, and it is not my purpose. Instead, I would like to ask: Why does this keep happening?

Beyond the partisan answers

Some say that this is because racism is no longer a serious issue in the country, but we have a culture that rewards victimhood, and since the supply of racist abusers vastly exceeds the supply, they need to be manufactured. While that argument has some merit, I don’t think it fits all the cases. I think something deeper is going on. For one thing, I believe Rachel Richardson heard what she said she heard. (Hence the modification to the quote opening this article; most versions say it’s a ‘lie’ that travels around the world—not a ‘false impression’.) In this case, I really don’t think she’s lying. On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that no one said what Rachel said she heard. How can this be?

As a therapist who works with families and couples, I see this all the time. One person will absolutely, sincerely, believe they heard another family member say something that the other family member absolutely didn’t say. It happens right there in a session! Even though this provokes a lot of pain and anger on both sides, I still feel encouraged when I see this because it reveals that something deeper is going on and, therefore, opens up a path to the heart of the relationship issue.

We’ve all done this at one time or another. We’ll hear something someone else didn’t say. We hear it because it resonates deeply with a painful belief we hold about ourselves, one that was seared into us long ago through some trauma or victimization. We’ll take on an untruth and cling to it as if it’s a saving truth: I’ll never be good enough. I am bad. I am unworthy of love. The world would be better off without me. I am fundamentally flawed. Fill in the blank with your own cri de coeur.

This belief, this lie, will get seared into us somehow, and on some level, we’ll agree. In this way, the initial crime of the abuser is compounded by our own because we believe the lie. When this has taken place, healing only comes when we confront the lie and replace it with a deeper truth. We have to embrace the truth as deeply as we once believed the lie. This takes work and time, and above all, the patient assistance of others.

We also see this pattern with chronic pain when some injury happens to a part of the body, prompting blinding pain. And yet long after the injury looks healed on an x-ray or MRI, the pain endures. People around the injured person can start to lose patience: “come on, it’s time to get back to life!” or “this is all in your head!” Worse, “you’re pretending so you can avoid getting back to life!”

Yet the pain continues. As the person knows, it still really hurts. What’s going on? Thankfully, we now understand something called pain sensitization syndrome. During the initial injury, neural patterns are laid down which sensitize the body to pain—a physiological change meant to protect that part of the body from further injury. But like a flood that cuts a chasm through a previously flat area, the chasm remains long after the flood is over. And these pain neurons likewise form a pathway from the brain all throughout the spine and nerves, remaining on hair-trigger sometimes long after the actual injury has healed. So yes, it’s in your head. But it’s not all in your head—it’s throughout your whole body. The pain is real, but the injury is no longer there.

I think something like this is what happened to Rachel Richardson and so many others. As Lincoln put it, “the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil … and every drop of blood drawn with the lash,” along with the trauma of a devastating civil war, the punitive reconstruction, Plessy with its fictions of “separate but equal,” racist eugenicist pseudoscience, followed by Jim Crown and antimiscegenation legislation, sensitized many of us to feel this pain. While there is obviously still racism, much of the legal and formal institutional racism has been removed. That is, the more overt forms of it, some clear and obvious injustices, are gone. While none of us wants to admit it, it might be that the legislators and judges have done about all they can to rectify things meaningfully—albeit using blunt instruments that never operate perfectly. 

So why do things seem to be worsening? No one seriously believes that racial minorities have it worse now than they did under Jim Crow, let alone slavery. And yet race relations have plunged thirty points in the past ten years. The pain seems to be getting worse. What we have been trying isn’t working—it’s making it worse.

Avoidance

What can we do? If I have diagnosed the problem correctly, then the treatment protocols for pain sensitization syndrome offer a potential solution. The healing, the end of the constant re-experiencing of ever greater pain along with the concomitant emotional exhaustion, if it is to come at all, can only arrive through the ministrations of two paradoxical tinctures: avoidance and exposure. Avoidance is easier said than done. All decent folks agree that we should not deliberately injure one another, racially or otherwise. Yet the injuries still come. What we can do, all of us, is avoid making it worse.

Secondly, avoid overgeneralizing. I’ll forbear sharing specific examples of even more upsetting accusations hurled by some, except to observe that the further removed from the events these commentators were, the more angry, inflammatory, and generalized the accusations seemed to become. The entire LDS Church, it seems, all 16.8 million of us, were complicit, as guilty as if we had all been there in the stadium—every one of us in need of repentance. Certainly, in the broadest possible sense, that is true, for all of us are sinners. But this approach has little chance of helping people be more open and constructively explore ideas where we can all make this world a better place. So many end up feeling guilted and shamed into being better because others unfairly made them complicit in something they had nothing to do with. In short, this is just going to spread the pain. While we can admonish each other on ways to improve things, let’s not falsely accuse others we cannot know are actually guilty.

Thirdly, what the rest of us who aren’t immediate parties need to do is: slow down! The cycle of pain and recrimination is a positive feedback loop that can end catastrophically for everyone. The only way out of it is to take a little more time. With more space, watch for tendencies to make something bigger than it needs to be. Avoid overgeneralizing (in therapy, that’s things like, “you always say this, you never do that”). Wait for the facts to come in. Resist the need to take sides or cast judgment. This is also a spiritual duty we have to not bear false witness (by repeating potential falsehoods) and to not judge unrighteously or judge by unfair standards (“for with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again”).

In mindfulness practice, we learn how to do a body scan. With slow breaths, we learn to attend to all the various parts of our body. Oh yes, it hurts here. This part feels tingly. This part feels relaxed. When we are in pain, it seems like everything hurts. But a body scan shows us that there is more right with our bodies than is wrong. A similar process could help us as we take personal and societal inventory. Yes, this part needs work. But these other parts are going well. This is the opposite of overgeneralization—we let each component be what it is, without unnecessary judgment or fear or shame.

Fourth, don’t lash out. It’s easy to want to return invective with more invective. When accused, we want to hurl the accusation (or a worse one) back in the accuser’s face. Instead, let’s ask questions, keep calm, and try to keep our heads. I admit this is difficult in situations like this because a racist is about the worst thing you can be accused of in today’s world. But if we want to stop the pain and legitimately arrest the decline in race relations, we can’t return spite with spite.

Exposure

Turning to exposure, we come against a contradiction. We can’t both avoid and expose ourselves to something, can we? How can we do both, and how can that possibly be a good idea? A branch of cognitive behavioral therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) explains how we do this. We first use mindfulness practices to improve compassion for self or others.  But then we have to really commit to experiencing the pain or the difficulty as well. So much of what we do when we are in pain are attempts to avoid, anesthetize, or spread the pain to someone else. What ACT and exposure therapy teach us is that there is no way around pain, only through it. But that can only happen—people can revisit those painful places—once they feel safe. Then the wounds can be confronted and healed as we walk through painful past experiences from a place of groundedness and safety in the present. Once this happens, when further challenges arise, they may still hurt, but they aren’t as debilitating. We become more resilient and “antifragile.”

I am not sure exactly how to create more safety in our society when just about everything seems designed to reduce it and amplify pain. But as individuals, we can do our part. The larger culture may be lost, but it is in our power to create pockets of safety. In therapy, we learn how to connect different parts of our body and mind in a way that better integrates them. I think something similar could work for society, as we reach outside our comfort zone and get to know and learn how to truly see those who are different from us. This goes for Rachel Richardson and the BYU fans, and all of us. And it goes beyond who’s at fault or who’s responsible, who’s the victim and who’s the perpetrator. Everyone can potentially participate in the improvement.  So, those of us able to help facilitate healing and reconciliation can and should do so.

That does mean we are going to have to be willing to experience pain. Thinkers as varied as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and M. Scott Peck have taught that the avoidance of suffering is at the root of a surprising amount of illness. If so, then ironically being willing to suffer, both our own pain and that of others, highlights a new kind of healing pathway for this bitter and divided world.

A Deeper Truth

I mentioned earlier that abuse is compounded when the victim believes a lie about herself. What is the lie in this case? I propose the lie is that this country is irredeemably racist. It was and is impossible for racial minorities to ever succeed in this country. They are doomed to be inferior as long as the underlying structure of this country remains intact. 

I am not the first to note the irony that these convictions are nearly identical to those of the most vile racists of our country’s past and present. Just like the victim who takes on the lies of the abuser, it only compounds the tragedy that this is now believed by many racial minorities themselves. 

But what is the deeper truth? I suggest it is this: While there is injustice in this country, there is also good. And there is reason to hope that we can find deep wellsprings of love and care in our communities. Mindfulness teaches us the power of attention. What we attend to, we will notice more of. And if we consciously decide to notice the goodness, our health will improve, our pain will desensitize, and the lie will be excised and replaced with the deeper, saving truth. In this way, the downward spiral of hate and recrimination and pain can stop and be reversed. 

In this, as in all things, our example is Christ. He descended below all things in order to lift us up. Where He went, He beckons us all to follow. “Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.” There really is no other way. There is no resurrection without the pillory of the crowd, the suffering of Gethsemane, and the death of our selfish, willful selves on the cross. But we have to join Him in this soul-stretching redemption willingly.

“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

“And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Heb. 5:8–9).

As above, so below. As with Him, so with us. I am committing to better practice these principles in my life as I pray for greater gifts of charity. Will you join me?

The post BYU-Duke Volleyball: More Healing or More Culture War? appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

As C.T. Warner and the Arbinger Institute teach, there are always at least two ways to do something—including very important things. We can do anything from a “heart at peace” or a “heart at war.” 

Because an especially adversarial approach to racial progress has dominated American discussions in recent years, many Americans have sadly arrived at a place of resistance to the crucial work of racial reconciliation and healing. One woman, for instance, told us she hesitated to open her mouth at all on racial issues, including to ask a question, “because I’m always scared of offending someone and making them mad.”  

All that changes, however, when you encounter a vibrant example of another approach.  The first time one of our team met filmmaker Mauli Bonner, we were struck by the unique energy and spirit he conveyed.  

Hope. Joy. Peace. And kindness. 

Does that sound at all like the broader approach to racial reconciliation in America today?  

Hardly.  Yet Mauli has as much stake in the conversation as anyone, hailing from a great-grandfather who was enslaved on the “Bonner plantation” in the American south many years ago. In recent years, he and filmmaker Tamu Smith have “hastened the work” of racial healing in several critical ways that have encouraged another kind of conversation—one with a clear potential to spark deep collective healing. That includes two evocative and beautiful movies—“Jane and Emma” (2018) and “His Name is Green Flake” (2020)—powerful depictions that teach, inspire, and draw us together.  

And now, on the 175th anniversary of the pioneers entering the valley, Mauli and Tamu have brought to pass a series of three monuments at This is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, sculpted by Stephanie and Roger Hunt to commemorate the contributions of three different pioneers:

• Green Flake—who at 19 drove the first wagon through Emigration canyon in the vanguard pioneer company.  
• Hark Wales and Oscar Smith—whom Brigham Young sent two days ahead to blaze a trail for many pioneers to follow. 
• And Jane Manning James with her two sons, Sylvester and Silas—who was expecting her third child Mary Ann, when she and her family entered the Salt Lake Valley in September 1847. 

Three of the four pioneers honored by the monument—Flake, Wales, and Smith—were born into slavery in the South before eventually joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet, even after joining with the Saints, they sadly continued to endure years of being considered slaves (including 10 years of legalized slavery in Utah between 1852 and 1862)—“a hard part of our history,” Bonner said, “but we have to remember it, learn it, and never forget it.”

Yet “their story didn’t end at enslavement,” Bonner continued. “Green Flake went on to speak at multiple pioneer day celebrations, and Jane Manning James was sitting front row at community events.  Leaders left a spot for her on occasions such as these. They were respected in the community.” 

Acknowledging both the pain and the faith that transcended this pain provides an opportunity for us today.  As Tamu Smith remarked, “Our story becomes important to the greater pioneer story … because we are part of those great pioneers.” Bonner added, “These people “lay under the stars at Parley Creek” with the rest of the pioneers. 

In honor of the courage and faith of these black pioneers, Bonner spoke at the monument dedication about this being a moment for “bringing our peace, our reverence, our joy, our empathy, our shouts of celebration, our love, and our unity—to this monument.” He added, “I know they’re watching now”—joking that perhaps these ancestors, now deceased, “got some time off from what they are doing.” 

At the same ceremony, the Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, spoke of the importance of this kind of “ritual of remembrance.”  Looking at the faces of the statues, he said, “There is strength in these faces. There is pride in these faces. And yet there’s humility and kindness in these faces.” The Governor encouraged a message of learning from each other as we seek greater healing together.  

Prior to the dedication prayer, Elder M. Russel Ballard shared his hope this would be a place “where people will come for generations to come, we hope, and see the diversity and the reality that the state of Utah is a state where God’s children of all cultures, of all races, can come worship together and enjoy and love one another. That’s what we have here in the great state of Utah.” During the prayer, Elder Ballard emphasized “How important every child of God is” and “How precious every living soul—every one of God’s children.” The prayer also encouraged us to “Go arm in arm, trying to help each other in this sojourn of mortality.” 

Mauli Bonner accentuated this message by saying:

To those who have a hard time finding people like them in community leadership, in pictures, in arts, in monuments, you still belong. You belong here. How you live your life, and the legacy you leave is their legacy [pointing to the monuments]. You are their living legacy.  Be who you want to see.  Be who you want to see.  We all have that opportunity.  

We repeat this here in detail because we believe strongly as a magazine staff in the value of collective healing. And the work of Mauli and Tamu carries an inspired, healing spirit similar to Bryan Stevenson’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice we wrote about two years ago.  

All this is in striking contrast to the grievance-based, accusation-drenched racial conversations in America today. In this, Mauli and Tamu join others like Rev. Amos Brown and President Russell Nelson, who are pointing toward a better way to navigate our racial differences. That made us want to hear more—and to understand at a deeper level some of the inspirations and motivations behind these efforts. (The conversation below with Mauli Bonner has been edited for clarity). 

Jacob Hess: I’m struck by the intensity of your hope, joy, and peace in this work of racial healing, Mauli—so very different from what we see around us today. Where does that come from for you—and have you always felt that?  

Mauli Bonner:  It’s always been the way I’ve been.  My family—that’s the root of it. That’s kind of how we were brought up. My parents, you know—we always talked about everything. Family council on Mondays, no matter how personal or painful, we’d always talk about everything. 

Sometimes those family discussions would last for hours into the night. Then we’d make sure people were okay. We’d love on each other at the end and pray together.  

This kind of talking about things, and making sure we get through it, and taking care of each other … that’s all I know.  

JH: That’s really great your family did that. And it obviously translates to how you see the world around you. Were your parents just positive by nature?  

MB: I don’t think it’s personality, I think it’s how they utilized Christ.  The gospel and the focus were always Jesus. And when the focus is Christ, it kind of washes away all that doesn’t matter.  

JH: Imagine what that could mean for our American conversation today—with its endless fixation on things that matter so little.  I also can’t help but reflect on how different this is from the pervasive anger out there. 

MB: I believe that we all want the same thing. I believe we all want to get through it—we want to be together in the end. We don’t want questions like this to separate us. Unfortunately, our personal pain sometimes gets in the way.  What I like to do is focus on the pain in the person on the other side of the conversation—doing what I can to take care of them. 

And then to pray, “Lord, please help them to take care of me.”  When my focus is, “are they okay when we’re having this conversation”—no matter who’s right or wrong, or who’s inflicting the pain—it’s keeping a focus on the person I’m talking with: are they okay? 

If you focus on how someone else feels, then they care more about how you feel. It has not been difficult for me to have these tough conversations because I find that people are taking care of me through these hard things.  

JH: I was struck by your insistence on Friday that these stories from the past, although often “hard to tell,” are not told with an intent to harm us. As you put it:

Pioneer stories are always hard to tell. But we don’t tell their stories to make the Missourians feel bad, to shame them—we tell it to celebrate those who endured something we don’t fully understand. And it’s no different with our stories of African-American pioneers. The same thing is true here—not to cause pain and shame. But because they are true.  Because we all have a chance to draw strength from them. Can we not draw strength from them?”

I can’t help but get excited, Mauli, about what could happen if this became more of the model for how more people approached these (and other) difficult stories from the past:  Drawing strength from the courage, patience, and faith of those who navigated these difficulties. What more can we do to encourage this kind of refreshing attitude around past difficulties? 

MB: I think we need to appreciate how well we do this already. We do this so well as faith-based people—and not just Christians. We talk regularly about what was done to Joseph of Egypt, and especially what was done to Christ. And I’ve never heard one person say, “again? I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there. Aren’t we past this already?”

Never once. We know how to do this. We just need to realize, “we can do this!  We can talk about these past difficulties and not let them pull us down into shame and blame. We can use these stories to inspire us—we do it every week at church. 

We know how to do this! So, let’s just continue what we already do.  Tell these tough stories, and draw strength from them. And not because we look like and sound like them—but like the people in scriptures (who we also don’t look like), we can still draw strength from them. 

I hope people can draw confidence from the fact that they already know how to do this.  So, let’s just continue to be who we are. 

JH: Beautiful, Mauli. Thank you.  I was also struck by your emphasis on Friday, several times, about our need to lean on each other—”Let’s not do this alone. Let’s do this together.” That includes trust in people around us who can help us, as you put it, “Lean on your bishops and pastors.  Let them be who they’re meant to be.” You even recognized your own priesthood leader, “My bishop is here. That’s my bishop guys, from Los Angeles!!”

As you know, the idea of leaning on our parents, elders, or priesthood leaders is not very popular today. Can you say more about why this feels important to you in our world today? 

Well, I do believe that we each, in our different spheres of influence, have a calling—a divine calling, over some kind of a group. That could be a teacher over a classroom. That could be a parent over their children. Or a bishop over their ward. And it keeps going on and on. 

And that calling that we and others have, if we don’t allow these leaders to be who they are, then we’re cutting off our access to our creator. That’s how God often serves us: through others. But if I choose to be so hurt (even rightfully hurt) by this parent, teacher, or leader—and pull away from them and no longer give them opportunities to give me Christ in the way they’re supposed to give him, then I’m only hurting myself.  

And listen, I’m a parent—I know we’re not going to do it perfectly. But I also know I’ve had some great moments that my children really need from their dad.  

However imperfect, your mother is still your mother. Your father is still your father.  Your bishop is still your bishop.  Allow them to be there. 

A prophet won’t always get it perfect either.  Now that we’ve accepted that, there’s going to be a whole lot of goodness that we can receive from prophets if we’re able to get past some human imperfection. 

There’s one perfect man, Jesus Christ. Now, let’s focus on what the Lord has for me through my prophet. And through my father or mother. They’re going to be imperfect too. Yes, I got it. But what do you have for me, Lord?  

JH: I find it striking that you are inviting people closer to difficult stories (“Distance from these stories is not the answer”) in a way that invites healing and greater connection (“We must journey through the hard parts together”). That’s something your movie does effectively as well. Why do you think difficult stories have sometimes pushed us apart as a people rather than bringing us together as you would like to see? 

MB:  If there’s a safe place of communication, then someone like me can express feelings and stories without others seeing that as a weapon.  I felt loved on Friday sharing the story of my enslaved great-grandparent. I didn’t feel from those in the audience who were white, “here we go again.” That wasn’t even present. 

So, I don’t think the stories I want to tell as a black person have to be muffled.  I don’t think the real emotional toll that some of this has on my white brothers and sisters has to be negated either. We can have it all.  

For me, the beauty of it is—even when it looks so volatile when we’re dealing with race. When the picture gets so unpleasant, it’s because there are people in pain because they care so much.  So, we’re still not so far from it because these people in pain really care. 

So, if we don’t allow that pain, or that anger, or that suffering, to tear us apart … then we can be who we were meant to be. 

We chose to come to this earth at this point in time. We chose to come here at a time when we can deal with remnants of the painful past 150 years ago and work through them. That’s why we came here. We didn’t come here now to defend injustice and things that are wrong—no, we chose to come and heal it. 

Our ancestors chose to come and endure it. But we’re here now. That’s the beauty. 

No, we weren’t there. Not one of us. But we’re here now, so what can we do?  

Since we chose to be here right now, we have to ask ourselves this question: Is this what I said I would do? Is this how I said I would be? Is this the promise I made?

And if it is, keep going.  If it’s not, then again, how did I say I would be? How did I say I would help people here? 

The Lord will guide us and clarify the truth.  The time we take to meditate on that question, the answer will be crystal clear—if what you are doing is what you said you would do.  

JH: You concluded your remarks Friday by saying, “We should know this. That in this monument, we won’t be divided. And in this moment, we will stay together. And in this moment, at this place, we are who we hope to be.” Why do you feel so strongly about calling people towards greater unity—and pushing back against the division? 

MB: Because even though it looks like we’re so divided—and pick your tribe, and one side and the other side. Those are the optics.  In reality, what’s happening is each of us is saying, “come join me over here.” Or “come join me over here.” We’re not saying, “you go over here.”  We just want to have everyone think and feel what we think and feel. That’s not really a bad thing—those are righteous desires. We want unity. 

So, what I wanted to do at the end of my remarks was to show people what that moment felt like for me.  

And because I don’t think we have many experiences of feeling united—even though we’re trying to feel included in a group and feel like we’re right in our path. And so we say things like, “They’re wrong—and if they come over here, then they’ll be right.”  But that’s not right either. If it’s right, then why do I feel so wrong?

I really do believe that most of us (not all) do want that unity. And know that we felt that unity at that moment—and I wanted people to recognize that, including those who couldn’t be there in person.  

And if I’m being transparent, what I wanted to say is, “In the name of Jesus Christ, we will not be divided.” I was essentially calling upon my priesthood power and saying, “this will not divide us.” “We will not be separated. … We are who we want to be.” I was rebuking Satan at that moment. And if you go to that park, you will feel that spirit and protection. 

To learn more: 

• Here’s a great video showing more of the backdrop and process of creating the statues: 
• The entire ceremony can be seen here.
• And go check out Tamu’s “Jane and Emma” (2018) and Mauli’s “His Name is Green Flake” (2020) if you haven’t seen them yet! 

The post Celebrating Black Pioneers, Then and Now appeared first on Public Square Magazine.