I was very interested to see that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is working so hard to include minorities in their ad campaign. The Mormons have begun to picture adds like the one below to emphasize their ethnic diversity.
However I still see Mormonism as a church dominated by white ideals. In the Mormon community I visited in Arizona the entire community was white. If we look at Brigham Young University a school that is 98.5 percent Mormon only 14 percent of students are minorities(source) . While Columbia University’s undergrad programs are composed of 45.4 percent minorities (source). While this may not seem like a big deal I believe it’s a sign that clearly says there are still deep roots of ethnic distrust in Mormonism.
Furthermore we can see white supremacy deeply rooted in the book of Mormon. For example the book of Mormon states that the people of Lamen lose their way, their skin gets darker and they become uncivilized. The people of Lamen clearly represent the Native Americans. Jesus is also characterized as coming down from the clouds in an immaculate white robe. These images strike me as having a clear racial message. There message does not seem so offensive as to suggest that whites are better than others, just that whites are spiritually educated. There is a very fine line to these racial characterizations but I definitely think they exist. I find it very troubling that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is making an effort to promote racial diversity, yet they are not addressing the roots of racial tension in the book of Mormon. It almost feels fake to hear this incredible story of someone who has persevered in the face of poverty and the Church of Latter Day Saints is taking all the credit even though their religious text doesn’t stand for minorities. It makes me wonder if it’s possible to change the belief about minorities without addressing the source of the belief in the Book of Mormon?
To me the Book of Mormon is contradictory to what the LDS add campaign is preaching. This underlying theme of racial tension should be dealt with. I don’t think that these adds will serve to eliminate the racial tension, in fact they only draw more attention to the fact that minorities are not a significant proportion of Mormons in the United States.
I found it interesting that you specified that the Book of Mormon doesn't necessarily say that whites are better than everyone but rather that they have spiritual knowledge. But perhaps it is inherently implied that because whites are the ones that follow God and people with dark skin are dirty and brutish and turned away from God, that in this sense, in the context of this religion whites are portrayed as better. I think that it is definitely significant that the Lamanites' skin gets darker and thus by association dark skin=turning away from God, at least in the Book of Mormon and it is difficult to ignore the fact that this bias exists in the scripture of a religion. It seems unfortunate that a 19th century bias is causing problems for this religion in a world where ideas are changing so quickly. It definitely dates the Book of Mormon as being written in a time where racial tolerance was not popular and I agree that it is hard to talk yourself out of a principle that was written into the scripture of your religion.
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