Community Experience

 Perspective on Mormon Black History

I attended the forum hosted by BYU’s African Studies and the Office of Civic Engagement, “Perspective on Mormon Black History” where “Dada” Darius Gray spoke. When I was a missionary in Berlin, Germany, we would ask people on the street what they knew about Mormons. Among the answers that we often received was the idea that Mormonism was an especially racist religious sect. As a Mormon missionary I sometimes tried to explain why blacks were not allowed to fully participate in aspects of our church until 1978, aspects of the church that included being ordained to priesthood office and participating in temple ordinances. I didn’t fully understand myself, but I knew that God loves all of his children. I thought that this forum might help me better understand, so I was excited to attend and to participate.

The main point of the forum was that “Black Church History” and “Church History” are one in the same; just because the most common recount of church history focuses mainly on white males does not mean that other groups did not contribute or were not important. The church was established in 1830, the first black member was baptized in 1832, and President Brigham Young’s announcement of the ban on men of African descent receiving the priesthood didn’t take place until 1852. The stories of Jane Elizabeth Manning James and Ben Hope were told, both showcasing the great discrimination that black members of the church faced and the faith that they lived despite that discrimination and persecution.

Jane Elizabeth Manning James was said to be the most famous of the Black Mormon Pioneers. She and her family joined the church in Wilton, Connecticut and then traveled to the church headquarters in New York. They were allowed to ship their luggage on the boat where they secured passage, but they were not allowed to board the ship because they were black. In result, they traveled 800 miles on foot. Later, Jane and her family crossed the plains to arrive in Salt Lake City, and she asked to enter the temple and was allowed to perform proxy baptisms for her dead ancestors, but was not allowed to receive her temple endowment. She asked, “Is there no blessing for me?” because of her being refused based solely on the color of her skin.

Ben Hope was born in 1893. He searched for truth and for baptism and studied many religions before joining a church that he felt good about. After being baptized into that church, God told him that there was still something more. Eventually the missionaries found him, gave him a Book of Mormon, and taught him the gospel. Ben felt impressed to be baptized, but the elders encouraged him to really study everything out before committing himself to baptism to make sure that he wouldn’t be swayed by the difficulties of the world and the devil. They provided him with various different texts, all of which he read through and be the end, and he “hungered to be baptized” but was required to fight in the war. The Book of Mormon proved to be a source of safety and protection, and he came home from war even more convinced that he wanted to be baptized into the church, and so he was baptized. After joining the church, there was a point where he was captured by a mob of KKK who threatened his life because they thought he was over-stepping his bounds and trying to leave behind his “black-ness” by joining the Mormon church. He was able to escape and shared his experience with some of the church members the next day. These members played off his experience by saying something along the lines of “Brother Hope, this is just a persecution of the devil and we all have to endure this.” At first the members minimizing Ben Hope’s experience upset me, but his mindset of “if these beautiful people could endure persecution, why couldn’t I?” helped me to better connect the speaker’s main point that Black History and “regular” history are one in the same.

Darius Gray emphasized that there wasn’t a “black pathway” or a “white pathway” with the saints coming west, but rather one pathway that we endured together. He called the policy banning blacks from receiving the priesthood and temple ordinances a “policy that was quietly put in place rather than given as revelation of God.” This statement can be difficult for church members to stomach because we believe our prophets to be the mouthpiece of the Lord. Even with their divine calling and authority, they still make mistakes and they still were influenced by prejudice and racism. The church today now works heavily to include all denominations and welcome everyone equally world-wide, but a step in that process should be to change the way that church history is taught and not leave out the stories of black Mormons. The question of “How long will it take to incorporate the teaching of different perspectives rather than just the white male one on Mormon history?” was asked, and Garius Gray said that it could take a while because there was a lot of misinformation in church literature trying to explain why the policy was correct. The church has renounced all of that literature and published an essay on lds.org that more accurately explains the history and role of the policy. Part of the process is revealing the truth; there was discrimination and the policy was not justified. Darius Gray advised us that we (as students) can help with the process of changing to appreciate different races because we are the upcoming generation that will join wards and become teachers and leaders. He said, “don’t sanitize. Tell the facts of the story to the best of your ability.” Not everything in life is “happy-happy” and it the discrimination and persecution against black members of the church is not something easy to talk about or learn about. It is our duty to incorporate other perspectives and present the truth by showing that “black history” and “white history” are the same history because that is one way to prevent further racism.

How does this relate to discussions from class?
My cultural experience with Perspectives on Mormon Black History most directly relates to our discussions from class on race. The policy was an actively racist policy that has now been discontinued. The current issue that Dr. Gray addressed has to do with people being passive racists rather than anti-racist. By only teaching and talking about the white, male perspective from church history, we are enacting passive racism because important, diverse elements of history are being discounted and made out to be less important just by not sharing them. In this situation, and anti-racist would do their best to teach from every perspective, not just the white, male perspective. While the elements of church history that have been taught for years and years are important, black history has happened alongside it and simply been left out of the retelling.

How will this experience affect my classroom?
To be an anti-racist in my classroom I need to do as Dr. Gray suggested and teach from multiple perspectives. For the curriculum, I can choose multicultural authors and stories. I can teach my students using structural ideology and break down the barriers in place of their success rather than attributing their difficulties to their race or trying to change them instead of the incorrect system. I also need to be willing and prepared to address, discuss, and study difficult concepts in my classroom that will prepare my students for their current and future lives. I need to be respectful of my students’ religions, but I need to stop bullying that occurs because students justify their actions with religious beliefs concerning race or homosexuality or gender. The goal is to show that our cultures have similarities and we can all relate to one another instead of fostering a hateful environment that separates students because of their differences.

Personal Cultural Artifacts

“Culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group” (http://carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html).

The elements of culture include values (understanding of what is good and just in society) and beliefs (convictions that people hold to be true) that also differ from norms (established expectations for behavior in certain situations that most people in a society adhere to – learned through observation, imitation, general socialization, and written laws). (http://byu-multicultural.wikispaces.com/file/view/elements%20of%20culture.pdf/358226105/elements%20of%20culture.pdf)

Inspired by the above definitions of culture and elements of culture, I have collected artifacts that I feel illustrate MY culture and labeled them with brief captions so that you can understand what exactly you are looking at. At the end of the post I will review my artifacts and reflect on how my culture serves as a help or hindrance in school settings.

This is BYU’s cheer team sometime in the 80’s…

My mom is the one on the far left with the blond hair and super long legs!

Probably the main reason that dance has become so important to me is because it was important to my mom. She danced and competed with various different dance groups her entire childhood, which continues into high school and college. She graduated from BYU with her masters in dance education and taught for a few years before having children. Then, she had a lot of children and never went back to teaching, but maintained her love of dance and transferred that on to me.

This is a picture of me as a high school cheerleader. I’m the one on the right with outstretched arms.

iTunes cover of DANCEMOMS 

Dance has been a huge part of my life. Google's first suggestion when I typed "dance" into the search bar was "DANCEMOMS," a reality TV show basically about a culture associated with dance.

Google image of a teenage dance group

All of the dancers are extremely thin and flexible. Because I value dance, some of the values within dance culture were also transferred on to me in someway. The dance world values strength, technique, skill and flexibility, but also has a stereotypical image of a dancer that everyone is pressured to conform to. This image generally includes extreme thinness, beauty, and talent with hair and makeup.

This is my family when we were fairly young. My parents have been married for 25 years and love having a big family. Largely due to my own family experiences, a marriage between a man and a wife is very important to me, as well as having a mother in the home to attend to the children’s needs.

These are my siblings at the Long Beach temple last summer.

We value religion and family.

This picture is of my younger siblings and me at the Salt Lake City temple at Christmas time. We value Christmas, traditions, and celebrations and they greatly contribute to our culture.

This picture is of me and my cousins up at my grandma’s cabin before it was finished being built. While my brother on the far left did smile for the picture, I was the only one that posed.

I value beauty and appearance, and want to look good in pictures. This value sometimes dominates my desire to document my life through pictures because I won’t want to be in a picture where I don’t look nice.

This is a picture of my senior prom group.
I felt that this picture could show a big part of our culture because it emphasizes beauty, glamor, dating, wealth, romance, and friendship.

This is a picture of me as a missionary in Berlin, Germany. Part of my religious culture contains the value of serving a full time mission. There are all of these ideas attached to serving a mission – that you’re fulfilling your responsibility to God, that your helping people, that you’re developing admirable character traits. For whatever cultural reason, coming home from a mission early is just as shameful as never having served, and it discounts whatever time you might have spent in the mission field. I came home from my mission after 9 months of service (instead of 18) because I needed to have knee surgery, and I chose not to go back. In the end, I was (mostly) culturally accepted because I was a woman and I wasn’t commanded to go in the first place, and I had a physical health issue rather than mental health or some issue with repentance or legality. I still felt culturally unaccepted, and found greater understanding among those who had also come home early. Through this I entered into a sub-culture within the religious culture that I grew up in.

This picture is of me hugging my younger sister right after getting off the plane coming home from my mission. I was crying, partially because I was happy to see my family, but also because of my feeling of failure and having to face everyone.

This is a picture of my knees after that knee surgery! See the blood? This was actually my third knee surgery, so I’ve had a lot of experience with physical therapy and I’ve come to value some of the same things from within that culture. These values include health, wellness, strength, and exercise over a lifetime.

This is a picture of my brother’s tombstone. When I was almost 8 years old and he was almost 6 years old, my family was in a car accident where he was killed and my sister was permanently physically handicapped. Because of this experience, I value life and death, car safety, trauma, and treatment of people with handicaps differently.

This image contains a joke about the connecting piece of tissue between both halves of the brain. This displays my culture because it is a nerdy joke, showing that I value both “nerdy-ness” and humor.

This is a humorous ecard that I found on pinterest. It portrays the belief that obtaining things is good and obtaining them on sale is better. When things are on sale, you should buy them.

This is a quote from a prophet from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe that being a faithful follower of Christ is a good thing, and that we should share our faith with others.

I really like sleep… My whole life I have struggled with the need to go to bed early in order to function. I value sleep and believe that sleep improves my health and performance and generally happy personality.

This is a picture from Pinterest that links to suggestions on rules for buying engagement rings. I am recently engaged, and I thought that this picture portrayed that there are cultural rules for engagements. With the ring comes the assumption that a diamond ring is valued and important, which influences the belief that giving an expensive ring to your Fiancé shows commitment from both people involved - the one who buys the ring and the one who wears it. The ring therefore symbolizes love and marriage and commitment, all valued within my culture.

This is a sign that says “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” that would most likely be displayed at a birthday party. Celebration is a big part of my culture, influenced by the belief that you deserve a day to celebrate yourself and others celebrate that you are alive. Birthdays, holidays, and other celebrations are ways to connect to family and friends and the community because it incorporates many cultural values into one event.

This is a picture of many different kinds of pancakes. I found it on Pinterest, and the link takes you to a page with all of the recipes.

Pancakes are unique to American culture, and I love them.

In relation to the elements of culture that I addressed in my cultural artifacts, I wanted to explicitly outline some of my personal values, beliefs, and norms that I have decided to follow.

  

I value friendship.

I value family.

I value hard work and diligence.

I value having a positive outlook on life and a kind disposition.

I value education.

I value being able to earn, have, save, and spend money.

I value having an attractive appearance and feeling beautiful and confident.

I value dance and sport and extra curricular activities, but not at the expense of academics, religion, or family.

I value health and wellness and strength, including mental and emotional health, and I believe that putting forth effort to maintain those things is absolutely necessary.

I value religion and having a personal relationship with God.

I believe that relationships are worthwhile and we should work to maintain them.

I believe that marriage between man and woman is ordained of God.

I believe that there is a God and that Jesus Christ is his son.

I believe that there are certain rules, called commandments, which we should live.

I believe that children need parents in their daily lives.

I believe that everyone should have freedom to choose for themselves what decisions they will make and what they believe.

I adhere to the norm of stereotypical female body image. I like having blond hair, tan skin, makeup, and a thin figure. While this is my personal ideal, I don’t think that everyone should look like this and it even bothers me that I might look like many other people. I will have students that don’t like me or don’t respect me because I am white or blond or female. I will have students who struggle with their own appearance or body image and I need to be sensitive to helping students realize they are all beautiful.

I adhere to gender norms in that I “act like a woman” and I believe that men and women should usually conform to the behavior of the sex they were born as. I have been becoming more comfortable with the concept of people identifying as trans-gender, but I still conform to the norm in my own behavior. In order to deal with this in the classroom, I need to be careful to use non-gender-specific pronouns and call students by the name that they prefer. I can also advocate a gender-neutral bathroom space and gender-neutral policies.

In relation to conforming to gender norms, I also adhere to sexual norms. I am heterosexual and engaged to a wonderful man who is the love of my life. In my classroom and in school, I will have students who identify as gay or lesbian or queer and I need to be an ally despite my adhering to heterosexuality. Because I also adhere to the norm of a heterosexual marriage, I will be different from many of my students who have broken families, divorced parents, blended families, homosexual parents, or single parents. I need to be sensitive to students whose families don’t adhere to stereotypical norms.

I adhere to the norm of having a place to live and to sleep and having the means to provide myself with food. I will have students who are homeless and don’t have resources to find food or shelter so that they can be healthy and get sufficient sleep. I will have students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, and can’t have the big breakfasts that I love so much. I can work with other administrators to ensure that students get fed and work with students so that they can learn despite not being able to study at home when they don’t have one.

While the norms that I conform to might hinder the culture of my classroom, I think that my values are transferable across cultures and ages. Students and parents might not value the same things that I do, but I can exemplify my values in my actions and behavior. By valuing education I am giving students a chance at life through education. By valuing family I can help my students to want and strive for healthy, happy relationships as a family, which in turn affects self-esteem, identity formation, and academic success. By helping my students to also value health, I can help them to develop lifelong habits that will benefit their entire lives.

I learned that my own culture is comprised of many different values and has been shaped by many different life experiences. Where I went to high school, many of the students and teachers held fairly similar values to me and I was able to get along pretty comfortably for the most part. I imagine that many of these values could be difficult for students outside of the culture to deal with and they probably wouldn't feel comfortable. It's impossible to create a culturally neutral classroom and school, and so I think that we as educators need to make more of an effort to include and value different cultures than the dominant one. As an educator, I need to figure out how to overcome the barriers that are in place between cultures and people who are different from one another so that students can feel loved and safe and able to learn.