DiaBLOGue

One Thousand Two Hundred Sixty Days

January 14, 2019

Sometimes in a long white 
gown, often in tattered brown  
wool, always with two wings  
of a great eagle on Her back, Asherah 

The Pioneer Woman, St. George

January 14, 2019

She brought her family to this god 
forsaken place at His request. 
She will petition until He reconsiders 
and crops cover the reproach 

Self-Portrait of Mormon Middle Child as Isabella

January 14, 2019

One by one within a month, four siblings bring their grievances before 
Father, ruler of our domain. The laws of the home are too strict, they 
complain, no gum in the house—let alone sex or booze. No shoes on 
the living room’s cream carpet. A three-hour dose of church Sunday 

Father-Daughter Interview on Blacks and the Priesthood

January 14, 2019

Verlyne: We saw a documentary a few weeks ago and you were featured in it, with Darius Gray. I don’t know when it was done, but it was on Blacks and the priesthood. 

Greg: Thank you. 

Egide: I want to thank you for all the work that you have done to clarify all of the history. That’s just amazing, the things we are learning now.

The Black Cain in White Garments

January 14, 2019

Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 209–211
Jackson explains “The Church refused to grant the Black body whole recognition and divinity. To Nephi, I was not fair and delightsome. To Joseph, I was a violator of the most sacred principles of society, chastity, and virtue. To Brigham, I was Cain’s curse. To McConkie, I was an unfaithful spirit, a “fence-sitter.” To you, I am colorless, my Blackness swallowed in that whiteness reclaimed, “a child of God.”

Shifting Tides: A Clarion Call for Inclusion and Social Justice

January 14, 2019

Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 201–208
“What can we do to help and make a difference in the fight for racial and social justice?” McCoy responds to the BYU students who asked these questions which he brought up in an annual MLK March on Life held by BYU was ‘stop tiptoeing around the subjects of race, inequality, and inclusion. Many well intentioned white people in this country do not understand how the deeply rooted systems of racism and inequality function.’ He encouraged people to step up and do their own part for obtaining social justice for all.

When Did You Become Black?

January 14, 2019

Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 193–200
After taking a genelogy DNA test, Houston finds some African ancestory. “Where to begin in answering all those questions? But at the most basic level, I simply liked that I was from Africa. The percentage was small but the jolt large and wondrous. In the nineteenth century, the United States had the one-drop rule about race: if you had one drop of African blood you were considered to be Black.”

A Balm in Gilead: Reconciling Black Bodies within a Mormon Imagination

January 14, 2019

Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 185–192
“As much we may hope that one would disregard the explicitly racial teachings of the past, the significance of corporeality in the Mormon imagination is such that Mormonism’s racial wounds run deep. With-out a thoughtful consideration of the impact of the priesthood and temple restrictions, their legacy manifests in implicit and explicit ways.”