Since I was hired to create this blog, I’ve been wanting to tackle the difficult subject of race issues and the Church. In the beginning, it sounded like a logical topic to cover for an LDS adoption blog, knowing that many members adopt transracially. But each time I tried to start mentally composing something, it seemed just too emotionally and intellectually challenging.

I’ve been doing a little “research” over the last few weeks, and I suppose I’ve been trying to get my own bearings on “the facts” and how I feel about them before I write about something I’m certainly not an expert on. I’m just a mom who worries about all sorts of things as they relate to my children, and I kind of figure some of you might worry and wonder about this stuff, too. So this is definitely not a post where I’m claiming to be any sort of authority on the subject; it’s more of a let’s-get-together-and-chat-about-some-difficult-stuff sort of post.

Except for some of you spring chickens, it’s likely you remember the 1978 revelation received by President Spencer W. Kimball, which momentously changed the long-standing Church policy that the priesthood could not be given to members of African ancestry. (Maybe it’s a moot battle of semantics, but I use the word “policy” because it sounds significantly more benign than a word like “ban,” but not so neutral that it removes human decision-making from its meaning. Clear as mud, right? Well, once you delve into this subject it becomes clear that there is nothing clear about how or when the policy originated. Maybe other words, like “tradition” or “habit” or “status quo” would be more appropriate. I still don’t know, so I stick with the middle ground and use “policy.”)

Maybe you think deciding on a word to use is pointless and wonder what possible benefit there could be to bringing any of this up. After all, it’s the past, and we should be looking toward the future, right? I agree to a point, but my major concern is that my children of color will be hit with this stuff in the future, and if they haven’t heard it from their parents’ mouths first, in a form that is as close to the truth as is possible to determine, it could be incredibly hurtful and damaging down the road. Folks with anti-LDS agendas love to hurl racism charges at the members of the church (among myriad other things), and this would be an easy wedge to try to drive into someone’s testimony: to convince them that the Gospel they love so dearly paints them as second class and not worthy of the same blessings as white members.

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Jane Manning James (one of my heros) photo credit: Meridian Magazine