How and why racism is incompatible with Christ and the Gospel Plan.

I have been feeling very strongly that I needed to write something about the current events of the world. And as I was running this morning my mind thought about racism. Here are my scattered thoughts:

My mother and my wife both grew up in Hawaii and faced extreme racism and prejudice for being a ‘Haole.’ My grandpa left the South because he was told he had to join the KKK to stay part of the Democratic party. And he refused to do that leaving the South and the party.

I remember as a kid going to Orem High School and learning about the internment camps that stood there, and how FDR rounded up the Japanese Americans.

Growing up I remember people making nasty comments about Hispanics talking down to them as if the only value they had was as manual labor. As a missionary, I remember hearing New Englander’s comments about Blacks and Hispanics that made my stomach curl.

Living in the South I was warned by black people that if I entered certain neighborhoods I would be shot dead for being white. They even told me that they rob/kill blacks for ‘being too white’ I then asked what that meant, and he said they went to college.

One of my good friends is Armenian and he told me stories of European racism and how his family fled Belgium because racism was so bad the endless slurs.

Another of my friends served his mission in Germany and told me about the racial tensions in that country. Apparently, he heard Germans making remarks that Hitler was not completely wrong and that the Turks need to be dealt with. And he heard Middle Eastern refugees and migrants talk about killing Germans because of their pride and racism.

I remember working at my first job and my manager stressing about who to hire, I helped with the vetting of applications and at one point he told me that he could not hire two white males as that would be perceived as racist, that he needed to hire a minority.

In another job I was told my chance of promotion was slim to none because of a feminist manager who did not like me as I was a ‘white Mormon man’ and she only liked minorities.

Why do I share these problems? Because racism is real. Seeing the death of George Floyd made me sick to my stomach. Racism is treating ANYONE differently because of their race. To point out there is a problem for one person is not to invalidate someone else’s struggle. We are all in this together we must stamp out all racism and hate, and their author Satan.

To claim that only one group experiences racism is to propagate a lie. To claim this is only an American problem is to propagate a lie. We see hate crimes against Blacks, Muslims, Jews, Latter-day Saints, and others. This ought not to be!

Do we have a long way to go? Yes. There should be zero tolerance for racism when it comes to our legal system, in either cops, judges, or sentencing. Justice must be completely blind. That is something that we should all unite for. But we also need reforms in schools as well as welfare, we need reforms that to teach both the good as well as the bad, how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.

But all reforms will lead to nothing unless we reform our hearts. President Benson taught: “Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family.”
Ezra Taft Benson

President Benson did not say the gospel was ‘a good way’ to fix racial problems, or ‘one of the ways’ but rather he said ONLY the gospel will fix these problems. Only the Gospel will bring peace to our land, the only thing strong enough to overcome the darkness of Satan and racism is the light and love of Jesus Christ.

Only understanding that these labels white, black, Hispanic, Catholic, Baptist, Democrat, Republican, those labels are not accurate. They are Satan’s attempts to get us to identify as something other than who we are: We are all brothers and sisters, we are all sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents! And we have been commanded to love our brothers and sisters.

“The Creator of us all calls on each of us to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children. Any of us who has prejudice toward another race needs to repent!”
Russell M. Nelson

The only solution to our problems is to realize who we really are and see past temporary labels that will NOT follow us into eternity and start acting like and treating others like Children of God! If you are not treating everyone, no exceptions, as a child of God then you need to repent.

While I was running and thinking about race I heard the talk by The Eternal Everyday by Quentin L. Cook where he sums this all up perfectly: “Anyone who claims superiority under the Father’s plan because of characteristics like race, sex, nationality, language, or economic circumstances is morally wrong and does not understand the Lord’s true purpose for all of our Father’s children.”
Quentin L. Cook