My hands were sweating as I carefully unsealed the letter to see where I was going to serve. I quickly scanned down to where I was called to go. The letter said I was going to the Tennessee Nashville Mission. I was going to the South – the home of the KKK! While my friends and peers gathered around family and revealed the exciting locations they were called to go to, I knelt down alone in an attic. For I, the proverbial Casey, struck out at the bat. In my prejudice did I condemn myself: Why would the Lord send me, a black, Mormon yankee (that’s already three strikes against me) to his death sentence? Nevertheless, not my will be done. I went on my mission. Evidently, I didn’t die. (although I was threatened and chased out a town by the Branch President) Instead, I’ve learned the great wisdom of the Lord in using me to help ‘perfect the Saints’ in that area. My testimony and work helped change a lot of attitudes. This was told to me by a former Bishop (who then was the Temple President) I served under.
I’m sure people can see that it is a no-brainer that I have been acquainted with prejudice. I was a little unsure about how Kim, my blonde Southern belle, (and my children as well) would handle discrimination now that she is married to a black man. We ended up more surprised by those to whom we didn’t expect discrimination from. Sure, we expected it from her family side. But we didn’t expect it from our own daughter and members of the Ward. My wife was so hurt when the young women would hold everyone’s babies, but not ours, or the whispers that got back to us of how so and so disapproved of our marriage. But, what really struck me with amazement came from a black leader in the community. He said I could not help in black led activities because I’m a ‘Mormon’. This made me reflect deeper in the meaning of prejudice.
Pride manifests itself in so many ways, but it never been so obvious as in the form of prejudice. Usually when a person hears the word ‘prejudice’, it is usually associated with race. Yet, prejudice can be associated with gender, religion, or politics. It’s friendly to the rich, as well as the poor. It mingles in our wards and congregations. It creeps in among the unintentional and rages with the intentional. It even invades our homes and family. Pres. Ezra Taft Benson gets right to the heart of in all when he warned us, “The central feature of pride is enmity – enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition. It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.’ (1989) When I see all of these experiences I afore mentioned as a form of enmity, I am no longer surprised.
I remember way back of an interview of Donny and Marie Osmond with Barbara Walters on the subject of blacks not holding the priesthood. It seems the world was condemning the Church for that reason while Donny and Marie were sweating bullets trying to explain why. I kept thinking how ironic it was that the media was putting the Church as prejudiced against blacks, when in actuality, the Church has the only answer on earth that has a remedy of pride and prejudice. It is the Book of Mormon. The book talks about enmity of a white and black race of people and how they dealt with each other. “Now when the Lamanites saw that their brethren would not flee from the sword, neither would they turn aside to the right hand or to the left, but that they would lie down and perish, and praised God even in the very act of perishing under the sword – Now when the Lamanites saw this they did forbear from slaying them: and there were many hearts had swollen in them for those of their brethren who had fallen under the sword, for they repented of the things which they had done.” Alma 24:23-24
Humility and repentence is the key against pride and prejudice. Who would have guessed?
References
Benson, E.T. (May 1989). Beware of Pride. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1989/05/beware-of-pride.
Dane's Blog 