I've been preparing a syllabus on "Race and the Bible" which has been a really fulfilling exercise but I noticed something interesting I wasn't looking for but of course jumped out at me. Mormonism comes up a lot in treatments of racism and biblical interpretation 1/

Quotations from the LDS canon of the Book of Mormon on blackness as a curse or from the Book of Abraham on the Hamitic curse are frequently used as exempla of racist biblical interpretation. 2/

According to @pcoviell , "If you know much at all about Mormonism, you will likely know at least something of the story about race and indignity that gets told in the Book of Mormon. And you will know, too, how ugly it is." (_Make Yourselves Gods_, 136). 3/

This appears to be true. And while Mormon racism has clear roots in its historical context, that it persisted in official forms for much longer than it did in other American institutions has helped solidify this aspect of its reputation. 4/

From popular media like #TheBookofMormonMusical to episode 1 of #RealHousewivesofSaltLake, it seems that Mormon historical (and on-going, in more subtle ways) institutional racism is increasingly THE thing that must be known. 5/

There is no doubt that this is deserved and its on-going punishment for the past is a reminder of why it is important to put justice, not just tradition, at the center of theological values. 6/

But I'm also interested in the ways that the turn to Mormon racism in scholarly and popular representation of the tradition serve as more than just punishment, but also deflection and vindication of a secularizing narrative of redemption that Americans tell about themselves. 7/

"We might have some racist baggage, but look at the Mormons! At least we aren't that bad!" Mormonism has functioned thus in the American imagination on a variety of issues, as the ultimate exotic other whose exaggerated sins cover over one's own. 8/

The ironies, of course, abound, in that in the 19th century Mormons were common represented as not white enough, as traitors to the Caucasian race. 9/

But the work that Mormonism still does, right here in the 21st. century, in on-going cultural conversations about race, in both subtle and direct ways, alerts us to some fascinating scripts about Mormon otherness, exoticism, and extremism that persist in American culture. 10/10