blacksundae

Here’s Cracked’s list of Hollywood’s 6 Favorite Offensive Stereotypes.

Cain turned into Sasquatch!

In 1835, as evening fell, missionary David W. Patten had spotted a figure walking near his mule in Tennessee. His tall, dark body was covered with hair, he wore no clothing, and…

…he replied that he had no home, that he was a wanderer in the earth and traveled to and fro. He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of men.

I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, and commanded him to go hence, and he immediately departed out of my sight.

Yeah. Either that or he turned into black people!

There’s already been a controversy about the Mormon church’s teachings on Cain. Brigham Young believed that God punished Cain’s ancestors, and that “the mark of Cain” was: black skin. The same belief continued through a 1966 edition of the church reference book Mormon Doctrine, and black Mormons were banned from the church’s priesthood. But at that same time, church president David O. McKay announced that “It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice will some day be changed.” The position was ultimately reversed by church president Spencer W. Kimball, and the church ordained its first black priest in 1978. (Thomas S. Monson, the new Mormon President, conducted that priest’s marriage and sacred ordinances.)

Eugene England, a professor at Brigham Young University, addressed “the Cain legacy” in a 1998 article in Sunstone magazine.

This is a good time to remind ourselves that most Mormons are still in denial about the ban, unwilling to talk in Church settings about it, and that some Mormons still believe that blacks were cursed by descent from Cain through Ham…

I check occasionally in classes at BYU and find that still, twenty years after the revelation, a majority of bright, well-educated Mormon students say they believe that blacks are descendants of Cain and Ham and thereby cursed…

Read more at 10 Zen Monkeys.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Douglas Cootey’s response in the comments for this post.

As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched.

Read on. [via Hit & Runn]