Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and The Problem of Racial Innocence

by Joanna Brooks

A thousand painstaking calculations must have factored into his choices, as they do for every Mormon who finds him/her/theirself at odds for reasons of conscience with the institutional LDS Church. It matters in this calculus whether you are white, Black, or brown; male or female; straight or LGBTQ; rich or poor; married or not; highly observant or less so. It matters whether you have a current volunteer position in the Church and what that position is—whether one of greater or lesser responsibility. It matters who the local leaders are who are charged with assessing your personal worthiness. It matters whether your ancestors came across the plains as pioneers and where Brigham Young sent them after they did—Idaho, Arizona, southern Utah, Mexico; whether they practiced polygamy; and how closely they maintained their ties with the elite networks of families who have constituted the majority of the Church’s leadership. It matters where