The most charitable explanation possible for Mormon leaders' racism
 

I've been struck by the fact that Steve Benson lived such a sheltered life inside Mormonism. At age 39, after he won the Pulitzer Prize for cartoons, he went through much the same questioning and rebellious stage culiminating in apostasy that I've said is normal to occur in college. I read once where he said that when he met Spencer W. Kimball he was struck by what a simple, unrefined man he was. No doubt Steve's grandfather Ezra Taft Benson was highly educated and brilliant and maybe this gave Steve a distorted, insular view of Mormonism. Anyway, I think the most charitable explanation for Mormon leaders' racism is that they have really been pretty provincial and unworldly, even lacking in much education, Ezra Taft Benson, Dallen Oaks, and Geoff Holland and a few others being the exceptions.

To me, a large element of it is cultural insularity.

1. Mormon leaders are not perfect.
2. Mormon leaders hopefully are but should not be expected to be any less racist than their peers.
3. Every generation in America is less racist than the last one. My grandparents are a generation younger than the SWK generation, and they're racist as hell.

I can buy into that. But I also think as you look at "generations" of GA's, you see this changing. The bulk of the younger ones, while they may have Utah backgrounds, have spent a lot / most of their careers outside of Utah, etc. The insularity will not be there.

Steve Benson is a good example of why LDS people should be very open with their kids while they are teenagers -- you need to expose them to the less favorable aspects of LDS history in an environment where they can ask for your honest opinion about things and hear the good with the bad.

You don't want your kids to "discover" all of the controversial aspects of Church history on their own as a big flood of negativity when they are in their 20s and 30s because they may not be prepared or know how to handle it.

Many have compared it to inoculating kids with a vaccine and I think it's an apt comparison. Introduce them slowly and gradually to some of the negative aspects of Church history and it is better for all concerned.

With all the stuff out there on the internet (some of it unfortunately true) you can't shelter your kids forever -- especially if they are intelligent and intellectually curious.

Let kids know that they can be inspired and feel a higher power, but that also, just like them, the people around them are imperfect. They have been imperfect, and will be imperfect. Ultimately the question is whether the process of having faith and acting on it yields good fruit.

Your assertion that the Utah "bubble" equates to racism or insularity is ridiculous, it is more a product of the times they were alive in.

FM's got some kind of strange jilted lover relationship with Utah or something like that. I haven't figured it out, but I can tell it has deep psychological roots.

It's both. If you don't think Utah (even today) is insular in terms of racial diversity and exposure to different culture, you're in serious denial.

Sorry, maybe I missed something. Didn't you announce you were "through" with this place?