> Of course it does. How is it that Utah is almost all white?

Utah can be all-white for entirely nefarious reasons and yet it doesn't follow that any given company (or other organization) in Utah lacks diversity for its own nefarious reasons. It's entirely plausible and likely that the company in question sampled without racial bias from its own hiring pipeline and consequently the company's racial demographics resemble that of its hiring pipeline.

As for why Utah's population is mostly white, I'm guessing the biggest factor is that a predominately white religious sect settled it. I'm sure there's some racial oppression involved as was common at the time, but I don't imagine that that was a particularly strong driver of Utah demographics. However, I could be wrong and it still wouldn't affect my original thesis.

> In the natural state of affairs, since we now have the ability to move around the planet faster than we reproduce, entropy would have the world be an even distribution.

I'm not actually sure that we can move around the planet faster than we reproduce. This is perhaps true for the wealthiest 1% or so of the global population. Moreover, to the extent that it's true, it hasn't been true for long enough to expect some global homogeneity absent discrimination. Absent any segregating forces (malicious or benign--more on benign segregating forces below), it would probably take millennia to get some discernible global racial uniformity. Further, there are benign segregating forces--for example, people of all racial groups tend to exhibit a preference for living in communities which share their language, culture, religion, and traditions (note that the standard group generalization disclaimers apply--this doesn't apply to every individual in the group and it doesn't suggest that this force is uniform across racial groups, etc). Similarly, the nations with the most gender freedom exhibit the least occupational gender diversity and the nations with the least gender freedom exhibit the most occupational diversity.

Utah was a moderately unforgiving desert settled by members of a white church (the majority of members’ families had recently immigrated from Britain or Scandinavia).

That church also was not particularly welcoming to Black people and expressly for as slavery.

You didn’t have Black people moving there to join a pretty culty religious group, and you didn’t have slavery, so there was very little influx of diversity.

Not to be pedantic about it but there actually was slavery (to your point though, not nearly as widespread as it was in the East) Brigham Young declared it legal right after a black member from Boston made the trek into Utah. As soon as he heard Brigham Young say that he packed up and left. He only stayed for like a month.

Edit: I’m not certain off-hand if it was made legal-legal or if Brigham just said it was doctrinal, imagine the effect would be pretty much the same either way at the time.

Brigham Young believed that slavery was ordained of God, and accepted slaves for tithing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_slavery

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Utah

Edit: Slavery was legal in Utah from 1852 until 1862 when it was banned by Congress.

> Brigham Young believed that slavery was ordained of God, and accepted slaves for tithing.

It’s not like there’s an intellectually honest way of getting a ban on slavery from Christian Scripture. Mohamed was over 600 years later and substantially more liberal with regard to slavery than was the norm before him and his religion didn’t ban slavery either. The Abrahamic scriptures aren’t really ambiguous on this. God does not object to slavery as such.

When one claims to have a direct line to God and receive modern revelation, it would be expected that maybe they would see the writing on the wall, and I dunno, not enslave people?

The problem was that they were actively writing new scripture that supposedly had equal (if not more) weight than both the Old and New Testament.

Brigham did way worse than that to black people. Brigham Young and most other Mormon leaders, believed that the(ir) scriptures justified the subordination of black people because they were descendants of Cain or of other biblical figures who had sinned egregiously.

Slavery in Utah lasted 10 years and included very small number of Afroamerican and Native American people so certainly economic success of Utah is in no significant way connected to slavery.

> Of course it does. How is it that Utah is almost all white? ...

For the same reason why Utah is largely LDS, of course. Namely, it was largely white LDS who bothered to actually settle the place. It's a bit weird how some people find something nefarious in any perceived "lack" of diversity, as if founder effect, etc. was not a thing.

I don't think we can call Brigham Young's attitude and plethora of horrible statements about the African American race as anything OTHER than nefarious. It's systematic racism that "officially" ended in 1978 when blacks were finally allowed to hold the same priesthood as white 12 year old boys could hold. (and the "higher" priesthood level that 18 year old white boys can hold which also is a prerequisite for entering the LDS Temple). With that said, this systemic racism is still a thing as we've yet to see a member of the 12 apostles have anything other than white skin.

So, sadly, "nefarious" seems to describe it exactly.

But is it really neccessary, for religions to be diverse?

How about ethnic religions? Should they open up, too?

I would just stay away from any organisation in the first place (if possible), if they care about my skin color and not my skills.

There are at least a couple black people in the quorum of the seventy. The seventy have similar roles for the church in their corners of the world they watch over as the apostles do over the whole world. I know it may not be very diverse from modern US standards. But just recently a Hispanic born leader and Chinese leader are now part of the quorum of the twelve. Which was I believe a good step for diversity for the church.

Diversity can go pretty far before some are happy. I assume people may not be happy until there is a non-white skin prophet. There were plenty of those in ancient times I’m sure with the Lamanites and all (Book of Mormon reference). Or maybe even some will take the Ginsburg approach of until there are 12 non white skinned apostles then we “might” have to stop worrying so much about diversity.

I’ll give you a bit of The Churches Doctrine in the following so if you aren’t too keen on religion you can feel free to skip, but these are by no means all stances of the church but mostly my own wisdom I’ve gathered from scripture reading and Gospel study over the years.

Honestly I love diversity of all kinds. I love diversity of thought too. I also really like unity of purpose. I believe that diversity isn’t the most important goal the Church has. We church members believe that Zion has come at previous times and will come when the people are of one heart and one mind. I’m sure that doesn’t mean we don’t have diversity in any given respect such as different thoughts but when it comes down to it we unify in purpose much like Christ, God, and the Holy Ghost are one in purpose to further the Salvation of men in fact that is who we strive to unify with. Despite our mistakes we are able to improve and make that at-one-ment of purpose due to Christ’s Atonement (otherwise as the Book of Mormon states men[/women] were fallen and no good could come of them). I haven’t studied the Bible as much as the Book of Mormon, but at least in the Book of Mormon it states that prophets themselves make mistakes I mean I guess there’s examples of that in the four gospels such as when Peter denied Christ or when Judas betrayed Christ and many other examples of imperfect principles and even flat out mistakes such as with King David committing adultery with Bathsheba and his mistakes covering it up the way he did. I’ve learned else where in Gospel teachings that they don’t always speak for the Lord in their actions. The gospel also teaches each man is given the Light of Christ to discern for themselves whether something be good or evil. You feeling those things as “nefarious” is likely correct. Bad and toxic culture and the sins of our fathers as well as our own can really lead us away from God and the Truth and even prophets are fallible in that sense. This is not to degrade them just to say that they too can be fallible. Prophets have a divine purpose and most of them have gotten very close to the character of Christ at least in terms of what men can do. We are all fallible in those senses we all sin and we believe the only perfect sinless man was Christ. But also I recognize these people are called of God and that Christ is at the head of the Church. Despite those at the head of the Church much like we do may at times make mistakes though often when they do they given the degree of mistake will be removed from their station.

A tech forum may not be the best place for this discussion, but, you brought it up, and I've considered how I might answers so, you may never see this but...

I think your use of David here is a great example of where we may disagree. David absolutely sinned with Bathsheba, and subsequently killed her husband to cover it all up. Yes, that was an example of very bad leadership. But, do you get what happened after that? Nathan the prophet visited him and told him the truth about his wickedness. It cut him to the heart! He repented and sought forgiveness. He wrote Psalm 51 (go and read it) as a lamentation of his wickedness. Contrast that with Dallin H. Oaks' assertion that the Church does not apologize: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/06/18/their-church-may-... That is not an isolated or off-handed comment. It's one of the most un-Christ-like displays I've seen lately. In this way, I don't know who those guys the first presidency are following, but it's not Jesus Christ.

Its an extension of systemic racism in the country going back centuries, which is what the parent is referring to.

That said, I don't personally expect every Utah resident to spend all their resources on diversity nor do I expect many are in the position to. That said, the argument that passive participation in an unjust system is tacit approval of that system isn't so far fetched.

> Its an extension of systemic racism in the country going back centuries, which is what the parent is referring to.

I'm not sure this is true in Utah's case, and anyway it misses the point (Utah could be white for entirely nefarious reasons and we would still expect any given colorblind institution in Utah to be similarly white).

> That said, the argument that passive participation in an unjust system is tacit approval of that system isn't so far fetched.

It's entirely possible that one is:

* unaware of the injustice

* unsure of what can be done to help

* already helping in a different capacity

* spending one's resources otherwise making the world a better place (including potentially addressing worse injustices or just trying to provide for one's family, community, workforce, etc)

* etc

This "if you're not for my pet issue, you must be against it" isn't doing anyone a service.

Indeed. And at least for African Americans, the Great Migration was from the South to major industrial cities (Detroit during the automobile boom, LA during WW2 for the war effort).

Without a huge draw of good paying jobs I’m not sure you’ll see a lot of diversity since no ethnic group has a lot of incentive to move there.

> Namely, it was largely white LDS who bothered to actually settle the place.

I mean, this is eliding a lot of history, none of it pleasant and with no convenient villains. Mormons themselves were more or less forced there; they forced enslaved people to come with them making Utah the first western area with African slavery; they accidentally and purposely, violently displaced indigenous people who also actually settled there; and Mormonism held racism as a core precept much longer than most US religions.

"Nefarious" is a sadly accurate summary of two centuries of Utah history.