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