> 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.