Questions for Any LDS Utah Judge (including Bishops)

Last updated on: January 17, 2025 at 4:12 pm by Margaret Blair Young

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Questions for Any LDS Utah Judge (including Bishops) 2025-01-17T16:12:52-07:00 Margaret Blair Young

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The most transformative experiences during my years of researching and writing about Black LDS pioneers and their descendants happened as I became friends with the Black LDS population in Utah and elsewhere. Both Darius Gray (my co-author) and I experienced miracles as we told the stories of Jane Manning James, Green Flake, and Elijah Abel. It was clear that we had divine help. But it was also clear that the racial divide hadn’t gotten much better since these pioneers were alive.

In 2016 in Provo, Utah, I witnessed a judge behave so badly against a Black defendant that I wrote a notarized complaint against him. The public defenders told me that this particular judge was “very conservative.” Ultimately, the defendant was persuaded to take a plea deal, and later was given a complete and unconditional pardon by Utah’s Board of Pardons. Of course, the trauma inflicted on the defendant could not be undone.

These are questions I would like posed to any LDS judge (or leader) who will be trying (or serving) Black or Brown people, particularly those in Utah. I wonder if these should be asked to anyone being called to serve in the LDS Church. Or in any church?

1. Have you always lived in a predominantly white society? How do you prepare to treat members of a minority group fairly? What do you do to learn to love and respect those with darker skin than yours? (I will mention here that I have a close friend who serves as a judge in the same courthouse and who has learned Spanish to better serve Latino defendants. He has often written to people he sent to prison, and has followed their lives with encouragement, sending notes of congratulations when they reach an educational goal or get married. He has also faithfully attends Martin Luther King Day commemorations and supported Civil Rights causes.)
2. Since you are a judge in Utah, you are either a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or are familiar with the details of Church history and culture. Did you ever believe or teach that Blacks were cursed or that they were “less valliant” in a pre-mortal life than those born white? If you once believed such false doctrine (see the official repudiation in this essay), what steps have you taken to re-train your world view?
3. When you notice racism in your thoughts or actions, how do you address it? How do you repent of it?
4. What actions do you take to diversify your world so that your actions reflect equal and universal respect for all humans? How do help your family to “enlarge their borders”?
I love the opportunities the LDS Church gives its members to serve missions in diverse places, and am eager to see even more transformation of missionary time into service. All missions should be service missions, I think. If someone wants to know about the church, they can find a missionary or a member to answer doctrinal questions.
Many Americans are shocked by the conditions they find in poor countries. Sometimes, missionaries leave early when the conditions are too difficult. I wonder how we can better prepare our missionaries to see the divinity of those they are serving. What if we had a “Pathways” program for white folks, which would outline reasonable expectations for missions in poor countries and would also give glimpses into the beautiful traditions of the cultures they will be visiting?
Those of us who have served in poor conditions know that the people are often in survival mode, and requests for money (and sometimes dishonest ways of acquiring it) are rampant. Surely we can train Service Missionaries in how to deal with such things
I thank God for the many lessons I’ve had on diversity, and for those I surely will have.

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