I Won an Award…and my latest post on Wheat & Tares

Last week, the voting for the Brodies Awards closed, and chanson posted the winners…check that link for them all, but my “Mormonism and Race in 2014” won in the “Best Religion-and-Race Discussion” category.

I’ll have to write about this more, but I’ve been thinking more and more — Mormonism very much is a part of me, regardless of what I believe or what I practice. How is this so? How can someone say they are still Mormon even though they don’t believe or they don’t practice? Even though they haven’t attended church for years?

I think it has to do with how Mormonism treats race.

As I’ve written before, there really isn’t a way to become “white and delightsome.” There is never a way to become respectable enough. Not that I’m saying I would want to do, but it’s not truly possible to do.

However, what is possible is it’s possible to become, say, an oreo: black on the outside, white on the inside. And what has caused this, for me?

Certainly, my upbringing. Since “acting white” basically can drill down to speaking normative English grammar, certainly one doesn’t have to be a black Mormon to be an oreo…but for me, that is an undeniable part of my upbringing. I won’t get too much further in this post, but as I’ve reflected, there are other things…other ways of thinking…that I recognize as playing into my racial experience that came about because of Mormonism…

But I’ll hold off on that…for now, I’ll switch hard to the next subject — I wrote a post on Wheat & Tares about Mormon Stories, Open Stories Foundation, and non-profits.