Comments on: Review: Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons

By: Margaret Young

Margaret Young — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:12:47 +0000

Steve–I’m teasing you. I thought your review was excellent and honest. I took a swim after you posted it and was simply contemplating the ways I tend to mold fiction or film. In RS, someone had mentioned that men tend to give logical detail, but women tell stories. That’s too global an assessment, but it was interesting to contemplate.
I’ve noted that Bruce prepares for hours to give his talks, accumulating scriptures and quotes. I rarely do much but think of what stories I’ll tell.
In all serioiusness, though, I think we put the solid history into the special features and try to make the documentary itself a more emotional, flowing experience. I hope I didn’t sound like I was really criticizing you. I plan on quoting your review when we start marketing the film.

By: Joshua Madson

Joshua Madson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:13:33 +0000

margaret,

im going to go out on a limb here but I wonder if the laughter from the “some taint” phrase I think had to do with the word “taint”

By: Steve Evans

Steve Evans — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:50:43 +0000

Margaret, don’t misunderstand me — I am not criticizing the film for not being “historical enough” or anything. I understand that this is a director’s decision, and one I respect and appreciate. Indeed, I think it was the right choice given your subject matter and goals. Not a criticism at all.

By: cchrissyy

cchrissyy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:31:35 +0000

Absolutely, the boy’s pain and all the other excluded people did hit home during that story. Plus, I hadn’t realized there was a “one drop” rule in the priesthood/temple exclusion. I don’t recall any other part-black stories, at least not before that point, so I really had no idea it excluded mixed race or mostly-white members.

But it was funny at the moment I realized I’d been tricked into looking at the wrong kid in that photo, and wondering “wait, you call THAT black?” as if these guys couldn’t even keep straight who they were trying to keep out.

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:21:55 +0000

Margaret,

I haven’t seen the documentary yet, just the trailer. I love the way it ends, with that scene of a picnic and the song that is so joyously ebullient: “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table.” But the trailer fades out with this verse: “I’m gonna tell God how you treat me”.

Let’s set aside everything pre-1978 for now. The way we attempt to excuse ourselves for our attitudes and make a fetish out of nutty ideas about pure bloodlines leaves us with a lot to answer for.

By: Margaret Young

Margaret Young — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:15:17 +0000

Of course, it wasn’t at all funny for the many families who joined the LDS Church and had to forego temple blessings, priesthood ordinations, and the things we value most once they had done their genealogy and discovered that they had a black ancestor. The “one drop” philosophy applied, and there were many men who had been ordained but were subsequently asked not to participate in priesthood ordinances because of “some taint” from Africa.

This quote is from Pastor Murray in our special features: “And then DNA tells you that the man you’ve been pointing your finger at is your great great great great great grandfather…If you think that God has patted you on the head and said, ‘You’re the best thing since toast’, you are living in another century!”

By: cchrissyy

cchrissyy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:07:46 +0000

I remember that part, and I still think it’s funny- the man is going on about how there was one boy who couldn’t get ordained, and you think you know why – that he’s black – but as the story reaches the end, the camera is closing in on a thoroughly typical looking blonde boy, and you realize that you’ve been tricked!
And then the policy is funny if this is the “black” kid in question. (not funny in a laughing-at-ourselves way but in an absurd way that makes the policymakers look dumb)

By: Margaret Young

Margaret Young — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:54:50 +0000

Well then, Mark IV, I guess we need to get them to download “Lesson 10″ of the Pof GP from BYU’s religion department, don’t we.

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:47:39 +0000

I wonder if it’s simply absurd

Yes.

By: Margaret Young

Margaret Young — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:41:37 +0000

And now my review of Steve’s review:
You are such a mensch, Steve. If you were a woman, you’d love the story-telling of the film and you’d wish we had cherubic cartoons in the pre-existence portion.

The truth is, I always opted for a historian’s/interviewee’s personal story on the hard issues even beyond the historical facts. So if I can have Newell Bringhurst telling me about the first time he said “no preference” to the question of his religion–when talking to a Black NCO in the military, or if I can have Armand Mauss telling about learning of the priesthood ban when “a boy about my age, named Richard, moved into our ward…At age twelve, we all were ordained to the priesthood except for this boy… The bishop explained it was, well, because of some taint from the seed of Cain…” I’ll probably take the stories before I’ll take passages (however brilliant) from _Saints and Slaves_ or _All Abraham’s Children_. (Of course, I’ll want the history too, but always contextualized within personal stories. We have lethally boring history books which neglect this truth: History is made of people’s stories and voices, and facts are deadly COLD without the personal voice. We build generations which hate textualized history because they have memorized dates rather than learned to love people.)

As I’ve thought about it, I think the documentary itself and the special features (which will be twice as long as the doc) fill separate purposes. Also, Steve, you might want to check out _Blacks and the Scriptures_, which is made by two MEN (Darius Gray and Marvin Perkins).

One more quick comment: We know when to expect laughs in the doc, but we got one in San Francisco at an unexpected point: when Mauss talks about “some taint from the seed of Cain.” Mormon audiences don’t laugh at that line. It was very interesting that a predominantly non-LDS audience found it humorous. What does that imply? Is the teaching so familiar to us that it’s not funny? Is it something which makes us nervous? I wonder if it’s simply absurd, and hence humorous, to a non-LDS audience.

It was great being with you and your beautiful wife, Steve.