Palimpsests 2: The BYU visit

Last week I talked about palimpsests in my life, and this week the palimpsests continued. The BYU Slavery Project hosted a conference called Truth and Reconciliation, and the Utah Historical Society encouraged employees to attend. So I headed down to Provo Friday.

It was a little strange to me that I have a BYU-adjacent job, and yet I was at BYU for my state job. And actually, my BYU boss was there, so I sat by him, and I also talked to a colleague from my time at the Church History Department. This conference was held in the Wilkinson Center's Varsity Theater, where I attended church in 2013 and 2014.

In the morning, a few professors spoke on different racial aspects in Utah history, which was most relevant to my state job. Brian Cannon talked about Native American slavery and indentured servitude. The Utes used to capture Goshute and Paiute children, then sell them to the Spanish as slaves. When Mormon settlers arrived, the Utes would attempt to sell the children to the Saints. The Mormons were reluctant to buy them, but the slave traders would threaten to torture or kill the children, so the pioneers would buy the children to save their lives. This is morally defensible, but there were still aspects of settlement that exacerbated the situation.

Amy Tanner Thiriot wrote a book called Slavery in Zion, and she spoke about the experiences of Black pioneers. (Her presentation was most relevant to an article I just finished editing for a future issue of Utah Historical Quarterly.) Her presentation elicited gasps and shocked chuckles when she showed a nineteenth-century image with Black people in Utah, which was later modified to make the Black people white. (Here they are as seen in her book, Slavery in Zion, which I have a copy of but haven't read yet.)

And W. Paul Reeve gave a presentation about the conflicting racial ideas of Orson Pratt and Brigham Young. While Brigham Young allowed for slavery in Utah and taught that Black people descended from Cain (an idea I know I was taught as a kid in the 1990s), Orson Pratt stood up for truth and said there was no evidence that Black people descended from Cain. 

In the afternoon, the presentations were more recent and contemporary, many of them dealing with race at BYU. Some of the presentations were more devotional in nature. Which is fine—this was a presentation put on BYU, and in many ways for BYU. But it was just a little strange to hear those messages when I was there on behalf of my secular job, not my BYU job or my former Church job. 

One Black woman presenter used to work at BYU, but she left last August, and she bluntly said they were not on good terms, and she had a negative reaction simply being on campus. I appreciated her honesty, even though she didn't explain why she left.

(By all accounts, BYU is undergoing a period of retrenchment. Last summer, my former boss at BYU from a decade ago sent me an email telling me she was retiring and inviting me to apply to her position. I responded that that job "sounds like it would be perfect if I were straight. But, alas, I am gay, and I don't think BYU would be the safest or most affirming place for me right now." She replied, "I completely understand. BYU is in retrenchment mode, and I'm not sad to be leaving. It's quite uncomfortable for many of us!" That's why I'm glad that right now I get to work for BYU without being a BYU employee.)

One of the final presenters was a Black woman who said she once felt that God told her he was preparing someone to teach the truth. She later learned that at that same time, Paul Reeve was praying whether to study accounting or history, and he felt inspired to study history. So she views him as the person God was preparing. (Indeed, his book Let's Talk about Race and Priesthood from Deseret Book is excellent.)

It was a great conference, and I'm pleased with the challenging honesty of the presenters on BYU campus.

I got to just walk around campus for a little bit. A lot has changed, and yet it feels so familiar, since I was there every day between 2010 and 2014. The last time I visited BYU campus was in March 2022, when I was going through some stuff and had a cloud of uneasiness hanging over me. But I'm in a much better headspace now, so I waxed nostalgic about the happy and positive experiences I had as a BYU student. (I even saw a couple of former professors [geology and grammar], but I thought it would be weird to stop them and talk to them, when I'm sure they wouldn't remember more than a decade later. And, of course, I'm an introvert anyway.)

***

The conference was the more serious, meaningful portion of the week, but of course I'm all about frivolity, so here are the less serious parts of the week.

On Monday, my ward had an activity to help the Bountiful Food Pantry assemble "pantry packs" for school kids. We had a good turnout and got a lot done. But I can't help but feel sad that the food for the kids is mostly processed, sugary foods.

Mardi Gras isn't one of my canonized holidays, but I nevertheless decided to go to Parsons' Bakery to buy a king cake, a traditional Mardi Gras dessert in the South. My parents asked me to explain what Mardi Gras was, and they were surprised it had religious connections instead of just being a "pagan" (their word) holiday.

This Valentine's Day was the tenth anniversary of when my mom broke her leg while carrying a pizza downstairs, so of course we had our traditional pizza dinner. But then I spent the rest of the evening working on the next issue of Wayfare, which is almost done. It was a boring Valentine's Day. But aren't they all? I have had more boring Valentine's Days than nonboring ones, and of those that were fun, the fun parts were unrelated to the holiday. I think I have to go back to elementary school for a February 14 that was fun because of Valentine's Day.

I'm glad to move on to St. Patrick's Day, which is a better holiday in almost every way: better weather, better colors, better festivals, better music, better savory food. I would say Valentine's Day has better candy, but then I remembered the See's St. Patrick's Day potato. (The one thing that's worse is the drinking. I have a great deal of schadenfreude for drunk people.)

Eating a green candy cane while decorating my St. Patrick's Day tree

Yesterday my dad was doing yardwork, and our neighbors' friendly cat had a grand time following him around, rubbing against his legs. My dad was trimming tree branches, and as he would drag the branches along the ground, the cat would chase and play with them. Eventually Reggie came and was watching out the sliding glass door, so my dad opened the door to the sunroom. The neighbor cat came in and looked at Reggie, but then he lost interest.

Reggie stood up on his hind legs to see where the cat went, but I didn't get the picture in time

Isn't he the greatest?