Did you know of any JW elders or JW pioneers that were "racist"?

by booker-t 24 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  FaithfulDoubter

  I have a couple stories...

  Once I expressed interest in a black sister, and some family members strongly dissuaded me saying that the "worst thing I could ever do was mary a black sister". They then went on and said that interracial relationships don't work out, and so on and so forth. I chalked it down to age, but I've since heard rather similar comments from others.

  I also heard of a congregation, that after segregation and so on was done away with, would self-segregate. All the black brothers and sisters on one side, white brothers and sisters on the other. After the meeting ended they wouldn't meangle together, and left rather quickly. I was shocked to hear about such a thing in the Organization!

  Not trying to hijack the thread too much, but I've been thinking a lot about this issue lately. I don't think the JWs are really that much different in regards to race relations. It really is a function of age that determines who 'racist' you are. The later generations today are probably the least racist of any that have come so far, but it's still a definate problem. I see people sometimes make their living on feeding racism, some well meaning, and some that I think are just hateful. (I saw a bone-chilling speech on C-SPAN where a black former university professor advocated the final solution of killing all white people.) I don't think any JW would go that far. I think you'd be suprised what some of the older friends would say about different ethnic groups. I know I was.
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  FaithfulDoubter

  Another true story:

  After a sister had chastised a young brother for dating an african-american sister, she was counselled on how race and such didn't matter. After reading several scriptures and so on with her, the brothers thought she was beginning to get the message. A few weeks later, talking to the younger brother she chastised before, in reference to the young african-american sister the brother was dating, she had this to say, "At least she wasn't a Mexican". Old habits die hard I guess.
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  Confession

  Per the thread's question, these are my experiences--and don't presume to represent anyone else's...

  It's wrong to think that there would be a complete absence of racism (or classism) within any group of society, but I believe I grew up in as ideal an environment possible for someone to be raised without racial prejudice. We had black, white, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and newly immigrated Europeans in our congregation, and we all associated together regularly.

  As a white boy in the early 70s, I was only aware of one form of racism: the kind in which some white people didn't like black people. And I only knew this after having heard the "n" word on television and asking my mother about it. In addition to having all different races into our home, my parents calmly explained to me that there was no difference between people of different races. Just different ways of speaking and different skin colors. I had no clue that there were so many varieties of racism out there. When I was about 8 years old my family moved out of this multicultural environment and into a very red-neck, all-white area. My mother had told me only "the bad people" ever used the "n" word. I thought 'the bad people" were those evil men in dark hats with their collars flapped up over their necks. I soon discovered that many people in this new town used the word. When I was fifteen a schoolmate's father asked a group of children (most younger than I) the following question...

  Kids, do ya know why blacks don't want their children marrying Mexicans?

  None of the youngsters (including me) had any clue what he was talking about. We just stared at him until he gave us the answer...

  Because they're afraid their kids will be too LAZY to STEAL! (Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho!)

  I had absolutely no idea which group was supposed to be lazy and which thieves. I still have to try and figure it out as I relate this story.

  I am certain that others' experiences may have been different than mine, but from my perspective the racial harmony within the organization is something I look back on and appreciate deeply. My entire family may have been hijacked by a controlling, authoritarian cult, but I can at least be glad I was brought up without the burden of mindless racial stereotyping.
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  Forscher

  I knew a young black brother, the son of an elder in a different city, who moved into a congregation I was in for awhile. He started dating a white sister. Boy did the doo doo hit the fan! They were watched and watched until they spent a few hours alone somewhere without a chapherone. They were both DF'd so fast it blew people's minds. She was reinstated within a few months. The last time I heard, he'd not been and there was an understanding that without intervention from higher up he wouldn't be.
  There are many other stories I could tell, but if I did, and the wrong person added them up and figured out where they were from, I could be ID'd. We wouldn't want that now, would we?
  That is not to say that all congregations are like that, I've heard of a few that are different. But I knew quite a few elders who were.
  Forscher
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  corproal

  Because they're afraid their kids will be too LAZY to STEAL! (Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho!)

  I'll explain this one too you,seeing as I'm a person of color or black as some would like to say.

  What the jokester was saying is blacks always steal and mexicans are always lazy.So if you have a half black and half mexican child he'd be to lazy to steal.

  .The jokes don't bother me though.

  I'll even give you one.

  A black man walks into a bar with a parrot on the shoulder ,

  The bartender says a that's neat,where'd you find it?

  The parrot replies in Africa.
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  oldflame

  Every damn one of them are racist. You are either one of them or you are a doomed one of them. How racist is it when you are shunned ? Isn't that just like walking on the opposite side of the street when you see someone of opposite race ?

  I hate racist people, and I can not figure why people have to be that way. God created man in his own image, never once saying he was a white man or a black man or a brown man. It just say's man in his own image. How are we to know that God is not a black man or a brown man, for all we know God may be purple.

  There is still so much racism in this country it is pathetic. Makes me sick that people cannot grow with one another. Praise be the day Jesus returns !
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  KW13

  Thats really odd cos i printed off something the other day regarding JW's and Racism.

  *goes to get link*

  http://www.geocities.com/paulblizard/blacks.html

  Not had chance to read it myself yet...just the first paragraph
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  Virgogirl

  There were two young couples at my childhood Hall, very much in love. Both were white brothers and pretty black sisters. They were pressured to find a "suitable marriage mate" of their own race. Think of how hard it will be for you, marriage is hard enough without the added pressures, what about the children, what a tough time they'll have in school as mixed race kids, bla-bla. They finally drove a wedge between these couples, and all of them married within their own race, mediocre marriages they settled for, it seemed like.
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  TMS

  There are a few references below to racism among JW's.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/7391/86653/post.ashx#86653

  I spent thirty years as an elder in Arkansas. I met a few crusty old elders who were openly racist and a few younger ones more subtle in their racism. There were contradictions all over the place. Even racist JW's didn't mind field service in black areas. It sort of reinforced their superiority to see the run-down housing, etc. I knew a couple of prominent elders who scrambled like crazy to prevent their daughters from marrying black brothers.

  Generally, JW's work hard to overcome any appearance of prejudice.

  I spent a few years as well on the Texas-Mexico border. The relationship between the "English" and "Spanish" congregations is curious. Both groups tend to do their own thing, despite worshipping the same god.

  tms
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  Robert K Stock

  In the fifteen years I was a Jehovah's Witness 1973-1988. I never saw or heard of any racism. My experience was that the Watchtower was the most color blind non racist group I have ever seen. I think the Watchtower is guilty of many evils, but not racism.