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I am a descendant of A.O. Smoot.I got the email from the family organization. I don't agree that removing his name from the BYU admin building would "accomplish nothing." And frankly, I don't need a building at BYU to feel like his legacy is honored. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/09/02/descendants-slaveholder/
I do agree that unlike confederate monuments that were erected specifically in order to terrorize black people, the Smoot building was named after Smoot in spite of his racism, not because of it. But that's not the whole question.
The question is, does a constant reminder to students that this man's involvement in enslaving people and his other racism are not significant enough blemishes on his character to name the building after someone else continue to do harm?
And let's talk about that other racism: when Elijah Able, the first black man ordained to the priesthood, sought the blessings of the temple that had been promised to him, Smoot almost certainly lied and pressured another man to lie about Able's ordination.
They said Joseph Smith said Able's ordination had been a mistake. That hearsay testimony was almost certainly false. And that false testimony was likely a significant basis for the extension of Brigham Young's exclusion of black people from the temple and the priesthood.
That extension carried that policy into the twentieth century and gave it a veneer of prophetic approval that contributed to it lasting until 1978, which has, in turn, contributed to and exacerbated racism in the church to this day.
So it's not just something that's in the distant past. It's something that were still living with the effects of.
I am proud of A.O. Smoot's contributions to the church and to my alma mater. He has a legacy of faith, generosity, and sacrifice that I'm proud to honor. But neither his positive legacy nor his racism erases the other.
But given our cultural failure to eradicate racism, and our propensity to minimize it--in short, our unrepentant heart when it comes to racism--keeping A.O. Smoot's name on the admin building tacitly continues, imo, to minimize racism as a mere pecadillo we can overlook.
In spite of warnings against racism from church leaders that have come with increasing frequency over the past decade or so, we church members sometimes seem to take this attitude that "there is no harm" in it, that God will merely "beat us with a few stripes" and forgive us.
But that's a lie. God forgives sin, but he doesn't overlook our excuse it. Forgiveness comes only through sincere repentance.
Anyway in this context, continuing to keep his name on the admin building, even if it's in spite of his racism, not because of it, seems to minimize it in ways that I don't believe we can righteously do. So I disagree with the family org that removing it would accomplish nothing.
