1712: Joining the Mormon Church as a Black Teenager - Channel Achenbach Pt. 1
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2023
⏱️ 196 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fans of Mormon stories will be familiar with Channel Achenbach, who has been a guest on LDS Discussions' Race & Mormon Scripture Part 1, Gender Discrimination in the Mormon Church with John Larsen and Mormon Leader Ahmad Corbitt Condemns Activism Towards the LDS Church or they may know her from her tiktok channel, @Bettenoir4. This will be a 3-part series of Channel’s story.
In Part 1 We get some background on Channel’s family growing up, how black families and black culture differ substantially from Mormon white culture, what led Channel to seek God and how that led to her joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Channel tells us the good, bad & ugly of how she was treated as a black teenage convert, when she learned of the Church’s racism, and ways that she accepted, excused, and eventually internalized it to see herself as “less” than her white counterparts.
This became most apparent in dating and marriage. While white men in the church may find her exotic and are willing to date her, Channel finds that they are unwilling to marry her as “mixing seed” would pass her “curse” [black skin] to children that could otherwise have two white parents. As Channel loses herself and what makes her unique to the cultural expectations of the Church she marries another black member of the church at the counsel of her Bishop against her better judgment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another additional Warmestorys podcast. I'm your host for today John |
| 0:04.0 | Delin. It is November 21st. We're almost at Thanksgiving in 2022 and we are so excited to have |
| 0:12.3 | back with us for a epic long form Warmestorys podcast interview to have back Chanel. |
| 0:19.9 | Ackinbock, hey Chanel. Hello. How are you guys doing? Good. For those who have been following us |
| 0:25.2 | recently, we had Chanel on our LDS discussion series where we talked about race and Mormonism. |
| 0:31.2 | She joined us for part one of that was kind of a special guest and people loved having her. |
| 0:36.9 | We've had her back at least one or two other times as a panelist. She was recently on the |
| 0:43.0 | discussion of gender with John Larson. Yes. And just so many people have been like, |
| 0:47.7 | more Chanel, more Chanel. So today we are going to be hearing Chanel's Mormon story. What |
| 0:53.6 | would make an African American a black teenage girl in San Antonio, Texas of all places? What would |
| 1:00.6 | lead her to want to join the Mormon church? A little bit of her background. She serves the |
| 1:06.0 | mission. She'll be talking about that. She ended up pursuing Mormonism, trying to be a faithful |
| 1:12.8 | devout happy Mormon. And then things got complicated. So we're going to be hearing her full Mormon |
| 1:20.0 | story. And joining me as shotgun, riding shotgun is my brilliant, amazing partner, Margie Dillin. |
| 1:28.7 | Hey, Margie. Hey. You are also much loved these days. People are loving having you as coast. |
| 1:34.8 | Oh, that is so lovely to hear. Yeah. So thanks for joining us. Oh, I feel like the luckiest. |
| 1:40.4 | I'm glad to be here. Yeah. All right. So Chanel, maybe sometimes people like to begin stating |
| 1:46.8 | their intention. So oftentimes if you talk openly and honestly about Mormonism, some believing |
| 1:52.8 | Orthodox members will just assume you're trying to hurt the church or criticize the church or tear |
| 1:57.5 | down the church. If you just wanted to state upfront your intentions for why you're coming on |
| 2:02.4 | Mormon stories podcast, what would those intentions be? One of them is awareness. And surprisingly enough, |
| 2:10.4 | another one is forgiveness and a pass for some some members. And I think also I'm hoping |
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