Textual Poaching

 President Uchtdorf once said “Discipleship is not a spectator sport. We cannot expect to experience the blessings of faith by standing inactive on the sidelines any more than we can experience the benefits of health by sitting on a sofa watching sporting events on television and giving advice to the athletes.”

Being LDS has been my most defining trait and is the essence of who I am today.  Just like President Uchtdorf stated, I believe it is of vital importance to take a stand in this world and choose which team we are fighting for.  If we do not, we will be pushed aside and trampled on as the morals of the world take over.  This is why I have chosen to do this project and why I believe that I can make a stand through voice instead of violence like The Extermination Order did.

I wanted to show how The Extermination Order violated The Constitution of the United States.  Both of these documents relate directly to my roots as a true-born American Mormon.  I chose to focus on the LDS aspect of my life, but through further research, I realized that such history directly dealt with being American as well.  

This time period is one I am not grateful for – for two reasons.  Firstly, I dislike that people invent things about Mormons as they did at the time of The Extermination Order – that Mormons are a threat to society and “must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state.”  Many times I have run into people who think they know what Mormons believe.  But what they say is entirely opposite of the truth.  I wish people better understood Mormons and would not take such harsh actions upon people, like they did at this time.

Secondly, this time period is unsettling to me as a patriot.  I believe in this country and the ideals it was set upon.  The idea that orders such as this could be created that so blatantly defy The Constitution unnerve me, and I hope, for everyone’s sake, that their rights will be protected like ours were not.

In Jenkins’ “How Texts Become Real,” I liked the attention drawn to what truly makes something real.  “It doesn’t happen all at once.  You become.  It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”  This time in history was ugly.  It was ugly because it was not real – because people would pretend, make up lies about the Mormons, and have “sharp edges” that were not willing to listen to what others had to say.  However, I believe that as this country has grown and as people are more willing to understand Mormons, people have become more “real,” and this is why we do not have orders like this today.

The process I went through creating this piece was very insightful and actually helped me come to terms with this dark past more than I ever had.  Researching the topic got me more frustrated that such a thing could happen and that people could perceive such a kind group of people in a negative way.  However, after going through the process of reading the order, reading the Constitution, putting them together, and burning it, I was able to come to an understanding I never thought I would get to.  Yes, I am appalled that such a thing could happen in my history as a Mormon and an American, but at the same time, I was able to recognize that what is past is past.  I was able to throw away and burn everything wrong about The Extermination Order and realize that today is a different day.  That today we have those freedoms, and today I am able to worship how I want.  I felt very uncomfortable burning even a paper with a picture of The Constitution, but I realized that by burning this joint document, I was getting rid of The Extermination Order and refining The Constitution.  We have passed that dark time in history, and I was able to get rid of it through this assignment.  Now I can focus on the bright future ahead and that Constitution that is tarnished by an Extermination Order no more.