A Different State of Race Relations

Utah state Sen. Chris Buttars came under fire for saying of a bill: "This baby is black. . . . It's a dark, ugly thing." (By Scott G. Winterton -- Deseret Morning News)

"After down South, all the killings and such, it's almost like heaven, in a sense, to me," Emory Ferdinand said. "I miss home. Don't get me wrong. But you know, in New Orleans, you're always looking over your shoulder."

Smith, the sociologist, is among many who see in the same Mormon faith that once stunted race relations an opportunity to leapfrog ahead. Until 1978, the church envisioned itself as a "white and delightsome people." That year, its president had a "revelation" that the priesthood should be opened to "all worthy males." Just like that, African Americans were equals in a church where decrees still matter.

Catherine Stokes, who retired to Salt Lake from Illinois, where she ran the state's hospital inspection program, lauds the civility and "innocence" of the culture.

"It's like when I go to Nova Scotia -- it's almost like stepping back in time," said Stokes, who is black. "It's quaint. I enjoy it. People are nice to you here."

Nudging along the process is an influx of outsiders arriving as Utah's economy booms. Mormons now account for less than 50 percent of the population in Salt Lake City proper.

And popular culture plays a role. The No. 2 radio station in Salt Lake is U92, "where hip-hop lives." Erika George, a law professor at the University of Utah who grew up in Chicago, said white students who talk to her after class sometimes move their arms in the exaggerated sweeps of Ali G, a wannabe-hip-hopper TV character, apparently thinking that's how best to communicate to a black person.

"I can't say it comes from a mean-spiritedness," said George, who was dismayed when a white woman sitting behind her at a UT football game tugged on her braids, and when she was ushered onto a bus with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a black singing group, by someone who assumed she was with the band. "It's ignorance and indifference. I don't feel a cross is going to be burned on my lawn."

Still, when she's at the airport, George asks any African American she sees: "Do you live here? Are you just passing through?"

"If they live here, we usually exchange numbers," she said. "Though most people don't live here."

Indeed, in the departure lounge one day last month, Monique Nesbit eagerly awaited her flight back to Los Angeles. A friend had told her to come take a good look around, because for the price of her Inglewood condo she could buy two houses in Salt Lake.

"But no. I knew in only two days," Nesbit said, and shook her head.

"You want a bit of community," she said. "And knowing that you belong somewhere."

Her daughter, Johnique Jackson, leaned forward.

"Besides," the girl said, "my cousin's here, and she started hanging out with white people, and she started smoking meth."