Dismatt

When I was teaching Institue, I came across a theory that Mormon was a Lamanite. He identifies as a "descendant of Nephi" in his own writing, but by 300 AD, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have both Lamanite and Nephite heritage. Mormon also features the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, a group of Lamanite converts, very heavily in his abridgement. He also features the people of Limhi, who desired to live among he Nephites, in his abridgement.
Whether it is factually correct or not, I don't know. But it was in intriguing thought. And so, when my ward's young men decided to hold a Book of Mormon marathon (they attempted to read the entirety of the Book of Mormon in 24 hours), I decided to participate and that I would try to read and interpret the text from the perspective of Mormon being a Lamanite. I observed something in the process, and will try to explain and quantify it here.
In this particular reading, one word started to stand out to me.  That word was 'filthy' (and its variants)
There are 34 occurrences of 'filth' in the Book of Mormon (via  a text search at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17/pg17.txt). These can be categorized into 30 uses (some phrases use the term twice, such as in 'he who filthy shall be filthy still' 10 uses by Nephi 1 use by Isaiah 7 uses by Jacob 3 uses by Alma 2 uses by Mormon quoting/paraphrasing Limhi 1 use by Mormon 2 uses by Moroni In six uses, filthy is used to describe the Lamanites.  Once by Nephi, three times by Jacob, once by Enos, and once by Mormon The six uses to describe the Lamanites are what interest me the most.  I'm going to go ahead and post all of those verses here:
From the context of all of these, it's reasonable to conclude that 'filthy' was a pretty heavy hitting term. Perhaps even close to what we might consider a slur. In the context of Nephi's culture (specifically, cultural Jew from Jerusalem), the word 'filthy' could probably be replaced with 'unclean.' Which was also pretty serious. (See also Alma 32:3 for a pejorative use of 'filthy')
Now, let's also consider that there is a certain likelihood that the Lamanites joined forces with other indigenous peoples in the area. These people wouldn't have been Israelites, and so  would have been seen as outsiders to the Nephites.  Israel wasn't exactly what we would call a tolerant society, so it shouldn't surprise us if there was a touch of racism directed toward those outsiders. As a parallel, consider the relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans--the Samaritans were cultural Jews who intermingled their religion with some of the pagan religions in the area, and they were heavily despised by the 'pure' Jews for it.
Most of the references don't make an explicit tie to skin color.  Nephi and Mormon both use the term 'dark', which may have reference to skin color. In all honesty, it probably does.
It's the references by Enos and Jacob that are really informative though.  Enos gives a description of the Lamanites that is broad and perhaps promotes a stereotype of the Lamanites. It's a caricature, and I'm inclined to take it with a grain of salt. In fairness, Nephi was barely old enough to be Enos' grandfather, so the wounds and intercultural strifes between the Nephites and the Lamanites at this point in time are pretty raw still. If you add in unfamiliar cultures from any of the indigenous peoples the Lamanites may have joined, the stereotyping hypothesis becomes a little more plausible. 
Jacob is the really interesting speaker in all of this, though. He actually goes to great length to separate 'filthiness' from 'skin'. This is important--in one respect, this strengthens the hypothesis that 'filthy' was a type of slur. More importantly, Jacob makes it explicit that 'filthiness' is a spiritual condition, and goes so far as to state that Nephites are the filthier race because their wickedness is greater than that of the Lamanites.
In other words, Jacob explicitly rejects the link between skin color and supremacy. 
 
Ultimately, the conclusion I've come to at this phase of my study is that there did exist a certain amount of racism and classism among the Nephites against the Lamanites. Mormon himself seemed to harbor some of these biases. In 3 Nephi 2:15-16, he describes converted Lamanites as having their skin become "white like unto the Nephites" and that their sons and daughters became "exceedingly fair." Given Mormon's general reticence to use 'filthy' to describe anything other than a spiritual condition, I'm inclined to believe that he is describing their physical attractiveness. In other words, the Nephite culture and those of Mormon's culture seem to have determined lighter skin to be the standard of beauty.
The question that follows that conclusion is "how could prophets of God harbor those biases?" Well, they were still human, and still suffered from the imperfections of man.  Moroni explicitly states this. 
And so if we read the right bits and pieces, it isn't difficult to paint a picture for "white supremacy in the Book of Mormon." However, if you read the broader teachings contained in that scripture, it becomes clear that filthiness--as used by the Book of Mormon authors--is strictly a spiritual condition that is not tied to skin color. Jacob makes that point inarguable. I recommend we follow Moroni's plea. Let us learn to be more wise than they have been and reject racial supremacy. Instead, let's recognize the beautiful truths of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and all other scripture that teach that all men are children of God and that he desires all of them to return to his presence.

Tons of people want it to stop but nobody is going to do anything to stop it.  You know why?  Because the time to stop it was when these people were born - 20 or more years ago.  That's when their PARENTS could have raised them properly.
So, you want to do something about it?  RAISE YOUR KIDS PROPERLY.

This kind of stuff has got to stop. I'm not going to lie, watching some, in my opinion, Confederate traitors have their statues removed from town squares doesn't bother me as long as it's done through the proper channels (eg. at the direction of mayors, city councils etc.) But by allowing mobs to vent their anger and take down statues themselves, we've opened a Pandora's box. Because almost no one, even the most heroic people from the past, had "enlightened" 21st century attitudes. So that's why Brigham Young, Ulysses S. Grant, Francis Scott Key, and a host of other heroic individuals have been lumped in with Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest. We have got to put a stop to this public vandalism at some point.

Well, compare this to what's said in Abraham (4:20-21):
20 And the Gods said: Let us prepare the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life; and the fowl, that they may fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven.
21 And the Gods prepared the waters that they might bring forth great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters were to bring forth abundantly after their kind; and every winged fowl after their kind. And the Gods saw that they would be obeyed, and that their plan was good.
...
24 And the Gods prepared the earth to bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind; and it was so, as they had said.
A few things I find interesting here: the waters/earth are described as being "prepared" to bring forth "after their/his kind". Based on this description it doesn't appear to me that whales or the living creatures were created on the spot but that the environment was prepared to to be brought forth and the Gods watch and see that they were obeyed. Also in v2 it states "and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon the face of the waters." An 1828 dictionary of "Brood" gives: "To sit on and cover, as a fowl on her eggs for the purpose of warming them and hatching chickens, or as a hen over her chickens, to warm and protect them."
Notice also the creation of man is described separately.
I only find this interesting, I don't expect to understand the creation process and I know evolution has been denied by Church leaders but currently takes no stance. I just find it interesting that this sounds very similar to the general consensus among scientists.
 
 
 

I think there are a variety of things going on here.
JFS, JFS-II, and McConkie all had their perceptions of academic scriptural scholarship colored by the fact that the prevailing higher critics of the early 20th century (and on up through the last twenty or thirty years, really) could best be characterized as being positively hostile to the Biblical teachings that McConkie described as the “three pillars of eternity”—the creation, the fall, the atonement.  I think Spackman himself has written about how academic Biblical scholarship has only really begun welcoming overt believers, within his lifetime.  (It’s one thing to believe Solomon built a temple; another to believe God blessed it with His presence.  One thing to acknowledge the possibility that Yeshua-bin-Yusuf really lived and was executed by Romans; another to believe that that death had meaning or was reversed by a resurrection three days later.)  The “fundamentalist” Church leaders of the mid-20th century felt that the spiritual costs of allying with the academic community outweighed the benefits—and I believe they were essentially correct, even if they perhaps didn’t quite understand how or why they were correct.
Our leaders have made the best sense they could out of the scriptures, using the best tools that they dared to use.  In every way that is essential to our salvation, they were right.  Certainly, we can be grateful for the deeper textual or historical understandings coming from a new generation of scholars using new tools and pursuing new avenues of inquiry.  We can also appreciate the service of the now-departed shepherds who defended their flock from an earlier generation of ravening wolves; and we need not second-guess the shepherds’ techniques just because with the benefit of hindsight the “wolves” have now been largely reduced to paper tigers.
The shepherds of 1960 did what was needful then.  We look to the shepherds of 2020 to do what is needful now.  We should be wary of “fundamentalists” who demand we define our spirituality by the way we garnish the sepulchers of the dead prophets.  We should also be deeply suspicious of liberals who resurrect dead prophets only because they want an excuse to crucify them afresh, hoping to create a mob that will bury the living prophets along with the dead.

Well, compare this to what's said in Abraham (4:20-21):
20 And the Gods said: Let us prepare the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life; and the fowl, that they may fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven.
21 And the Gods prepared the waters that they might bring forth great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters were to bring forth abundantly after their kind; and every winged fowl after their kind. And the Gods saw that they would be obeyed, and that their plan was good.
...
24 And the Gods prepared the earth to bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind; and it was so, as they had said.
A few things I find interesting here: the waters/earth are described as being "prepared" to bring forth "after their/his kind". Based on this description it doesn't appear to me that whales or the living creatures were created on the spot but that the environment was prepared to to be brought forth and the Gods watch and see that they were obeyed. Also in v2 it states "and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon the face of the waters." An 1828 dictionary of "Brood" gives: "To sit on and cover, as a fowl on her eggs for the purpose of warming them and hatching chickens, or as a hen over her chickens, to warm and protect them."
Notice also the creation of man is described separately.
I only find this interesting, I don't expect to understand the creation process and I know evolution has been denied by Church leaders but currently takes no stance. I just find it interesting that this sounds very similar to the general consensus among scientists.
 
 
 

Last year I published an article in BYU's Religious Educator on Bible translation and the Church. Part of the article addresses the practice of Bible translation more broadly, and how it bears on the Church's approach to Bible translations, and the other is a review of Thomas Wayment's translation of the New Testament. I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can access the article at the link below. 
https://www.academia.edu/39443839/_As_Far_as_It_Is_Translated_Correctly_Bible_Translation_and_the_Church

There could be scriptural support for theistic evolution in LDS scripture, this is a potential interpretation but I'm interested in what others think:
Moses 2:20-21:
20) And I, God, said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl which may fly above the earth in the open firmanent of heaven.
21) And I, God, created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and I God, saw that all things which I had created were good.