Dallin Oaks recently gave a devotional at BYU:
The video can also be viewed on youtube:
Some progressive members of the Church have taken one portion of Oaks' speech out of context as if he supports the group Black Lives Matter (which is a terrorist organisation, for all intents and purposes). However, Oaks said the concept of the lives of black people (including the unborn black children [*]) matters, but distinguishes the sentiment from the group with the same name:
The shocking
police-produced death of George Floyd in Minnesota last May was surely the
trigger for these nationwide protests, whose momentum was carried forward under
the message of “Black Lives Matter.” Of course, Black lives matter! That is an
eternal truth all reasonable people should support. Unfortunately, that
persuasive banner was sometimes used or understood to stand for other things
that do not command universal support. Examples include abolishing the police
or seriously reducing their effectiveness or changing our constitutional
government. All these are appropriate subjects for advocacy, but not under what
we hope to be the universally acceptable message: Black lives matter.
In spite of some misrepresenting what Oaks said, he is not moving towards progressive concepts. Indeed, he has been, and continues to be, conservative on homosexuality and other issues.
Much still has to be done to address the racism of the Church's past history, including the temple and priesthood restriction. For a good book on the history of blacks within the Church, the following is a must-read:
Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013 (Greg Kofford Books, 2014)
(*) Here is an excerpt from Sam Brunson wishing that black women would murder in the womb more of their unborn black children on the By Common Consent blog (and no, I am not proving the URL--I would rather link to Neo-Nazi material than pro-abortion nonsense like this, but it does show what white progressives really think about black people:
