Who's Marvin Perkins? You can see him in a short CNN video of an interview. He's a faithful black Mormon who helped found the Genesis Group and is part of the BlackLDS.org team, both LDS-related efforts to help African-American Latter-day Saints (and the rest of us). He's also a music producer and DVD producer. He's studied issues related to race and Mormonism in great depth and his insights are ones I think we should seriuosly consider.
Brother Perkins challenges some of the common assumptions we have made for years about some matters. I need to check out the work that is behind his conclusions regarding the more figurative nature of Book of Mormon language apparently dealing with racial distinctions between the Lamanites and Nephites. One subtlety he mentions, for example, is in Alma 55:1-15, where a group of Nephite soldiers, led by a Lamanite, Laman, are able to pass themselves off as Lamanites. Maybe there was an accent that required a real Lamanite spokeman, but the other men from the Nephites who go with Laman are not recognized as enemies by the Lamanites they are tricking. This is consistent with Brother Perkins' arguments. I missed that in previous readings. Interesting.
There are some good perspectives in the debate over at the Times and Seasons post.
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