1527: An Interracial Mormon experience - Makenzie & Gerald Benzi pt. 2

When the Church You Love Has Never Quite Loved You Back: Makenzie Benzi's Story

Growing up Mormon while carrying a Black grandmother's bloodline and a gifted student's need to be perfect is not a combination the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has historically handled with grace. That tension sits at the center of Part 2 of the Mormon Stories Podcast episode 1527, hosted by John Dehlin, in which Makenzie Benzi shares what it actually felt like to be a biracial woman raised inside a faith whose scripture once used dark skin as shorthand for divine punishment.

This is not ancient history dressed up as theology. For Makenzie, these questions arrived at the kitchen table, in bishop's offices, and in the silence between her and a mother who had learned to stop asking.

Background: Race, Gender, and the Mormon Experience

Makenzie was born into a multigenerational Latter-day Saint family. Her mother is biracial, half Black and half white, raised in rural Utah by an all-white family, largely disconnected from Black cultural identity. The family attended church consistently. They fit in. Nobody made it a point to discuss the priesthood ban that had barred Black members from temple ordinances until 1978.

That silence was not accidental. It was inherited. Makenzie's mother modeled a kind of quiet accommodation that many members of color have adopted: treat the ban as a resolved administrative matter, trust that God had reasons, and move forward. Makenzie absorbed that posture without realizing she was absorbing it.