“Pat Robertson Made A Deal With The Devil” or “I Know Why The Hunted Pig Squeals”By Gyasi RossI went to this little tiny very conservative Christian school. I actually enjoyed it, but I remembered the day that I checked out of “ol’ time” religion mentally and spiritually–the pastor/principal and I had a discussion, and I said that I thought it was a good idea to separate the message and the messenger. He asked me why would I do that? I told him that the messengers of Christianity have been horrible and hypocritical toward Natives–killing, raping, and plundering. He told me, in response, that Natives should be thankful for any and everything that happened. He said, “before Christianity Induns were worshiping the devil and different spirits, and in my opinion, anything that happened was worth it because y’all got to hear the Gospel of Jesus. Induns were cursed, and the Gospel lifted that curse!” Like Marion/Pat, this redneck thought that the killing, raping and plundering was a “blessing in disguise.”
Ouch. Wow.
But his viewpoint is not original. My mom tells me of when she began to be interested in going to church, when I was a teenager. She tells me about how she quickly stopped being interested in those churches because she found the same ignorance and judgment in nearly all of them. “Pow-wows are evil.” “Native ceremonies are witchcraft.”Even when Westerners don't call Natives devil-worshipers, they still consider them
uncivilized savages. As Ross explains:
I recognize what that Pat Robertson’s doing when he says that Haiti had to make a deal with the devil to defeat a white Navy. He’s doing the exact same thing that many white conservatives do when they cannot explain or understand or are not invited to some fly and beautiful people of color stuff. That’s why they develop these stupid theories of aliens helping Egyptians and Central American Natives make pyramids or of black Haitians needing deals with devils and voodoo to defeat a white Navy.
This stuff isn’t new.
And what happens is that, because Marion/Pat Robertson is corny and cannot understand that people of color are perfectly capable of amazing things without the assistance of white people, Marion/Pat Robertson and people like him demonize what they do not understand. It’s not just him, by the way–there are a lot of people, Christians and otherwise, who do that. But a WHOLE bunch of them are the “ol’ time” Christians who haven’t figured out that the world is not flat anymore.Comment: Given the number of conservative Christians who don't believe in global warming and do believe in creationism, I wouldn't be totally surprised if they also believe the world is flat.
Note: Robertson's given name is Marion, not Pat. He presumably calls himself "Pat" because Marion is a name for girls and other sissies, not a white male Christian American who considers himself God's crowning achievement.
For more on Pat Robertson, see
Targeting Born-Again Christians and
Navajo Nation on 700 Club. For more on conservative Christian bigotry, see
Jack Chick's Crazy Wolf and
The Evidence for Teabagger Racism. For more on Native religion, see
"Primitive" Indian Religion and
Hercules vs. Coyote: Native and Euro-American Beliefs.
