While
listening to Senator Rick Santorum�s Iowa Caucus �victory�
speech, I realized that Martin Luther�s message has been
lost even among those who define themselves as his followers.
I am referring to the person for whom Martin Luther King
is the namesake. I am referring to the religious revolutionary
who stood up to the immense power of the Catholic Church
and the power of kings and who lived from 1483 to 1546.This
Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Revolution that,
over hundreds of years, has evolved into many streams
of institutionalized belief systems including the Christian
Evangelicals whose members brought Santorum his �victory.�
I was struck by the fact that these Evangelicals and their
Tea Party compatriots seem cut off from their own foundational
beliefs and blind to the disastrous historical precedents
represented by Senator Santorum.
Readers of Black Commentator may be exercised
about the Senator�s comments about blacks spoken in a
pre-caucus campaign speech. But, I find Santorum�s obvious
deep seeded racism not surprising and not at odds with
the many expressions of racism that have emerged from
the individual and institutional belief systems of Protestant
Evangelicals.
The Senator�s comments about �blacks� being dependent and needing
to be given an opportunity to work to take care of themselves
and their families is hardly unique to persons on any
point on the political or religious landscape. Such comments
easily flow from some Democrats and fellow candidates
Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney. Very few residents
of the U.S. seem to have the character capacity to hold
in their minds and hearts a recognition of the present day impacts
of stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen lives over many
generations and the hundreds of years of invasion of this
land. When Santorum and others talk about Americans and
the proper inheritors of American values and largess,
it is abundantly clear that he does not include �blacks,�
Native Americans, nor other people-of-color in his �we.�
He idealizes a history when we
were considered three fifths human, could not defend ourselves
in court, could not participate in business, when genocide
was visited on us, when we could
not vote, and when only propertied white men had power.
Many elements of the cultural belief system that Santorum spews
are conceptual enhancers of racist understandings of human
nature. I was struck by the force and nakedness of the
Senator�s articulation of these understandings. It
is as if hundreds of years of continued struggle to overturn
racist foundational beliefs and institutional practices
were for naught. For the reality is, Santorum speaks with
the voice of the majority of Americans on race and gender.
The popularity of Santorum�s understandings of human nature
only highlights the fact that too little fundamental change
in the U.S. racist belief systems of the majority of residents
has taken place. Criticism and struggle with this racism
is short lived, limited, and ineffective. Our struggles
have only made racism impolite. Now, racism is subtler
and subject to serial plausible deniability.
You would think, however, that the foundational beliefs of Evangelicals
would be held sacrosanct and vibrant by the believers
of today. You would think that Evangelicals would be alert
when their beliefs are manipulated and thrown in their
faces. �Luther taught that salvation is not
earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift
of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer
from sin.� In other words, Luther said that
you cannot earn God�s grace, including by tying in the
voting for a political campaign, by �good deeds.� Also,
everybody recognizes that some mighty evil people do well
and win campaigns. So when Santorum, a Catholic, says
that his victory is a blessing of God�s grace, Evangelical
hackles ought to spring erect. They did not.
It was the supremacy of the Catholic hierarchy that Martin Luther
rebelled against. This was a supremacy mediated by and
distributed by the priests through the sale of indulgences. Those
with money could buy relief from sin and the Church benefited
greatly from that income while the lowly parishioners
suffered at the hands of the rich. Then as now, the poor
were blamed for their retched condition. They were mustered
into Holy Wars and worked to death as peons. It was the
neurotic megalomaniacs pulling the levers of power in
a hierarchical dominance structure that perpetrated the
vilest oppression. In truth, megalomaniacs stand on every
point on the political or religious landscape and they
are particularly prevalent among politicians seeking higher
office. Martin Luther, while in training to become a priest,
came to the understanding that the megalomaniacal hierarchy
of the Church was pulling the levers of power in an unchristian
like manner and the Church was wrong about the nature
of grace. Martin Luther took a stand against the Church�s
imperialism and its meting out of privilege based on the
desires and the contributions of the oligarchy.
Santorum and his supporters have aligned themselves with privilege
based on money and culture. They want to shrink the government
that is the major force in U.S. society that is supposed
to counter privilege and supremacy. The Revolutionary
War was a reaction to the British-centralized, hierarchical
global capitalism of the time. To some extent the constitution
of our government is meant to curb such corporatism as
was evidenced by the British East India Company in the
1700�s. Despite the fact that government�s leveling effects
have always been miniscule, short term, and ineffective,
Santorum wants to reduce government down to the point
where government can be �drowned in a bath tub.� The oligarchy
has not only harnessed the government but also many people�s
minds. The supremacist ideology in America has metastasized
more clearly into white supremacy, white privilege, a
smaller more powerful oligarchy, and 1700�s cultural imperialism.
Martin Luther�s Cultural Revolution has been completely
erased. Protestant Evangelicals have been almost totally
re-infected.
BlackCommentator.com
Guest Commentator, Wilson Riles, is a
former Oakland,
CA City Council Member. Click here
to contact Mr. Riles.
