Implicit Bias or Planned Oppression

Implicit bias or unconscious cultural stereotypes is all the rage today as an explanation of widespread police brutality, of the killing of unarmed blacks.  There is some truth in the implicit bias theory, but it is a dangerous, misleading truth if it is taken as the primary explanation of police violence.  I suggest implicit bias is 20 percent and planned oppression is 80 percent of the cause.

The use of the criminal justice system to control 'dangerous black males' has a long history in this country, going back hundreds of years, even before the official founding of this country.  This misuse of the criminal justice system is a deliberate, planned strategy to PRESERVE white superiority and CONTROL black inferiority.

This is not accidental or incidental.  To those who are biblically ignorant and uninformed, who choose to be biblically uninformed, this may be so.  There is widespread biblical teaching on oppression---555 references in the OT---so there is no excuse for ignorance.  Systems of oppression are planned, constructed, designed, deliberate.

Jeremiah 7 describes the intentional corruption of the Temple, turning it into a "den of robbers."  Jesus use the same phrase "den of robbers" to describe the operation of the holy Temple in his day.

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, describes the deliberate, planned creation of mass incarceration:

"President Ronald Reagan officially announced the current drug war in 1982, before crack became an issue in the media or a crisis in poor black neighborhoods. . . . The Reagan administration hired staff to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 as a part of a strategic effort to build public and legislative support for the war. . . .  The media bonanza surrounding the 'new demon drug' helped catapult the War on Drugs from an ambitious federal program to an actual war."

"Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan's campaign rhetoric. . . .  Reagan's racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinary effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. . . .  the Justice Department announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to identify and prosecute white-collar criminals and shift its attention to street crime, especially drug-law enforcement. . . .  Central to the media campaign was an effort to sensationalize the emergence of crack cocaine in inner-city neighborhoods."

The War on Drugs was deliberately combined with racial profiling to create unjust mass incarceration---the new system of oppression.  Far more than implicit bias.