Implicit Bias and the Media; How Unconscious Biases Can Lead to Subtle Racism
Mass incarceration is a serious problem in America. Prisons are overflowing. Numbers increase daily. Michelle Alexander’s discussion of mass incarceration emphasizes systemic racism, focusing on how racial bias is enforced without overt hostility. She asserts that systemic racism wasn’t built to harm black people by saying, “Not every aspect of a racial caste system needs to be developed for the specific purpose of controlling black people in order for it to operate to trap them at the bottom of a racial hierarchy” (Alexander 229). Alexander highlights how overt racism isn’t necessary for systemic racism to function. But this doesn’t mean that racial animus is gone. Today, it takes a more subtle form that Jennifer Eberhardt defines as implicit bias, or “The beliefs and the feelings we have about social groups that can influence our decision making and our actions, even when we’re not aware of it” (Eberhard). In other words, implicit bias unconsciously influences us to favor certain groups. Eberhardt argues that implicit bias leaks into all aspects of society by saying, “The reach of implicit bias…is powerful, enduring and underrecognized, especially in the context of criminal justice” (Scott). When mass incarceration discussions focus on systemic racism, it’s easy for us to forget that the old overt racism hasn’t disappeared. It’s evolved into a more subtle form we easily overlook: implicit bias. Elizabeth Hinton explains that a close look at media reveals how implicit bias leads to “Sensationalized media coverage and fearmongering” (Hinton 6). This essay will analyze two similar criminal cases to expose the media’s implicit bias. Despite a possible tendency to assume that racism is gone, implicit bias in media exposes deep-seated and enduring racial hostilities that reflect and reinforce systemic racism.
The two cases discussed in this paper feature similar crimes, but perpetrators of different races. In August 1986, white Robert Chambers raped and killed white Jennifer Levin in Central Park (Freedman). As Chambers’ trial gained popularity, newspapers called his crime The Preppy Murder. Chambers was 19 at the time, and Levin was 18. They had known each other for about two months and had dated on and off during that time. After arriving at a bar separately, they left together. Early the next morning, Levin was found dead. Chambers was convicted and given 15 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter (Sullivan). The media called the next famous crime the Central Park Jogger case or CPJ. In April 1989, five black and Hispanic teenagers from 14 to 15 years old were arrested for the alleged sexual assault of 28-year-old white Trisha Meili, who survived but suffered brain loss (Baldwin). They maintained their innocence during the trial, but the police had illegally elicited confessions from the boys after their arrests. Despite the only evidence being that the boys had been in the park that night, they were sentenced to 7 to 13 years in prison (Baldwin). These two cases are strikingly similar except that white Chambers killed his victim, and the minority teenagers did not.
Although it is reasonable to assume that these similar crimes would be treated the same, the media showed implicit bias in portraying the perpetrators. Media, including New York Times articles surrounding Chambers’ trial, displayed him as a traditional American boy not capable of murder. One article published two days after the crime described Chambers as someone who, “Possessed charisma and mature good looks rare for a 19-year-old. He stood 6 feet 4 inches tall, weighed 220 pounds, and was a gifted athlete” (Freedman). The article continued with this characterization by describing how Chamber’s yearbook read ”Nothing less than total success” (Freedman) under his senior photograph. The bar owner where Chambers and Levin were seen the night of the crime voiced a high view of Chambers by saying, “The nicest kid you’d want to meet” (Freedman). The media described Chambers as athletic, successful, and attractive – someone who did not mean to hurt Levin. While Chambers was portrayed in a positive light, the minority teenagers involved in the other crime were not. One of the most striking moves to paint the boys in an overly negative light came from Donald Trump. He published a flaming article in four big-name newspapers, including the New York Times, showing some of the most extreme racism seen in print that decade. His article is full of shocking phrases such as, “I want to hate these murderers and I always will”, “They should be forced to suffer” and “I want them to be afraid” (Ransom). Trump believed that his racist hatred was justified because the young boys involved in the case embodied the ‘wild criminals’ that were persecuting the city. Just as Hinton discusses, in both cases New York City’s public opinion was influenced by biased, sensationalized media – painting Chambers as a good guy and the teenage boys as wild criminals.
In addition to the perpetrators being described differently by the media, so were the victims, raising the question of the relationship between sexism and racism. In considering the role of bias in media, one might argue that newspapers enforce sexism stronger than racism. In other words, sexism in newspapers is a bigger problem than racism. We can consider this argument by examining the sexism that played a significant role in the Preppy Murder. Chambers didn’t confess to the crime after his arrest. Instead, he pleaded that Levin accidentally died during ‘rough sex’ where she harassed him (Chokshi). Chambers attempted to frame himself as the victim, even pleading “She was the one who was the aggressor” (Freedman). The media was quick to trust Chamber’s account, and article titles like ‘Jenny killed in wild sex’ and ‘Sex play got rough’ slashed across newspapers. In cases of sexual assault, women are often blamed for prompting the perpetrator’s actions through clothing or behavior. It makes sense that media coverage quickly latched onto Chambers’ story and reduced Levin from a young woman with a bright future to a sex craze who somehow was responsible for her death. A couple of years later the CPJ case depicts how, although sexism is a strong force, racism is stronger. Media coverage described the white victim Meili as an extremely successful investment banker. She was portrayed as ‘brilliant, probably one of the top four or five students of the decade’ (Farber), ‘an accomplished ballet student,’ and a nominee for a Rhodes Scholarship. Instead of framing her as somehow responsible for her assault, newspapers willing heaped the blame on the minority teenagers. Journalists’ racism and implicit bias overruled their sexism. When sexism and racism are both present, racism wins. The media gave Levin a negative light because she and Chambers were both white but gave white Meili a positive one when her perpetrators were minorities.
Just as the victims were displayed differently, there is a difference in the perpetrators’ presumption of innocence. In the CPJ case, the boys fought against implicit bias and an assumption of guilt from the start. Eberhardt discusses how implicit bias applies to minors by claiming, “People show greater support for life sentences for juveniles when they read about a case involving a Black defendant than when the case involves a white defendant” (Scott). From the start, the boys were fighting an uphill battle against a system that is rich with implicit bias and built to incarcerate black defendants. In the trial, this implicit bias was evident in how law enforcement handled genetic testing that they “hoped would link” (Sullivan) the teenagers to the crime. When the testing did not match any of the boys, they recorded it as inconclusive instead of proof of their innocence. Law enforcement was searching for any evidence to convict the boys, whether they were guilty or not. The implicit bias seen in the CPJ case became evident in 2002 when Mathias Reyes belatedly confessed to raping Meili, proving the boys’ innocence (Chancer). The teenagers did not commit the crime. Yet, during the trial, the public, the judge, and the jury willingly closed their eyes to the possibility that the boys might not be guilty. For Chambers, however, they had open ears for his fabricated story of Levin dying from rough sex. The boys were found guilty from the start while attractive Chambers was given an undeserved presumption of innocence.
Alexander’s discussion of systemic racism is important to the overall conversation of mass incarceration, but so is the recognition of implicit bias as a subtle form of discrimination. Hinton underlines the danger of sensationalized media with unchecked implicit bias. In the 1980s, the media portrayed a white man in a positive light and minority teenagers in a negative one, proving Eberhardt’s argument that, when unchecked, implicit bias runs wild (Scott). In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson says, “You can’t understand most things from a distance…You have to get close” (Stevenson 14). Even with much racism eradicated from our culture, it’s dangerous for us to ignore the new, sometimes unconscious form of racism. We need to get close to the problem of implicit bias so we can understand it, see bias in ourselves, and strive to counteract it in our thoughts and actions.
Works Cited:
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. The New Press, 2010.
Baldwin, C. (2001). The Development of Rhetorical Privilege in the News Reporting of Violent Crime. Race, Gender & Class (Towson, Md.), 8(4), 8–19.
Chancer, Lynn. “Before and After the Central Park Jogger: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes.” Sage Journals, 2005, journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1525/ctx.2005.4.3.38. Accessed 2024.
Chokshi, Niraj. “Eric Schneiderman, Consent and Domestic Violence.” New York Times, 8 May 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/nyregion/consent-sexual-assault-rough-sex.html. Accessed 17 Nov. 2024.
Eberhardt, Jennifer L. Biased Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do. Viking Press , 2019.
Farber, M. A. “‘Smart, Driven’ Woman Overcomes Reluctance.” The New York Times, 17 July 1990, www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/nyregion/smart-driven-woman-overcomes-reluctance.html. Accessed 16 Nov. 2024.
Forman, James. “Hein Online.” “Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow.,” Apr. 2012, heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/nylr87&id=2154&men_tab=srchresults. Accessed 22 July 2020.
Freedman, Samuel G. “DARKNESS BENEATH THE GLITTER: LIFE OF SUSPECT IN PARK SLAYING.” New York Times, 28 Aug. 1986, www.nytimes.com/1986/08/28/nyregion/darkness-beneath-the-glitter-life-of-suspect-in-park-slaying.html. Accessed 16 Nov. 2024.
Hinton, Elizabeth. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Harvard University Press, 2016.
Scott, Sam. “A Hard Look at How We See Race.” Stanford Magazine, 2015, stanfordmag.org/contents/a-hard-look-at-how-we-see-race. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy. Penguin Random House LLC. , 2014.
Sullivan, Ronald. “CHAMBERS GETS 5 TO 15 YEARS AND OFFERS APOLOGY IN COURT.” New York Times, 16 Apr. 1988, www.nytimes.com/1988/04/16/nyregion/chambers-gets-5-to-15-years-and-offers-apology-in-court.html. Accessed 16 Nov. 2024.
Sullivan, Ronald. “Genetic Tests ‘Inconclusive’ In Jogger Rape.” The New York Times, 10 Oct. 1989, www.nytimes.com/1989/10/10/nyregion/genetic-tests-inconclusive-in-jogger-rape.html. Accessed 16 Nov. 2024.
Ransom, Jan. “Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five.” The New York Times, 18 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/nyregion/central-park-five-trump.html. Accessed 17 Nov. 2024.
Acknowledgements:
- I thought Alina used a great quote from Hinton in her rough draft, and after asking for her permission, I worked it into my argument too.
- I had two amazing conversations with Dr. Churchill in her office hours about my essay to first help me narrow my topic and then to help me organize my arguments better.
- I used Grammarly to help me check my essay for grammatical errors
- I used the Writer’s Diet to help me cut clutter from my essay
Drafting group Comments:
Alina:
Hey Kaitlyn! Congrats on this draft of Essay 3! It read like a novel, and I was immediately invested. You did an excellent job setting up a critical conversation and then funneling it down into your thesis. The cases you selected are compelling and effectively support your argument, and the essay’s structure is very logical.
To enhance your essay further, you could weave in Alexander’s and Hinton’s perspectives more consistently throughout, especially since they both discuss the media’s role in shaping narratives around mass incarceration. One other point to consider: in the section where you discuss Donald Trump’s overt racism toward the teenagers accused in the Central Park Jogger case, you could remind the reader again that there was no proof they had murdered Trisha Meili. This would further highlight the media’s and Trump’s unjust framing.
Again, you are doing a phenomenal job, and I really enjoy your writing style and the topic you chose!
Angie:
Hi Kaitlyn! Your essay was very engaging and interesting to read. I love your topic, I’ve never heard of the cases you looked into so I’m happy you can shed some light on them! You do a great job when it comes to quotation sandwiches, as well as having a good hook! I think your last paragraph needs some work, since it feels like the idea in it is loosely connected. Maybe you could research the attitudes of people online when reading these articles (or more recent cases too!) in order to get your point across more strongly? You’re a talented writer, can’t wait for your final essay! 🙂
Honor Code Pledge:
“Pledge” KRP