Just recently, the United States was in the age of Obama, when many Americans were rushing to declare a post-racial America where racism and discrimination were no longer an issue. In the Obama era, implicit bias rose as the primary explanation of racial bias. This fixation on implicit bias, while important to acknowledge, is problematic because it downplays explicit and institutional racism, emphasizing that all human beings have these cognitive biases, thus all are culpable for racial bias and inequality. This framing removes attention from any particular bad actors as if conscious and overt racism is no longer an issue in this day and age. While this may relieve white guilt, it is problematic because it undermines the reality that explicit and institutional racial bias continue to reinforce racial inequality and protect white supremacy, and that many people do in fact have bad intentions or, at the least, are deliberately indifferent to the harmful consequences of racism.

Pre-Civil rights movement, political leaders could legally and explicitly express racism. Over the past several decades, most have moved primarily to implicit appeals to racism, in an attempt to remain politically correct and not overly divisive. Trump is the first president in decades to express explicit or overt racism, which while divisive, seems to only strengthen support from his base. The very raw resurfacing of explicit bias has begun to dismantle the post-race delusion that rose in the Obama era. Hate groups, hate crimes, threats, and racist graffiti have all jumped sharply since Trump’s election. While that context is important, the power Trump holds as president makes institutional racism far more troubling than implicit or explicit bias. Power and control of our nation’s prized institutions – housing, education, employment, healthcare, the justice system – can be used to make leadership and policy changes that will affect many generations to come.

In Part I of this Article, I discuss the historical shift from old-fashioned racism to contemporary racial bias. In Part II, I provide an overview of my contemporary bias framework, distinguishing explicit, implicit, and institutional racism to offer a deeper understanding of race in the Trump administration. In Part III, I discuss many of the racialized policies that disproportionately harm racial minorities. In Part IV, I review social science research and theory that explains the rise of Trump and support of divisive and racially intolerant policies. In Part V, I conclude by describing solutions that offer potential for change despite a state of race relations that appears bleak.