The Great Satan In the New Testament, Jesus comes into the world to destroy the works of Satan. If the preceding identification of the struggle of Jesus and that of African-Americans seeking liberation is true, then there must also be a Satan in the contemporary picture. And the most demonic of these powers in the black experience is that of racism. To be free to do what I will in relation to another is to be in bondage to the law of least resistance. This is the bondage of racism.
Racism is that bondage in which whites are free to beat, rape, or kill blacks.
James Cone wrote those words in 1968, and while they are dated, they still convey a powerful truth. What happened to Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles police continues to happen to black men with disturbing frequency. The jails and prisons are filling with black men. One third of all black men are now under the jurisdiction of the courts or prison system. Cone and many blacks would lay the blame at the feet of the demonic force of racism.