ABSTRACT
Bill Clinton's "race-less" approach to the economy may prove strategically counterproductive. For twelve years, the Reagan-Bush administrations worked to overturn many of the gains of the civil rights era and used the "race card" to distract attention from their reverse Robin Hood policies. Playing the "race card"—as in the Guinier case—provides easy victories for the right wing in their overall fight to halt social progress. Clinton pledged to have his cabinet and, indeed, all his appointments to higher office "look like America." The application of a political litmus test to minority appointments could be even better seen with the Lani Guinier nomination. In the peculiar parlance of US politics, such rhetoric was designed to reassure white America that its tax dollars would be no longer wasted on "lazy" blacks. Simultaneously, Clinton made a special effort to avoid race whenever possible.
