In this book, the authors examine and explain the way a new orthodoxy of American leaders has contributed to the social stratification and inequality that plague America today. They share the view that the New Liberalism is part of an emergent orthodoxy on race and inequality.

Introduction: The New Liberal Orthodoxy on Race and Inequality -- The New Orthodoxy on Race and Inequality -- Bill Clinton and the Politics of the New Liberalism -- "Why Can't They Be Like Our Grandparents?" and Other Racial Fairy Tales -- The Great Family Fraud of Postwar America -- Race, Ideology, and Social Policy: Beneath a Mystified Rhetoric -- Race in the American Welfare State: The Ambiguities of "Universalistic" Social Policy Since the New Deal -- Symbolic Politics and Urban Policies: Why African Americans Got So Little from the Democrats -- Playing by the Rules: Welfare Reform and the New Authoritarian State -- The New Face of Urban Renewal: The Near North Redevelopment Initiative and the Cabrini-Green Neighborhood -- Ideology and Attacks on Antiracist Public Policy -- Occupational Apartheid in America: Race, Labor Market Segmentation, and Affirmative Action -- The Voting Rights Movement in Perspective -- A New Black Accommodationism -- "Self-Help," Black Conservatives, and the Reemergence of Black Privatism -- The Crisis of the Black Male: A New Ideology in Black Politics -- Conclusions -- Toward a More Perfect Union: Beyond Old Liberalism and Neoliberalism