This essay engages Jane Flax's The American Dream in Black and White: The Clarence Thomas Hearings through an elaboration of both the manifest and latent beliefs that move the actions of a promising man of color, and a powerful group of men who sit in judgment of him. Noting the role assumed by gender politics in this drama, the author highlights Flax's lucid commentary on the progress of the American dream, as women and people of color still serve as dispensable commodities for the men of the mainstream.