From the preface, explain what lopez meant by “strategic individuals adapt race.” ]

In Ian Haney Lopez "Dog whistle politics", the author intends to rpove that normal, common, good people are the majority of the racist. Although there are sadistic racists driven by hatred, the reason of racism still largely exists is because good people can also be racist. "Even the farmer who killed another human being for the  petty act of poaching, I came to understand, was not a homicidal lunatic but a  complex person capable of both brutal violence and real generosity".  

By "strategic individuals adapt race" he means this, that common people perform everyday acts of racism that are not overlook by law because it adapts itself away from what the law has established.