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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the author, what has his son never feared?

2. What regret does the author have about the friend he made in France?

3. What concern does the author have about the lessons he is trying to teach his son?

4. What threats were made against the author when his son was pushed off the escalator?

5. How many years pass before the author decided to travel overseas with the mother of his son?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role has fear played in Samori's (the author's son) life?

2. What does the author mean by every country having an "above" and a "below"?

3. According to Coats, how have the American legal system and the banking industry conspired together to create the illusion known as "The Dream"?

4. Why has the author been too afraid to encourage his son to stand up for his rights?

5. How does the author contrast black and white societies?

6. What in the significance of the author's vision of Prince Jones in the museum?

7. How did the author's trip to Paris affect his view of what it means to live in a black body?

8. What lesson does the mother of the boy on page 112 (Lucia McBath) try to impart to the author's son?

9. How is the author disappointed by the lack of education during his Civil War battlefield tour?

10. Why are black children told to be "twice as good"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Amidst multiple examples of police brutality, the author mentions an effort on behalf of some police departments to improve relations with black Americans by diversifying their staff, utilizing body and patrol car cameras and offering sensitivity training. In the same paragraph, he points out that there remains a significant distance between the police and those they are appointed to protect. Does diversity, sensitivity training and the use of cameras allow the citizens of America to build trust or dissociate themselves from the police force? Is is possible to overcome this dissociation of racism between authority and citizenship. If so, how?

Essay Topic 2

Malcom X was one of the greatest, if the not the greatest, literary influence in the author's life. Malcom X was assassinated in February of 1965. How might this knowledge have shaped the influence Malcom X had over the author, who was born ten years after Malcom's death? Using your own knowledge of world history, what aspects of Malcolm X's beliefs might have shaped the author's depiction of the racist role of America?

Essay Topic 3

Fear is a recurring theme in the author's memoir. What role does fear play in the lives of black Americans? How has fear preserved the author's body? Has fear repressed the author? What are some of the positive and negative effects of the fear he has experienced throughout his life?

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This section contains 1,430 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample