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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 2: "Part Two: The Arbitrary Construction of Human Divisions".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" what does Harold Hale do when people knock down his mailbox?
(a) Resets it, in concrete.
(b) Forms a neighborhood watch committee.
(c) Complains to the police.
(d) Moves to a safer neighborhood.

2. What is the name of Gunnar Myrdal's 1944 study of race in America?
(a) An American Dilemma.
(b) Caste in America.
(c) The American Web of Class and Race.
(d) America's Race Problem.

3. On page 6, Wilkerson refers to white "preeminence." What quality is she referring to?
(a) Unjustified rage.
(b) Having the highest rank or position.
(c) Using language and mannerisms that indicate superiority.
(d) Devotion to tradition or already existing institutions.

4. On page 59 of "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" when Harold Hale's daughter is about to return to school after a visit with a friend's family, what is the grandmother's response?
(a) "Colored folks around here have better manners."
(b) "There was a time when I could have made you stay."
(c) "Why on earth would you want to go back there?"
(d) "We should never have had you in our home."

5. On page 6, Wilkerson calls a financial crisis "cataclysmic." What kind of crisis was it?
(a) Protracted; drawn-out.
(b) Violent and overwhelming.
(c) Overblown, lacking in substance.
(d) Creating the necessary conditions for a later event; a precondition.

Short Answer Questions

1. When 20 Black people arrived in the New World on a Dutch ship in 1619, what were they classified as?

2. To whom is Wilkerson referring on page 4 when she describes someone as "a no-nonsense national figure overqualified by some estimates"?

3. On page 16, Wilkerson says that people adjust to the "idiosyncrasies" of an old house. What is she saying that they adjust to?

4. What technique does Wilkerson use for the first time in the beginning of "An Old House and an Infrared Light"?

5. Which leading Black intellectual corresponded with Bhimrao Ambedkar about race in America?

(see the answer key)

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