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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 3: "Part Three: The Eight Pillars of Caste".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," where does Wilkerson say the term "Caucasian" came from?
(a) A Sanskrit word that originally referred not to race but to caste.
(b) A German professor who thought a skull from the Caucasus Mountains was especially attractive.
(c) An eighteenth century novel about a fictional people who migrated from Central Europe to Western Europe.
(d) A long-discredited theory about human origins in Western Russia.

2. In "Pillar Number Six: Dehumanization and Stigma," what is the best definition of the word "stigma"?
(a) A marking believed to indicate evil, corruption, etc.
(b) A set of negative beliefs attached to a particular characteristic, action, object, etc.
(c) The practice of separating or segregating something believed to be polluted.
(d) A cultural system of disguised aggressions.

3. In "Defining Purity and the Constancy of the Bottom Rung," what does Wilkerson note is referred to as "the most segregated hour in America" (128)?
(a) Recess at public schools.
(b) Dinnertime.
(c) Sunday mornings.
(d) School lunch time.

4. About how many years did American slavery last?
(a) 250 years.
(b) 150 years.
(c) 350 years.
(d) 50 years.

5. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," where does Wilkerson say that the idea of race began?
(a) In colonial India.
(b) In Ancient Greece and Rome.
(c) During the Moorish invasion of Spain.
(d) In the transatlantic slave trade.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does the word "caste" come from?

2. In the opening analogy of the book, what is the melting permafrost being compared to?

3. 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?

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

5. How many American states had laws officially prohibiting marriage between Blacks and whites?

(see the answer key)

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