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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 5: "Part Five: The Consequences of Caste".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Pillar Number Eight: Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority," what is the Louise Beavers anecdote meant to illustrate?
(a) That White filmmakers feared the audience reaction to an attractive Black woman.
(b) That Black Americans have been made to assume the markers of inferiority like an actor playing a role.
(c) That it is impossible to judge intelligence and character based on skin color.
(d) That Mary Pickford was concerned about being upstaged by a Black actress.

2. In "Chapter Twelve: A Scapegoat to Bear the Sins of the World," what change in the concept of the scapegoat does Wilkerson say has occurred over time?
(a) Scapegoating is now primarily subconscious.
(b) Scapegoating is now performed by whole communities.
(c) Modern scapegoats are also blamed for the problems they are made to suffer for.
(d) Modern scapegoats are not literally sacrificed.

3. What is the best definition of "endogamy" as used in "The Third Pillar: Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating"?
(a) The fear of people from outside of one's own group.
(b) The practice of marrying within one's own group.
(c) Active interest in and welcoming of new people into one's group.
(d) The practice of marrying outside one's own group.

4. When 20 Black people arrived in the New World on a Dutch ship in 1619, what were they classified as?
(a) Indentured servants.
(b) Merchandise.
(c) Colonists.
(d) Slaves.

5. In "Chapter Eleven: Dominant Group Status Threat and the Precarity of the Highest Rung," what does Wilkerson argue the lowest-status Whites have been given in the place of real security and opportunity?
(a) The possibility of climbing into the middle class.
(b) Dominance over political systems.
(c) The illusion of racial superiority.
(d) False promises about economic growth.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what does Wilkerson say Americans want to dismiss as a "sad, dark chapter" of American history (43)?

2. What does Tushar, from the London conference in "Chapter Ten: Central Miscasting," say caused him to question the caste system?

3. In "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" what unusual name does Harold Hale give his daughter?

4. When legislation was finally adopted to limit the workday of enslaved persons, how long did their workday become?

5. According to "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution," what did the United States use to "curate" its population (123)?

(see the answer key)

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