View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 6: "Part Six: Backlash".

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. According to "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution," what did the United States use to "curate" its population (123)?
(a) Anti-miscegenation laws.
(b) Jim Crow laws.
(c) Laws defining status based on degree of African blood.
(d) Immigration policy.

3. In "Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Symbols of Caste," what does Wilkerson say was the true purpose behind erecting Confederate monuments?
(a) To ensure that the history of the South is not forgotten.
(b) To remind Northerners of the cultural distinctness of the American South.
(c) To make white Southerners feel better about losing the war.
(d) To terrorize Blacks and remind them of white power.

4. In "Chapter Twenty-One: The German Girl with the Dark, Wavy Hair," what point does Wilkerson make about the relationship of the loss of the Jewish population and the chapter's titular story?
(a) Once the Jews were gone, it became clear that the anxiety Germans felt had nothing to do with the Jews.
(b) Once Jews were gone, Germans looked for other scapegoats.
(c) The Jewish community had acted as a moderating force; in its absence, Germans began to turn on one another.
(d) The collective narcissism of Germans needed a new focus in the absence of the Jewish population.

5. In what year did Alabama repeal its law against interracial marriage?
(a) 1920.
(b) 1866.
(c) 2000.
(d) 1967.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Chapter Eleven: Dominant Group Status Threat and the Precarity of the Highest Rung," which group of Americans does Wilkerson say is facing declining life expectancy?

2. In "Pillar Number Five: Occupational Hierarchy: The Jatis and the Mudsill," what does Wilkerson say Blacks found when they migrated North during the Great Migration?

3. In "Pillar Number Seven: Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control," what common misunderstanding of the slave system in America does Wilkerson dispute?

4. In "Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature," what is Wilkerson's central claim?

5. In "Pillar Number Five: Occupational Hierarchy: The Jatis and the Mudsill," what is the rhetorical purpose of including information about Hammond's nieces?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 535 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample