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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What rhetorical question does Rankine ask following the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings about the differences in how Americans treat young Black men and young white men?
(a) Whose boys get to be boys?
(b) What is an alternative fact?
(c) How wrong does someone have to be before things change?
(d) Do statistics mean nothing any longer?

2. Who wrote the play Rankine goes to see in Part III with a white friend?
(a) Jackie Sibblies Drury.
(b) Neil Simon.
(c) Stephen Retrow.
(d) Leslie Hinds.

3. What does Rankine do to small pieces of the text of her poem on page 213 that is visually striking?
(a) Put the words in italics.
(b) Puts the words in sanskrit.
(c) Puts the words in red text.
(d) Puts the words in very bold text.

4. What percentage of public school teachers are white, according to the National Center for Education Statistics' data for 2015-16?
(a) 81%.
(b) 92%.
(c) 70%.
(d) 30%.

5. In Part IV, what does Rankine write that a "force within the whiteness" does?
(a) Forces the whiteness.
(b) Brings privilege to bear.
(c) Wins the fights.
(d) Silences Blacks.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does one white man tell Rankine he is comfortable around Black people?

2. Who wrote the play Waiting for Godot?

3. Which actress does Rankine mention as being blacklisted in the 1960s?

4. Which of the following situations arose in which a white woman filmed and threatened a Black man in Part IV?

5. When was the word "privilege" first used, according to Rankine?

Short Essay Questions

1. What cliched phrase that is often used to excuse terrible behavior on the part of boys and men did Rankine recall hearing after the Kavanaugh hearings in Part IV?

2. Where does Rankine say the term "people of color" first came from?

3. What does the white female judge say about her son in Part IV that shocks Rankine?

4. Why does Rankine stop herself abruptly when comparing herself and a white friend in Part III?

5. Why does Rankine think it is particularly puzzling that the white female judge in Part IV seems to fear for her son's life as he moves to Brooklyn?

6. What kinds of experiments does Rankine recall when discussing the young age at which most children begin exhibiting racial preferences?

7. What is one major way Rankine points out in which Black people are historically economically more disadvantaged than whites?

8. In the very beginning of Part III, what does Rankine write that she is attempting to understand?

9. What does Rankine wonder about the woman in Part IV who has a medical emergency on the plane?

10. What did former President Lyndon Johnson tell journalist Bill Moyers about white and Black relations?

(see the answer keys)

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