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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does white-body supremacy live, according to Menakem?

2. What do oppressed people often do in regard to the trauma-based values and strategies of their oppressors?

3. What is race, according to Menakem in the start of Chapter 5?

4. Who controlled nearly all the colonized territory in what would become the United States in the late 1600s?

5. Besides trauma, what do humans sometimes pass from generation to generation?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the two kinds of pain, according to Menakem?

2. What did the English bring with them to America, according to Menakem in Chapter 4?

3. Why will some people never be able to see Black bodies as "unarmed," according to Menakem?

4. What happens when two or more unfamiliar bodies first encounter one another, according to Menakem?

5. When did Menakem stop "honoring" white fragility in his own life?

6. What does an embedded trauma response in the body often manifest as, according to Menakem?

7. What benefit does one healing one's individual trauma have?

8. What does our "lizard brain" mostly account for, according to Menakem?

9. What do people often think of when they hear the phrase white supremacy, and what is the reality of the situation, according to Menakem?

10. How did white Europeans treat each other centuries ago?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What anecdote about his own mother, and her attitudes towards Black skin tones, does Menakem share, and what issues does he hope to highlight for the reader in so doing? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

How does Menakem put the racial history of the United States into context for the reader in Part I, "Our Bodies, Our Country"? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 3

What are some of the stories, experiences, and anecdotes Menakem shares from both his childhood and adult life that he uses to illustrate how trauma in the body - especially as it relates to racial injustice - has affected his own family and his own life? Write an essay explaining your answers, citing specific references to the text to help support your conclusions.

(see the answer keys)

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