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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. What program does Rothstein say was integral to Houston’s segregation plans?

2. What excuses does Rothstein say federal officials used to hide the racist consequences of housing policy?

3. What is a problem Rothstein says that African Americans suffer from as a result of poor housing conditions?

4. Who does Rothstein say has suffered with African Americans for the injustice of segregation and discrimination?

5. What does Rothstein say the American myth that hard work leads to success overlook?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Rothstein examine the wage suppression of African Americans?

2. How does Rothstein say wage growth affected African Americans differently than whites?

3. How were African Americans denied the right to collectively bargain for better wages?

4. What does Rothstein say caused the fire bombings in Chicago in 1919?

5. Why does Rothstein say housing is such a difficult field for righting past injustices?

6. Who does Rothstein say was arrested when Andrew Wade, an African-American veteran, tried to move into the white suburb of Shively outside Louisville, Kentucky in 1954?

7. What does Rothstein say was the fate of George Romney’s attempts at integration in 1970?

8. How does Rothstein say federal policies actively injured black communities?

9. What complicating variable does Rothstein include in listing the consequences of growing up in poverty?

10. What strategies does Rothstein say whites used to keep black wages down?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How has the housing policy Rothstein describes affected you and your family? How has your housing been determined by the programs or incentives or subsidies or prohibitions Rothstein describes? How has your family been influenced for better or worse by U.S. housing policy?

Essay Topic 2

Does Rothstein’s book benefit, or is it diminished, by Rothstein’s calm, academic tone? Would more anger or the presence of other emotions have helped him make his argument? Or would it have hurt the legitimacy of his thesis and evidence? For what audiences would a more emotional narrative be more appropriate?

Essay Topic 3

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

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