View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. For whose sake does Rothstein say we should take responsibility for our history?

2. How does Rothstein say American wages changed between 1945 and 1973?

3. How does Rothstein characterize the qualities any solution to America’s racism will have to have?

4. Who does Rothstein say spread the word that Bill Myers, an African-American veteran, had moved into the Levittown in Pennsylvania?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does Rothstein say was the other regulatory agencies’ role in promoting segregation?

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

4. How does Rothstein say tax policy was abused to the detriment of African Americans?

5. 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?

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

7. What steps were taken to keep Wilbur Gary from moving into his house in the Rollingwood development in Richmond, CA?

8. Who does Rothstein say suffers for the segregation black families have faced?

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

10. What is Rothstein’s first suggestion for reforming our country to address systemic racism?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is The Color of Law most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

How could you address the same material as Rothstein addresses here through a reading list of films and books? What other works show other views of the experience African Americans endured as a result of American institutional racism? What artists or writers have taken this material on in different ways? How have their treatments and conclusions differed?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,077 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample