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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 musician does Kevin Young name as the most prominent example of a white person living as a black person?
(a) Little Richard.
(b) Johnny Otis.
(c) Rufus Wainwright.
(d) Bobby Darin.

2. At what type of factory did Kiese Laymon's grandmother work for 30 years?
(a) A candy factory.
(b) A watchmaking factory.
(c) A lumber mill.
(d) A chicken plant.

3. From what state does Kevin Young say that his family hails?
(a) Mississippi.
(b) Louisiana.
(c) South Carolina.
(d) Alabama.

4. In what Jamaican city did Garnette Cadogan, the author of the essay "Black and Blue," grow up?
(a) Montego Bay.
(b) Kingston.
(c) Portmore.
(d) Negril.

5. How does the author of "The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning" end her list of rules that she says may help a black person avoid being killed?
(a) No hands in your pockets.
(b) No walking at night.
(c) No living while black.
(d) No standing your ground.

Short Answer Questions

1. What belief does Mitchell Jackson hold that he underscores by calling it his "beating heart" (179)?

2. In what decade did the the use of blackface begin?

3. Kevin Young begins his essay "Blacker Than Thou" by discussing which movie in which Steve Martin plays the lead role?

4. When Kevin Young, the author of "Blacker Than Thou" outlines his next book for the reader, under what type of text does he say his new book falls?

5. To what danger is the author of the essay "Black and Blue" referring when he writes, "The streets had their own safety. Unlike at home, there I could be myself without fear of bodily harm" (130)?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Emily Raboteau say she wishes to distinguish her role as a mother from both types of mothers depicted in the widely-circulated comic entitled "Still Two Americas"?

2. What event does the author of "Composite Pops" name as the one that taught him that he must be able to save himself?

3. At the start of the essay "The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning," why do the two women talking about one's recent arrival of a son laugh when the new mother says her first thought had been how she could get her baby boy out of America?

4. What was the object mentioned in the very first lines of OutKast's music first heard by Kiese Laymon and why did the object's mention draw him in?

5. Who does Claudia Rankine name as the person who created "a new pathway for how to think about a lynched body" (147) and what does she mean?

6. What does Kevin Young identify as the main problem with Rachel Dolezal's claim of African ancestry?

7. What two categories does Kevin Young say white thinking or acting out about being black almost always fall into and what example does he give for each category he names?

8. How is repetition employed within the poem "Queries of Unrest" and to what effect?

9. What does the author of "Composite Pops" say that a boy must do if he is "not blessed with a father or gifted with a dynamic stand-in" (180)?

10. What distinction does Kiese Laymon make between "stank" and "freshness" (118) in his essay "Da Art of Storytellin' (A Prequel)"?

(see the answer keys)

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