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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what does Wilkerson say Americans want to dismiss as a "sad, dark chapter" of American history (43)?
(a) The Trump presidency.
(b) The Colonial treatment of Blacks.
(c) Slavery.
(d) The Jim Crow era.

2. To what Supreme Court case does Wilkerson allude in her "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution" story about the shoemaker who sued for the right to ride in the white car of the train?
(a) Marbury v. Madison.
(b) Loving v. Virginia.
(c) Plessy v. Ferguson.
(d) Dred Scott v. Sandford.

3. In "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what does the Nigerian playwright tell Wilkerson about Blacks in Africa?
(a) They are also prejudiced against Black Americans.
(b) They do not exist.
(c) They also have a history of slavery.
(d) They are afraid to come to the U.S.

4. In "Through the Fog of Delhi to the Parallels in India and America," what is one of the main differences that Wilkerson notes between caste in America and caste in India?
(a) The American system is for the most part a binary one.
(b) The lowest caste in India was never enslaved.
(c) Blacks in America are not permanently confined to the lowest caste.
(d) There is no attempt being made in modern India to improve the situation of the lowest caste.

5. According to "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution," what makes the United States's racial hierarchy different from those in the rest of the Americas?
(a) Racial absolutism.
(b) The size of the highest caste.
(c) Privileges that increase with increasing "degree of Whiteness."
(d) The degree of segregation.

6. According to Wilkerson, what constituency does the Republican Party represent?
(a) People whose first concern is the sovereignty of the United States.
(b) Progressives and nativists.
(c) Those who want to protect an older social order that benefits whites.
(d) Humanitarians and the marginalized.

7. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," what does Wilkerson say we are doing when we "see" race?
(a) Perpetuating a system of oppression.
(b) Participating in a self-reinforcing cycle that causes us to "see" what we expect to see.
(c) Taking in only a small number of the features that actually differentiate races.
(d) Noting arbitrary physical signs that we have been taught to read as "race."

8. In "Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature," what is Wilkerson's central claim?
(a) Caste systems require obvious misinterpretations of religious texts.
(b) Caste in America and in Nazi Germany contradicts fundamental precepts of Christianity.
(c) Caste systems are the result of divine will.
(d) Caste in America and India is or was upheld by religious beliefs.

9. When 20 Black people arrived in the New World on a Dutch ship in 1619, what were they classified as?
(a) Colonists.
(b) Indentured servants.
(c) Merchandise.
(d) Slaves.

10. According to Wilkerson in "The Second Pillar: Heritability," what happened to Forest Whitaker at a Manhattan Deli?
(a) He was accused of shoplifting.
(b) He was assaulted by a police officer.
(c) An employee referred to him using a racial epithet.
(d) A customer assumed that he was a busboy.

11. What was decided at the conference depicted in the opening of "The Nazis and the Acceleration of Caste"?
(a) Forced sterilization of Jews.
(b) The Lebensraum program.
(c) The Nuremberg Laws.
(d) The plan to exterminate German Jews.

12. In Wilkerson's anecdote about the house inspector, how does he "see past the plaster" (17)?
(a) By reading the blueprints.
(b) By using his professional experience.
(c) By using an infrared camera.
(d) By using an x-ray machine.

13. In the page 15 sentence "An old house is its own kind of devotional, a dowager aunt with a story to be coaxed out of her," the reference to a dowager aunt is an example of what literary technique?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Synechdoche.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Simile.

14. In "The Third Pillar: Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating," what does Wilkerson imply was the reason for the prosecution of Hugh Davis?
(a) Davis raped a Black woman.
(b) Davis treated his Black partner as an equal.
(c) The Black woman in the relationship was already married.
(d) Very few white men had previously admitted to relationships with Black women.

15. To what part of history does Wilkerson explicitly link the Electoral College?
(a) The Jim Crow South.
(b) Reconstruction.
(c) Slavery.
(d) Colonization.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the opening analogy of the book, what is the melting permafrost being compared to?

2. In "Through the Fog of Delhi to the Parallels in India and America," what is the rhetorical purpose of including the detail of the fog that Wilkerson sees when her plane lands?

3. In "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" what does Harold Hale do when people knock down his mailbox?

4. In the opening anecdote of the book, what escapes from the melting permafrost?

5. When legislation was finally adopted to limit the workday of enslaved persons, how long did their workday become?

(see the answer keys)

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