Deck 5: Racial Oppression Today: Everyday Practice

Question 1

MIT researchers sent applications to a selection of job ads. Using fictitious names that sound (particularly to whites) like typically white or black names, their findings included all the following EXCEPT:

A) applicants with "white-sounding" names were 50 percent more likely to be contacted by employers than applicants with "black-sounding" names.
B) after increasing the job credentials of the tester-applicants, white applicants were far more likely to get call-backs from the presumably mostly white employers than black applicants.
C) being black with eight years of job experience was necessary to get the same treatment as a white applicant with no experience.
D) being black with three times the job credentials as whites had no impact on number of call-backs applicants with "black-sounding" names received.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

The U.S. government did not ratify the 1969 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination until ______.

A) 1974
B) 1984
C) 1994
D) 2014

Answer 2

C

Question 3

While other governments that ratified the 1969 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination agreed to adopt "all necessary measures for speedily eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and manifestations," U.S. officials undertook to do the same not _____.

A) until 1980
B) until 1999
C) until 2000
D) until 2018
E) yet

Answer 3

E

Question 4

The translation of anti-black attitudes into actual discrimination is shaped not only by white racial framing but also by:

A) social norms, such as what other people might think.
B) perceived behavioral controls, such as what the targeted person's responses to discrimination might be.
C) Both a and b

Question 5

In one study, researchers conducted six focus group interviews with 40 black working-class and black middle-class women of childbearing age. Echoing previous studies, these women:

A) described numerous instances of discrimination from the time they were children to the present.
B) noted interpersonal and institutional racism in employment and school settings.
C) noted interpersonal and institutional racism in everyday social interactions such as shopping.
D) noted interpersonal and institutional racism when interacting with health care, justice, and housing systems.
E) All the above

Question 6

Judging from housing audit studies, roughly ____ of all whites are inclined to discriminate in some fashion, subtly or blatantly, in situations where they have housing to rent or sell to black individuals or black families.

A) ½
B) ¼
C) 1/8
D) 1/16

Question 7

In regard to contemporary discriminatory practices, most whites seem to fall into one of three categories. These categories include all the following EXCEPT:

A) whites who regularly engage in overtly discriminatory and other racist behavior.
B) whites who speak out against white racism, even to the point of risking injury, friendships, or jobs.
C) whites who discriminate in overt or subtle ways, who may not be consciously aware of some discrimination.
D) whites who are consistently bystanders, engaging in less direct discrimination but knowingly providing social support for those who discriminate.

Question 8

Research suggests that:

A) a substantial majority of whites, including those who consider themselves liberal, typically do not see the overtly racist actions of other whites as serious enough for them to intervene.
B) a substantial majority of whites, including those who consider themselves liberal, typically do not see the overtly racist actions of other whites as serious enough to deter their relationships with those who engage in overtly racist behavior.
C) a sense of white superiority or virtue, however dim, is part of the consciousness of most whites, including those who are relatively liberal on numerous racial matters.
D) All the above

Question 9

Recall the research by Joe Feagin and Leslie Picca that involved gathering brief semester journals from 626 white students at various colleges and universities. They found:

A) not a single journal entry described whites who very assertively protested racist actions by other whites in diverse frontstage settings.
B) only rarely in the journal accounts white students or other whites engaging in assertive dissent to racist commentaries and actions by friends, acquaintances, and relatives, even in all-white backstage settings.
C) numerous students who commented that they recognized their friends and relatives were doing racist stuff, but added that they were still "nice people" to be with.
D) All the above

Question 10

When issues of racism are discussed in the mainstream media all the following usually occurs EXCEPT:

A) it is often working-class whites (sometimes stereotyped as "rednecks") who get tagged as the most serious racists by media commentators.
B) white blue-collar violence against black Americans and other Americans of color receives no news attention.
C) elite and middle-class whites are less frequently the focus of serious attention in discussions of racial discrimination.
D) discussions of discrimination that involve elite or middle-class discriminators usually avoids making connections to broader issues of systemic racism.

Question 11

Half or more of African Americans say that they have been personally discriminated against when:

A) interacting with police.
B) applying for jobs.
C) considered for promotions.
D) All the above

Question 12

In a Pew national survey, ___ percent of black respondents indicated on a general question that black Americans still faced a lot of discrimination, while just ___ percent of the whites in the survey agreed.

A) 19; 7
B) 21; 10
C) 33; 11
D) 43; 13
E) 67; 21

Question 13

Racially negative encounters African Americans reported facing several times a year, included:

A) being threatened.
B) being harassed.
C) being treated as if they were not smart.
D) All the above

Question 14

Racially negative encounters African Americans reported facing several times a year, included:

A) receiving poor service at restaurants.
B) receiving poor service in stores.
C) having people act afraid of them.
D) being treated with less courtesy or respect than others.
E) All the above

Question 15

In _____, the U.S. Supreme Court finally began to knock down a few state laws severely discriminating against black voters.

A) 1838
B) 1870
C) 1915
D) 1924
E) 1943

Question 16

Not until the ______ were millions of black citizens finally voting in the South.

A) 1950s
B) 1960s
C) 1970s
D) 1980s

Question 17

A disturbing array of blocking strategies used by white officials to reduce black and Latino representation or voting, includes which of the following?

A) gerrymandering (i.e., manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favor one party or class) political districts.
B) changing elective offices into appointive offices.
C) adding new qualifications for office.
D) All the above

Question 18

A disturbing array of blocking strategies used by ordinary and elite whites to reduce black and Latino representation or voting, includes which of the following?

A) suddenly changing the location of polling places.
B) creating difficult registration procedures.
C) "ballot security" programs (i.e., where political operatives and private citizens take it upon themselves to police the voter rolls and voting booths).
D) All the above

Question 19

In recent elections voter-restriction programs have involved:

A) the use of intimidating Republican poll watchers or challengers who may slow down voting lines and embarrass potential voters by asking them humiliating questions.
B) people in official-looking uniforms with badges and side arms who question voters about their citizenship or their registration.
C) warning signs posted near voting booths.
D) radio ads targeted to minority listeners containing dire threats of prison terms for people who are not properly registered - messages that seem designed to put minority voters on the defensive.
E) All the above

Question 20

____________ is the practice of sending mass direct mailings to registered voters by non-forwardable mail, then assembling lists of voters from the returned mail in order to officially challenge their right to vote on that basis alone.

A) ballot security
B) booth capturing
C) electoral fraud
D) gerrymandering
E) voter caging

Question 21

A revealing 2017 national survey of 802 African Americans found that:

A) half had suffered racial discrimination by the police over their lifetimes.
B) sixty percent reported that they or a family member had been treated unfairly by the police.
C) sixty-one percent indicated that in their general area the police were currently more likely to use excessive force against black residents than white residents.
D) thirty-one percent indicated they had avoided calling the police for help because they were afraid of discrimination.
E) All the above

Question 22

A recent survey indicated a sharp racial divide on police and policing. In the survey:

A) most white respondents (74 percent) indicated they had a generally positive view of police officers.
B) only a minority of black Americans (30 percent) had a generally positive view of police officers.
C) Both a and b

Question 23

A Guardian newspaper study analyzed all U.S. police killings for 2015 and found:

A) Americans of color were 47 percent of those armed and unarmed people who were killed.
B) sixty-three percent of those killed were unarmed.
C) twenty-nine percent of those killed were black, a very disproportionate percentage compared to the black population percentage.
D) white officers were 84 percent of those involved in the killings where officer data was available.
E) All the above

Question 24

Statistical and other analysis of bail-related variables found:

A) bail amounts set for black male defendants by judges were 35 percent higher than those set for their white male counterparts.
B) local bond dealers charged significantly lower bonding rates for black than white defendants.
C) higher bail amounts being set unfairly for blacks than whites.
D) judges in Miami and Philadelphia were racially biased against black defendants, with substantially more racial bias among both inexperienced and part-time judges.
E) All the above

Question 25

All but one of the following statements is true about African Americans, who are approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population.

A) African Americans are 42 percent of all state death row inmates.
B) African Americans are 35 percent of those executed on state death rows.
C) African Americans are not disproportionately represented on federal death row.

Question 26

Which of the following is false regarding the death penalty?

A) Nearly half of white defendants were able to avoid the death penalty through plea bargaining.
B) Only 25 percent of black defendants and 28 percent of Hispanic defendants were able to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences.
C) Indigenous defendants were even more likely than black and Hispanic defendants to receive the death penalty.
D) Black defendants were more likely to receive the death penalty than similar white defendants, and even more so than whites who had committed more heinous murders.
E) Those who killed whites were much more likely to receive the death penalty than those whose victims were not white.

Question 27

Regarding wrongful convictions:

A) from 1973 to 2017, over 50 percent of the 160 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, yet were later pardoned, acquitted, or had the original charges dropped, were black.
B) one review of 1900 defendant exonerations for murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes up to 2016 found that African Americans were nearly half of those wrongly convicted and later exonerated.
C) Both a and b

Question 28

Which of the following statements are true regarding the control of the criminal justice system?

A) In most areas those who decide on pursuing the death penalty and other major prosecution issues - district attorneys and similar state officials - are mostly white.
B) Most federal judges are white.
C) States with large black populations, such as those in the deep South, often have very few higher-level judges and prosecutors who are black.
D) A great many juries across the country that try defendants of color for death-penalty crimes are all white or nearly so.
E) All the above

Question 29

Which of the following is true regarding "race riots"?

A) Practically all of the many U.S. racial riots from the 1840s to the 1930s were characterized by whites attacking black Americans or other Americans of color.
B) In 1863, during the Civil War, hundreds of white workers in New York City rioted over new draft laws and the use of black workers to break a strike.
C) The decades after the Civil War saw many killings of black men, women, and children by white mobs.
D) In 1919 alone there were major white riots in Longview, Texas; Phillips County, Arkansas; Washington, DC; Chicago, Illinois; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Omaha, Nebraska.
E) All the above

Question 30

Nationally, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently counted 917 known hate groups operating actively across the U.S., a great many of them:

A) Klan.
B) neo-Nazi.
C) racist skinhead.
D) border vigilante organizations.
E) All the above

Question 31

One recent Anti-Defamation League analysis of specific KKK groups counted:

A) ten different ones in 5 states, with about 500 members including unaffiliated people who identify with a Klan perspective.
B) twenty-one different ones in 11 states, with about one thousand members including unaffiliated people who identify with a Klan perspective.
C) thirty-three different ones in 15 states, with about two thousand members including unaffiliated people who identify with a Klan perspective.
D) forty-four different ones in 22 states, with about three thousand members including unaffiliated people who identify with a Klan perspective.
E) fifty-eight different ones in 33 states, with about four thousand members including unaffiliated people who identify with a Klan perspective.

Question 32

The Klan and other white nationalist groups have grown significantly in number, in part because:

A) of white extremists' concerns over the increase in Latino and Asian immigration.
B) the expanding racial diversity of the U.S. population.
C) the 2008/2012 elections of a black president (Barack Obama).
D) the racist rhetoric of President Donald Trump.
E) All the above

Question 33

One recent study of translocal linkages found white extremist groups are cooperating across ideological and geographical boundaries to:

A) keep immigrants of color out of their countries.
B) eliminate anti-hate-speech laws.
C) elect racially reactionary politicians.
D) Both a and b

Question 34

Which of the following are true regarding white nationalists' responses to Barack Obama?

A) Immediately after Obama's first presidential election there were at least 200 incidents of hate-based vandalism, as well as threats of violence against Obama, more than for any previous president.
B) Death threats continued throughout Obama's presidency, many of them racially motivated.
C) White-supremacist leaders used the election of an African American as a recruiting tool to bring new whites into their extremist organizations.
D) All the above

Question 35

There are at least ________ active websites originating from the U.S. that insistently spread a white-supremacist ideology and encourage violence or other discriminatory actions based on that ideology.

A) a dozen
B) several hundred
C) several thousand
D) a million

Question 36

Social science research on free-speech claims have found all the following EXCEPT:

A) free-speech claims are not mainly about a general constitutional principle but more of a convenient and legitimating cover for the expression of extreme white-racist framing.
B) participants high in racial prejudice were more likely to endorse a general free-speech defense for openly racist hate speech than individuals with much less personal prejudice.
C) those high in prejudice are more likely to cite a free speech defense for non-racist insulting speech than individuals low in prejudice.
D) those high in prejudice were not more likely to cite a free speech defense for non-racist insulting speech than individuals low in prejudice.

Question 37

Sociologist Jessie Daniels has documented several forms of racist- right and other hate-speech websites on the internet, including all the following EXCEPT:

A) a type showcasing racist propaganda for those outside the organization, including youth, such as Stormfront or The Daily Stormer
B) a type showcasing calls for a racial holy war and incitement to use violence to resist immigration
C) a type providing a hidden-from-public view form of communication for those within the movement

Question 38

Cloaked white-supremacist websites:

A) present themselves as truthful about racial issues.
B) may seem moderate or even pro-civil rights.
C) use a combination of carefully chosen domain names, deceptive graphic user interfaces (GUI), and subtly racist rhetoric that pose a pernicious epistemological threat to racial equality.
D) work alongside legitimate sites, making the "cloaked" sites seem legitimate to naïve searchers like schoolchildren doing class reports.
E) All the above

Question 39

Sociologist Jessie Daniels has detailed how much of the internet's operation is under the control of ________, who incorrectly proclaim false notions that the internet and its technology are "colorblind."

A) educated whites
B) uneducated whites
C) lower-class whites
D) working-class whites
E) middle- to upper-class whites

Question 40

Sociologist Jessie Daniels suggests that the U.S. populace and their leaders need to be more richly informed about the way that _______ and the tech industry are shaped by the everyday practices of color-blind racism.

A) cyberculture
B) internet culture
C) social networks
D) technoculture
E) virtual worlds

Question 41

In its origin, accenting the institutional and systemic racism that undergirds individual acts of discrimination mostly stems from a long line of African American scholars and activists, going back centuries.

Question 42

A critical institutional-racism perspective remains the most important approach to understanding well the depths of the U.S. system of racial hostility and discrimination.

Question 43

Since the early 2000s, top U.S. officials have participated in two important UN world conferences dealing with major racism issues, including issues of reparations for U.S. slavery.

Question 44

Recently, key United Nations officials and organizations have given the U.S. very negative reviews of its contemporary patterns of discrimination, including racial profiling and the resurgence of white nationalism.

Question 45

Research studies suggest that a sense of white superiority or virtue, however dim, is part of the consciousness of most whites, including those who are relatively liberal on numerous racial matters.

Question 46

Recall the research by Joe Feagin and Leslie Picca that involved gathering brief semester journals from 626 white students at various colleges and universities. These student journals indicate that even whites who make extremely racist comments or engage in highly racist actions are frequently viewed by other whites as doing something relatively harmless.

Question 47

Half or more of African Americans say that they have been personally discriminated against when interacting with police because they are black.

Question 48

More than half of African Americans say that they have been personally discriminated against when applying for jobs because they are black.

Question 49

More than half of African Americans say that they have been personally discriminated against when considered for promotions because they are black.

Question 50

A little less than half of African Americans say they or a family member have been treated unfairly by the court system because they are black.

Question 51

"The state" is a relatively impersonal or unbiased terrain over which numerous racial groups compete today for political and social power.

Question 52

The number of black elected officials has increased from a few dozen in the 1960s to several thousand today.

Question 53

Until the 1960s, most efforts aimed at reducing the number of voters of color were by operatives connected to the Republican Party.

Question 54

In the campaigns of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon in the 1960s, voter-restriction activities were increasingly undertaken by Republican operatives.

Question 55

Researchers find very little intentional voter fraud across the U.S.

Question 56

In recent elections, political operatives have mailed false information about voting qualifications to deter black and Latino voters.

Question 57

After being bound by a consent decree for 35 years, as of 2018 the Republican National Committee is free to continue its "ballot security" campaign.

Question 58

Since the 1980s, the Democratic Party's elected officials have consistently increased the input of citizens of color in regard to important state and national policymaking to a truly representative level.

Question 59

In a 2013 decision, the conservative Republican majority on the Supreme Court severely weakened the U.S. Voting Rights Act by, in effect, removing federal surveillance over political jurisdictions with histories of creating racist barriers for voters of color.

Question 60

In a 2007 decision, the Supreme Court's conservative majority greatly weakened the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by deciding that the local school systems in Seattle and Louisville could not make use of any racial markers along with several other factors to increase the desegregation of de facto segregated high schools on a voluntary basis.

Question 61

During the years 1920-1932 substantially more than half of all African Americans killed by whites were killed by white officers.

Question 62

Police were rarely implicated in the estimated 6,000 bloody lynchings of black men and women from the 1870s to the 1960s.

Question 63

Analysis of black community "riots" for the years 1943-1972 indicates that the immediate precipitating event of many community uprisings was the killing or harassment of black urbanites by white officers.

Question 64

In spite of improvements in policing practices in some cities, discriminatory police harassment and violence continues to oppress African Americans and their communities today.

Question 65

Federal law does not require states to collect data on deaths of people in police custody, but these data have been systematically collected by officials anyway.

Question 66

Police killings disproportionately involve white-on-black violence.

Question 67

One expert's analysis of stop-and-frisk reports indicated that 95,000 of the reports by officers involved "reasonable, articulable suspicion," and thus was NOT a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Question 68

A recent social science study in Philadelphia examined public stop-and-frisk data for predominantly black neighborhoods and found they had 70 percent more incidents of this type of racial profiling than did the nonblack neighborhoods.

Question 69

The often unnecessary police-frisking incidents in black areas garnered fewer productive results than those in white neighborhoods.

Question 70

Researchers have found evidence that racial bias in the bail bonding system is driven by bail judges relying on inaccurate stereotypes that exaggerate the relative danger of releasing black defendants.

Question 71

Denying the racial unfairness of the bail bonding system, in 2017 New Jersey officials refused to act against the system.

Question 72

In 2017, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced a nationwide campaign to fight for the termination of money bail and other wealth-based pretrial detention across the country.

Question 73

An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) research study concluded that nationally, a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates.

Question 74

The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act belatedly moved the minimum amount of crack cocaine to 28 grams, yet still far less than for powder cocaine.

Question 75

Pressure from the U.S. Sentencing Commission have failed to get Congress to officially recognize the racial differentials between crack and powder cocaine convictions.

Question 76

While illegal drug use is at least as common among white men as black men, black men are far more likely than white men to be arrested for illegal drug crimes.

Question 77

Black Americans make up a very disproportionate percentage of Americans facing execution on death row.

Question 78

When a homicide victim is white, the likelihood is far greater that the case will end in an execution than if a homicide victim is black.

Question 79

Research on the death-penalty abolition movement has found much caution among some anti-death-penalty advocates when it comes to giving attention to this issue of racial bias, as they fear distancing moderate whites from the abolition cause.

Question 80

Because of racial and associated class bias in many court decisions, since the early 2000s several states have abolished the death penalty, and the number of death sentences nationally has dropped.