Deck 8: Racial and Ethnic Inequality

Question 1

How does class reclassify a group from one race to another?

A) Class can determine "race" because the social, economic, and cultural assimilation could reassign the group's race.
B) At one time, White only meant people of Anglo-Saxon heritage.
C) Race classifications have always been faulty.
D) Race was once tied to national origin, such as Germans seeing themselves as members of the Aryan race during the Nazi era.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

From the mid-20th century on, the science of racial categorization has become more precise rather than vague and even misleading.

A) No, such categories continue to fluctuate and reflect social and cultural conditions rather than advances in scientific evidence.
B) Yes, genome mapping, anthropology, and the like have made it possible to classify fully a person's racial component.
C) No, because people are so easily offended in the modern period, insensitive language in regard to race has added less precision.
D) Yes, for with each Census new categories are added to let the people themselves provide the best picture of our diverse nation.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

White Americans have had since the late nineteenth century held a high regard for Native Americans, calling them "Noble Savages," and the like. Why were such attitudes ambivalent?

A) Native Americans were considered racially inferior as well.
B) Native Americans embodied the original "rugged individualist."
C) White Americans identified with Native Americans (e.g. naming sports teams after tribes).
D) Until the 20th century, Native Americans were not even American citizens.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "Blacks, ... are inferior to the Whites, in the endowments both of body and mind," he called it a "suspicion only." What might be a plausible interpretation of his meaning?

A) Jefferson uses the word "suspicion" in the sense of a personal opinion based on his observation and prejudices.
B) Jefferson is challenging his reader to prove otherwise.
C) Jefferson, even though a slave owner, doubted his own low regard of Blacks.
D) Given the rhetoric of the period, Jefferson is presenting hypocrisy as educated opinion.

Question 5

From the time before the country was founded to this day, the principle driver that trumps legislation, terror campaigns, imprisonment, and deportation to maintain White status can be attributed to which variable?

A) cheap labor
B) economics
C) White guilt
D) changing interpretations of race

Question 6

Noel's theory of ethnic stratification argues that stratification occurs following prolonged contact between groups in the presence of which of the following:

A) ethnocentrism
B) collaboration
C) equal power
D) economic inequality

Question 7

What is the difference between multicultural state and one in which there is assimilation that also encourages and "celebrates" diversity?

A) Diversity would be less a factor among some groups or even discouraged and forbidden.
B) The assimilationist state would be more progressive.
C) The multiculturalist state would definitely have minorities that found diversity a form of oppression.
D) The assimilationist state would eventually evolve into a multiculturalist state.

Question 8

What is meant by the "sedimentation of racial inequality" in the context of acquired wealth among Blacks?

A) the inability to build wealth due to a long history of discrimination
B) the lack of savings due to low incomes
C) a lack of rich parents and relatives enjoyed by White baby boomers
D) the steady denial of loans for affordable housing

Question 9

With the decline in unionized, blue-collar jobs in urban areas, a Black middle class has become increasingly dependent on what kind of employer?

A) government entities
B) entitlement programs
C) competition with White women and Hispanics
D) job and retraining programs

Question 10

Which of the following is most true regarding immigrants:

A) Most immigrants are here legally.
B) The largest grown group of illegal immigrants are Mexicans.
C) Immigration has a negative impact on the wages of natives.
D) Immigration only harms the country of origin.

Question 11

Wage disparities between Blacks and Whites can be explained by:

A) differences in occupational distributions.
B) discrimination alone.
C) the decreasing levels of racial segregation in cities.
D) the lack of legal protection for racial discrimination.

Question 12

How does regular interaction with people of your own ethnicity shape your perceptions of those different from "your people"?

A) Unfamiliarity discourages images of variation and lumps others together.
B) It causes you to see yourself as a stereotype, too.
C) It can actually help one to avoid a harmful form of "familiarity" in which stereotypes are formed rather that received information.
D) It brings into sharp relief how you perceive others-which is usually in a negative light.

Question 13

William Julius Wilson argues, as do others, that class more than race now shape contemporary Black attitudes. What is a result of this phenomenon?

A) The diversity and class structure of the Black community makes race a more ambiguous unifying factor.
B) Some Blacks see themselves as a different race, especially the children of interracial marriages.
C) A misperception among Blacks that some are "more equal than others" to use Orwell's expression.
D) Blacks are not seeing a reality that statistics bear out, that racism is still having a deleterious effect on the quality of their lives.

Question 14

If research demonstrates that darker skinned African Americans on average earn less than lighter-skinned African Americans, this is an example of:

A) colorism.
B) ethnocentrism.
C) hyper-ghettoization.
D) colonialism.

Question 15

Researchers who have identified American Black-White relations as a form of colonialism (when one group invades the other's territory and dominates it), point the character of the relationship rather than geography. Which of the reasons below is one way that Whites exercise control in their ghetto "colonies"?

A) They exercise "indirect rule" by co-opting and controlling selected influential Blacks.
B) Whites sap the ghetto economically by overcharging Blacks for food (e.g. convenience stores) and other necessities and thus preventing them from acquiring lasting wealth.
C) Blacks are made to feel inferior by the constant barrage of negative stereotypes (e.g. all black males are felons).
D) Their slave heritage preconditions Blacks to their inferior status.