Exam 5: Race and Racism

The U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the subsequent war was the result of a long legacy of French and U.S. involvement in Vietnamese economic, military, and political life. Which term best describes that involvement?

When an individual acts on personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminates against someone based on imagined differences between them, this is referred to as what kind of racism?

Compare and contrast how races have been constructed in two different cultures discussed in the text. What similarities are there, and how are they different? What does this tell us about the concept of race in general?

President Barack Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas and his father was a black man from Kenya. What deeply embedded concept of racial division is revealed by the way people regard his race and even debate his birthplace?

What do physical anthropologists call the continuum of human variation that occurs in a particular geographic space?

In the period between 1933 and 1936, the Nazi regime implemented laws that defined who was and was not Jewish according to ancestry. Any person with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a "full-blooded" Jew. This approach to dividing and categorizing people relies on the assumption that:

What comprises all of the inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism's physical form?

After the Civil War, many states passed laws mandating the segregation of American citizens of European and African descent. These laws were the result of what existing beliefs?

What is the name for the flawed system of classification, with no scientific basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups?

When did the cultural practice of the "one drop of blood" rule end in the United States?

Maria Kromidas's work in New York City schools reveals that children are creating a "new" racial category based on the post-September 11 media stories they receive. In this particular category, people are categorized by what factors?

Explain what is meant by the concept of "white privilege."

While health, education, decent housing, and employment are something that most of us would agree are fundamental to all people, what is a primary reason that these have historically been denied to many people in the United States?

The right to own a gun is today considered fundamental to many people in the United States. While the Second Amendment to the Constitution is often considered the origin of this ideal, it actually was instituted by elites as one of many special "white rights" to ensure cooperation against rebellions. What concept is this an example of?

Explain how the idea of "white" or "whiteness" changed over time in the United States.

Leading up to the Civil War, many enslaved African Americans made the decision to escape their captors and flee to the North in hopes of securing personal freedom. The Underground Railroad is an example of what aspect of racism?

Explain what is meant by a "racial democracy" in Brazil. What are the effects of this?

What do we call laws in the United States that allowed such things as "white only" swimming pools, restaurants, schools, beaches, and the like, similar to apartheid in South Africa?

What continuing aspect of racism in the United States is illuminated by the Susie Phipps case?

Explain how and why Jim Crow laws came to the American South.