Answer ALL of the following questions completely. This is not an opinion-based or essay exam. So, please support your answers to each of the questions by drawing upon the required readings from Zack’s textbook Thinking About Race or from the e-reserve required list of articles for the class to inform and reference your response. The total points that you can receive on the final exam is 50.
1. Discuss why race does not have a biological or scientific importance. Also, discuss why race has a social significance. And, discuss why it is important to make a distinction between these two different understanding of what race is and what it is not. (10 pts.)
2. Zack argues that “the world was not always white and the United States did not automatically become white. American whiteness was constructed.” Discuss what Zack meant when she said American whiteness was constructed through each of the following ways:
– cultural ideals about whiteness
– development and enforcement of ideas of nonwhite as humanly inferior to whites
– the exclusion of nonwhites from positions of public visibility, and
– the imposition of white cultural norms on all racial groups. (10 pts)
3. Discuss 2 specific ways in which the Chinese and Japanese experiences in the United States were similar. Also, discuss 2 specific ways in which their experiences in this country were different. (5 pts.)
4. Discuss what Karen Sacks meant and provide examples from her article, when she said:
“The myth that Jews pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps ignores the fact that it took federal programs to create the conditions whereby the abilities of Jews and other European immigrants could be recognized and rewarded rather
than denigrated and denied.” (5 pts)
5. Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority group in the United States.
Compare 2 different Hispanic ethnic groups’ experiences in the
United States and contrast 2 differences in their experience. (5 pts.)
6. Explain the rationale for Affirmative Action. Also, identify and discuss 3 arguments favoring Affirmative Action. And, identify and discuss 3 arguments
against affirmative action. (10 pts.)
7. Toni Morrison uses the metaphor of an Africanist presence or an “Africanlike” persona to discuss the development of race relations in America. She indicates that this metaphor has played two fundamental roles in shaping race relations. Identify and discuss those two roles. (5 pts.)
Exam Guidelines
Please type and double-space your exam. Make sure that you answer each part of the multi-part questions, because you will be graded on the completeness of your answer. Do not write your exam as if it is a term paper, rather number and answer each question separately. You may only use only 1 direct quote (using quotation marks) in your response to each question, otherwise paraphrase. To document your answer, cite the author and page number, for example (Bailey, p.33).