Chapter 9 Test Bank

KNOWLEDGE OF KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following groups were historically considered nonwhite racial groups in the United States?

a) Jews, Italians, and Finns

b) Brazilians, New Zealanders, and Jews

c) Irish, Argentinians, and Canadians

d) Icelanders, Madagascans, and Germans

2. The “natural” order represented in social hierarchies of any society is supported by

a) biology.

b) truth.

c) social institutions.

d) historical facts.

3. The social processes that make race part of the natural order of things—by producing theories, schemes, and typologies about human differences is

a) stereotyping.

b) hegemony.

c) structural violence.

d) the naturalization of race.

4. Which of the following groups of people were instrumental in the development of categorizing humans into distinct races?

a) politicians

b) scientists

c) clergy

d) artists

5. All biological approaches to race are problematic because

a) they accurately describe an actual individual or characterize whole groups of people.

b) the sampling is too broad and focuses only on invisible traits.

c) one trait tends to be representative of other characteristics like intelligence and personal character.

d) they do not take into account variation in nail growth variation.

6. Negative or unfair treatment of a person because of his or her group membership or identity is called

a) racism.

b) prejudice.

c) discrimination.

d) violence.

7. The social, economic, and political processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial meanings is called

a) racism.

b) ethnocentrism.

c) prejudice.

d) racialization.

8. In Latin America, “blackness” and “whiteness” are based on

a) skin color.

b) eye color.

c) social behaviors.

d) genetic markers.

9. What is an important factor in making race real?

a) genetic markers

b) physical traits

c) geography

d) racism

10. What social distinction classifies people according to descent?

a) class

b) race

c) ethnicity

d) clinal grouping

11. A preformed, usually unfavorable, opinion about people who are different is

a) discrimination.

b) prejudice.

c) racism.

d) stereotyping.

12. When Americans recognize that people are born into a particular social position due to the economic situations of their families, they are recognizing the existence of

a) prejudice.

b) discrimination.

c) class.

d) equality.

Fill in the Blank

13. ____________________ is a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate differences.

Race

14. ____________________ variation means that change is gradual across groups and that traits shade and blend into each other.

Clinal

15. ____________________ is the repressive practices, structures, beliefs, and representations that uphold racial categories and social inequality.

Racism

16. Caste refers to a system of ____________________ that results in the classification of people into unequal groupings.

social stratification

17. After the US Civil War, the biologizing of race became extreme and people were defined as black if they had a single African ancestor, which came to be known as the “____________________.”

one-drop rule

18. ____________________ is the circumstantial interplay of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and other identity markers in the expression of prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory action.

Intersectionality

True/False

19. There is a biological connection between the trait of skin tone and other “racial” traits, such as certain facial features and bodily shapes.

a) True

b) False

20. Genetically speaking, humans are a remarkably homogeneous species: there is far greater variation within human groups than there is between them.

a) True

b) False

21. The Irish and a few other groups became white during the past century, but the phenomenon of groups becoming white appears to have stabilized.

a) True

b) False

22. Anthropologists agree that, in addition to prejudice and discrimination, unearned privilege upholds social inequality.

a) True

b) False

COMPREHENSION OF FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

Multiple Choice

23. Why would English colonial leaders portray Africans as uncivilized heathens?

a) to justify African slavery

b) to get elected to local government

c) to follow religious doctrine

d) to illustrate the intersectional nature of identity

24. The “one drop rule” enlarged the slave population by

a) making skin color the chief marker of status and difference.

b) including the mixed-race children of slaveholders in the enslaved population.

c) separating the poor European farmers and the poor African farmers.

d) linking blood type with racial difference.

25. What is the one flaw in all typologies of race?

a) They do not account for migration with the rise of industrialization.

b) They are based on old data.

c) They do not account for ethnicity and social stratification.

d) They all assume that there is a shared biological trait or gene unique to a race.

26. A good example of disguised discrimination is when

a) the police do racial profiling.

b) a teacher divides her or his class into brown eye and blue eye groups.

c) formal laws prevent certain social groups from being full citizens.

d) shopkeepers or security guards follow black customers through stores.

27. Censuses interest anthropologists because they

a) reveal the government's role in classifying and categorizing people.

b) are stable over time.

c) indicate the permanence of social categories.

d) specialize in quantitative data collection and analysis.

28. A key difference between caste and social class is

a) class divides people in terms of biological relatedness, caste in terms of social relatedness.

b) class divides people in terms of moral purity, caste in socioeconomic terms.

c) caste divides people in terms of moral purity, class in socioeconomic terms.

d) irrelevant, there are no differences between caste and social class.

29. The most important thing about “the invisible knapsack” idea is that

a) pretty much everybody wears one.

b) these privileges exist whether or not the person carries racial supremacist ideas.

c) most whites have learned to resist it.

d) it is an illustration of explicit discrimination.

30. Which of the following is not a way that race affects biology?

a) access to nutritious food

b) adequate healthcare

c) exposure to specific diseases

d) genetic predisposition for obesity

31. Anthropologists are interested in a situation like the way the new heart drug BiDil was created and approved because

a) it illustrates clearly how different racial groups have different biology.

b) it illustrates how government agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fight racism.

c) it shows how social classifications like ethnicity are normalized.

d) it shows how cultural, political, and economic processes can work together to promote the idea that race is biologically based.

32. Which of the following is not true about ethnicity?

a) It can serve powerful interests.

b) It is dynamic.

c) Anthropologists agree on the theory to explain it.

d) It tends to organize people in terms of common descent.

33. Which of the following is a biological consequence of racism?

a) shorter life expectancies among African Americans

b) the rise of distinct forms of cancer among Latina/Latinos

c) genetic coding that make only specific drugs useful for fighting heart disease among African Americans

d) unequal distribution of wealth among racial groups in the United States

34. Does race have biological consequences?

a) No, because of primordialism.

b) No, because of naturalization.

c) Yes, because of racialization.

d) Yes, because of racism.

Fill in the Blank

35. Jim Crow laws in the US South after the Civil War are a good illustration of ____________________.

explicit discrimination

36. Saying race is not ____________________ is not enough because race has real consequences.

culturally constructed

37. Because they have traditionally tended to study non-Western societies, the concept of ____________________ has had less relevance among anthropologists than among other social scientists.

class

38. Dividing people along lines of moral ____________________ and ____________________, such as caste does, is an illustration of ____________________.

purity / pollution / social stratification

True/False

39. In Latin America, the concept of race does not exist in many indigenous societies.

a) True

b) False

40. For antidiscrimination activists and educators, it is usually enough to simply demonstrate the existence of prejudice and discrimination.

a) True

b) False

41. The spread of capitalism has had little effect on class stratification in non-Western societies.

a) True

b) False

42. Racialization has identified different markers of racial identity in Latin America than in the United States.

a) True

b) False

43. Patterns of social inequality and racial discrimination have important biological consequences for certain groups, such as African Americans.

a) True

b) False

APPLICATION OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

Multiple Choice

44. A good illustration of the naturalization of race is

a) people from a particular racial group projecting their ideas of scenic beauty onto a landscape.

b) the natural occurrence of differences in skin color between populations.

c) the processes involved in approving BiDil for use among African Americans.

d) the integration of intersectionality ideologies on the census.

45. An anthropologist who uses instrumentalist theories of ethnicity would explain the rise of “Latino” food distributor Goya as

a) a response to the demands Latin American immigrants have for tastes from home.

b) a reflection of the heterogeneity of Latino groups.

c) the creation of a special market segment by a food company to enhance its profitability.

d) an effort by a large company to welcome people to the United States.

46. An anthropologist who studies unearned privilege would be most interested in which of the following?

a) racial profiling of blacks by a security officer

b) a situation in which an upper-class man gets accepted at an Ivy League university because his father and grandfather went there

c) the social forces which create a homogenous ethnic identity

d) the path that US presidents pursue to earn the votes necessary for a successful election

47. An anthropologist approaching a project from an intersectional perspective would be most interested in which of the following?

a) the intersection of racism and discrimination in medical practice

b) the many cultural factors that influence whiteness, such as religious affiliation

c) the homogenization of many different nationalities into a single ethnic group, such as Latina/o

d) the interplay of gender, race, and sexuality intersect in a black queer women’s group’s fight for recognition at a political rally

48. If you wanted to study ongoing racialization processes in the United States, you would most likely focus on

a) new ideas emerging about the moral purity and pollution of black people.

b) new patterns in which people are dropping ethnic identification in favor of whiteness.

c) the creation of new products for Latinos by companies like Goya foods.

d) the ways whites use their unearned privileges.

49. What is one reason that explains how class and race are often combined in the American imagination?

a) Several generations ago, class differences were considered a biological phenomenon.

b) There were no people of color among the original settlers in the United States.

c) Racial typologies often included economic earning potential in their classifications.

d) Major corporations tend to only market their luxury products to white people.

Short Answer

50. What special insights do you think an anthropologist who studies racial relations in Latin America would have about US race relations?

51. How did the US census play a role in the rise of Latino/a ethnic identity?

52. What are the primary strengths of viewing racial and ethnic identities as naturalized? Give an example of a project in which you might use it.

Essay

53. If you were an antiracism educator in an elementary school in the United States, what role do you think anthropological insights about prejudice and discrimination should play in your work?

54. Is instrumentalism, the theory about how ethnic identities are formed, applicable to explaining the formation of groups and identities based on socioeconomic class? Explain your answer.

55. How would you apply the insights about biological variability in human populations described in the textbook in a public service announcement promoting racial equality?

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS

Essays

56. What does it mean that race does and does not exist?

57. How did Africans become “black” and Europeans become “white”?

58. How does racialization occur?

59. How do market forces shape ethnicity?