Gonna copy & paste what's in there before I die of a heart attack…
2. Which characteristic did the ancient Greeks believe most distinguished them from “barbarians?”
C. Language. The word barbarian comes from the Greek word “bar-bar,” meaning stutterer, or unintelligible, or one who does not speak Greek. The Greeks, like most ancient peoples, did not attribute much meaning to physical appearance nor sort people into races. Ideas of ‘race’ did not exist during antiquity.
3. Members of a race can be identified by their:
E. None of the above. There are no traits, no characteristics, not even one gene that is present in all members of one so called race and absent in another. The A, B, and O blood groups can be found in all the world’s peoples (the percentage of Estonians and Papua New Guineans with A, B, and O blood are almost exactly identical). Skin color tends to correlate with the earth’s geographic latitude not race;
4. The rise of the idea of white supremacy was tied most directly to:
C. The Declaration of Independence. Ironically, it was freedom not slavery that gave rise to modern theories of race. Until the Age of Revolution slavery was an unquestioned “fact of life.” It was only when Americans proclaimed the radical new idea that “all men are created equal” that slavery was first challenged as immoral. As historian Barbara Fields notes, the new idea of race helped explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.
5. Most human genetic variation can be found:
A. Within a local population. 85 percent, or almost all human variation, can be found within any single local population, whether they be Malay, Irish, Zulu or Korean. There is FAR more variation within groups than between groups. This means that there may be as many - or more - genetic differences between two random Koreans as between a random Korean and a Zulu. On average, approximately 94 percent of all genetic variation can be found within any continental area.
6. Which continent has the greatest human genetic diversity?
C. Africa. We are all Africans. Modern humans (Homo sapien sapiens) originated in Africa, and we spent most of our evolution as a species together there. Some modern humans first left Africa 50,000 – 70,000 years ago and spread out around the world. All the other populations of the world can be seen as a subset of Africans. Every human genetic trait found elsewhere can also be found in Africa, with the exception of relatively few recent variations favored by the environment, genetic drift, or sexual selection - such as light skin.
7. Who was the first American public figure to suggest, albeit “as a suspicion only,” that black people might be inherently inferior to whites?
Answer: A. Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was the first prominent American to speculate that black people might be innately inferior to Europeans. Until then, most Enlightenment figures believed that differences between groups were not inborn but due to environmental factors. It wasn’t until Jefferson introduced the radical new ideas of liberty and equality that slavery had to be justified and prejudices against the enslaved began to crystallize into a doctrine of white supremacy.
8. Which of the following was NOT an important reason why African slavery first took root in North America:
D. They were deemed innately inferior. Throughout much of history societies have enslaved people, often as a result of conquest, war or even debt. People were not enslaved because they were first deemed inferior. African slaves were well suited to labor in North America. Unlike the Indians, they were resistant to European diseases; they couldn’t easily run away; they were not Christians (and hence unprotected by English law); and they were skilled semi-tropical farmers.
One can see that race isn't biological and has changed over time, then how did we get to the racial tensions we have today? Is race just a myth?
The Myth of Race Debunked
To what extent has society gone to justify race as something real?
