Bias Unit: Knowledge Check 1

Question 1

TRUE OR FALSE

A bias is a tendency to believe that some people, ideas, etc., are better than others, which usually results in treating some people unfairly. Scientific studies show that children quickly pick up the biases of their parents and other family members.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

TRUE OR FALSE

Generally speaking, children conform to their parents’ expectations in acquiring their parents’ particular understanding of the world and its people (ideology).

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Which type of bias refers to the attitudes and beliefs we have about a person or group on a conscious level?

Answer 3

Explicit Bias

Question 4

TRUE OR FALSE

People are more motivated to control their biases if there are “social norms” in place which dictate that expressions of explicit bias is not socially acceptable.

Answer 4

True

Question 5

Which type of bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Answer 5

Implicit Bias

Question 6

The expression of which of the two types of bias occurs as a result of deliberate thought and therefore, can be consciously controlled.

Answer 6

Explicit Bias

Question 7

Which type of bias is triggered automatically and very difficult to control?

Answer 7

Implicit Bias

Question 8

Which of the following types of bias refers to the tendency to look for or favor information that reaffirms one’s already existing beliefs and opinions?

Answer 8

Confirmation Bias

Question 9

Which of the following types of bias refers to our tendency to gravitate toward people similar to ourselves?

Answer 9

Affinity Bias

Question 10

Over the past several decades, some measures of bias in society has fallen rapidly, like people’s bias against “interracial marriage.” What word refers to the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation?

Answer 10

miscegenation

Question 11

Which of the following Supreme Court decisions ruled that criminalizing interracial marriage was “constitutional” in 1883?

Answer 11

Pace v. Alabama

Question 12

During the Jim crow era, many Black men and boys were lynched on the mere suspicion of being with a white woman. Lynching (murder by mob) was a form of racial terrorism designed to maintain ‘white supremacy’ in all spheres. Lynching deprived victims of their right to due process of law and equal protection under the law. Which Amendment to the U.S. Constitution embodies both the right of due process and equal protection under the law?

Answer 12

The 14th Amendment

Question 13

Which of the following individuals during the Jim Crow Era became the 1st Black heavyweight champion of the world as well as a target of government persecution because he openly consorted white white and married several white women?

Answer 13

Jack Johnson

Question 14

In 1955, a 14 year-old Black boy from Chicago was abducted, tortured and killed by white supremacists for whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. Who was this individual?

Answer 14

Emmett Till

Question 15

Which of the following Supreme Court decisions in 1967 ruled that banning interracial marriage was unconstitutional because it violated due process of law and equal protection under the law?

Answer 15

Loving v Virginia

Question 16

‘Loving Day’ is the biggest multiracial celebration in the U.S. annually. Loving Day is celebrated on which of the following days in the month of June? This is the same day that the Supreme Court published their historic decision in 1967.

Answer 16

June 12th

Question 17

TRUE OR FALSE

‘Loving Day’ is now a federal holiday.

Answer 17

False

Question 18

TRUE OR FALSE

A ‘stereotype’ describes an exaggerated belief, image or distorted truth about a social group that allows for little or no individual differences. According to a University of Wisconsin study (2022), stereotypes are self-perpetuating in our minds, growing stronger with use just like information we actively try to cement in our memory.

Answer 18

True

Question 19

TRUE OR FALSE

According to comments made by the Director of the FBI in 2015, “Significant research shows that all people have unconscious racial biases …it is our cultural inheritance.”

Answer 19

True

Question 20

TRUE OR FALSE

Black Americans, like many minority groups in the U.S., never had to struggle against the tide of misrepresentation or overrepresentation of their particular group in the media.

Answer 20

False

Question 21

TRUE OR FALSE

According to Ta-Nehisi Coates: “The enduring view of African Americans in this country is as a race of people who are prone to criminality.”

Answer 21

True

Question 22

Which Amendment to the U.S. Constitution contained a loophole which was exploited to ‘re-enslave’ Black Americans as late as WWII?

Answer 22

13th Amendment

Question 23

What racist practice involved the widespread arrest and mass incarceration of African Americans in the beginning of the 20th century that promoted “the myth of black lawlessness and criminality”

Answer 23

Convict Leasing

Question 24

What country criminalizes and incarcerates more of its own people than any other country in the history of the world?

Answer 24

The United States

Question 25

TRUE OR FALSE

According to one historian, “anti-drug laws have always been associated with race. White politicians passed anti-drug laws associated with ethnic groups that threatened the established economic order.”

Answer 25

True

Question 26

Which of the following two groups are arrested, prosecuted, and jailed today more than any other ethnic or racial group in the United States?

Answer 26

African Americans and Latino Americans

Question 27

TRUE OR FALSE

According to legal scholar Michele Alexander, “Mass incarceration in America functions as a system of racial control in a similar way to how Jim Crow once operated”.

Answer 27

True

Question 28

Which of the following states has the highest Black incarceration rate in the country?

Answer 28

Wisconsin

Question 29

Mass incarceration today is a direct result of the “war on drugs” which was 1st declared by which of the following U.S. presidents?

Answer 29

Richard Nixon

Question 30

Which of the following U.S. presidents started the “Southern Strategy” to increase political support among Southern white voters by appealing to their racist attitudes?

Answer 30

Richard Nixon

Question 31

In politics, “_______ _______” (two words) is the practice of sending out racial coded political messages or subtle signals, which are designed to be understood only by a narrow target audience.

Answer 31

dog whistling

Question 32

The crack epidemic revealed the racism inherent in the ‘war on drugs’. A good example was the sentence (prison time) given for possessing one gram of crack cocaine which was the same as possessing 100 grams of powder cocaine. This racial disparity of 100 to 1 in sentencing began with which of the following U.S. presidents?

Answer 32

Ronald Reagan

Question 33

Which of the following U.S. presidents was behind the 1994 omnibus federal crime bill, truth-in-sentencing laws, and the federal three-strikes laws, which doled out life sentences to repeat drug offenders?

Answer 33

Bill Clinton

Question 34

TRUE OR FALSE

The government response to the crack epidemic was the same as the opioid epidemic.

Answer 34

False

Question 35

TRUE OR FALSE

A lack of accountability for the war on drugs has bred mistrust of government and law enforcement in the Black community as well as other communities of color.

Answer 35

True

Question 36

In 2013, Black Lives Matter started as a messaging campaign after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of ____________ in 2012.

Answer 36

Trayvon Martin

Question 37

Which of the following are the goals of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement?

Answer 37

Fighting racial bias in the criminal justice system

Fighting racial inequality in the criminal justice system

Holding police officers and others accountable in the shooting deaths and/or violence perpetrated on people of color

Question 38

“I can’t breathe” is a slogan associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. The phrase originates from the last words of _________, an unarmed man who was killed in 2014 after being put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer.

Answer 38

Eric Garner

Question 39

Which of the following individuals was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri where afterwards, his body was left in the street for four hours? Later, a Justice Department investigation found that the Ferguson police department routinely violated the civil rights of Ferguson’s black community.

Answer 39

Michael Brown

Question 40

Which of the following individuals was shot and killed in Cleveland, Ohio for playing with a toy gun — he was only 12 years-old.

Answer 40

Tamir Rice

Question 41

Which of the following NFL players started a national debate when he knelt during the playing of the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality in the United States?

Answer 41

Colin Kaepernick

Question 42

Which of the following individuals was murdered by a police officer in Minnesota. His death sparked the largest protests in U.S. history.

Answer 42

George Floyd