SRS Final Exam UPDATED ACTUAL Exam
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Who wrote "Killers of the Dream"? - CORRECT ANSWER - Lillian Smith
Look Out For:
Discussion of being raised in the South / Southern ideology from white perspective
The term "the white South"
Southern "values" condemn Blackness and sex
Story of Janie (adopted white-passing child who Smith's family returns when they discover she is
Black)
Author condemns racism of the South
First person / collective first person
Themes:
Reflection on childhood and the place where Smith grew up
Production and reproduction of ideology // imposition of ideology on children
Contradiction between Christian principles and principles of segregation - CORRECT
ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
"It is a strange thing, this umbilical cord uncut. In times of ease, we do not feel its pull, but when
we are threatened with change, suddenly it draws the whole white South together in a collective
fear and fury that wipe our minds clear of reason and we are blocked from sensible contact with
the world we live in" (26). - CORRECT ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
-This is the first time we see the phrase "the white South"
-This phrase labels white supremaciest ideology and those embedded in/participating in racist
society
,"We who were born in the South called this mesh of feeling and memory 'loyalty.' We thought of
it some- times as 'love.' We identified with the South's trouble as if we, individually, were
responsible for all of it. We defended the sins and the sorrows of three hundred years as if each
sin had been committed by us alone and each sorrow had cut across our heart. We were as hurt at
criticism of our region as if our own name had been called aloud by the critic. We knew guilt
without understanding it, and there is no tie that binds men closer to the past and each other than
that" (26). - CORRECT ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
Explores the way that the identity of the white South is intertwined with the past, making the
white South resistant to change/progress
"And then I found it possible to say, 'Why is she leaving? She likes us, she hardly knows them.
She told me she had been with them only a month.' 'Because,' Mother said gently, 'Janie is a little
colored girl.' 'But she's white!' 'We were mistaken. She is colored.'" (36). - CORRECT
ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
-Shows how the markers used to inscribe race are arbitrary
-If Janie is albino, a minor genetic difference makes her white
-Shows how racism is an unnatural imposition on children like Smith, but is impossible to
reverse once it becomes naturalized in people like her mother
Interpolation - CORRECT ANSWER - Relevant Source: Killers of the Dream by Lillian
Smith
Definition:
-The insertion of something of a different nature into something else
-Ideology surrounds you and impacts you, whether you want it to and realize it or not
-Whether you accept authority or not, you will respond to it (Ex: the police)
Important because:
The ideologies of white supremacy and the white South surround white Southerners, allowing
these ideologies to be reproduced and transferred across time
, Who wrote "Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter From the South"? - CORRECT
ANSWER - James Baldwin
Look out for:
First person
African American view of the South
Urgency of desegregation
Violence and Brown v. Board are worth it — education is super important
Racism as emasculating
Compare African Americans who moved North during Great Migration to immigrants
Atlanta
Discussion of old Black man
Themes:
Paternalism
Pace of desegregation
Importance of education - CORRECT ANSWER - "Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter
From the South" by James Baldwin
"Negroes in the North are right when they refer to the South as the Old Country. A Negro born in
the North who finds himself in the South is in a position similar to that of the son of the Italian
emigrant who finds himself in Italy, near the village where his father first saw the light of day.
Both are in countries they have never seen, but which they cannot fail to recognize. The
landscape has always been familiar; the speech is archaic, but it rings a bell; and so do the ways
of the people, though their ways are not his ways. Everywhere he turns, the revenant finds
himself reflected. He sees himself as he was before he was born, perhaps; or as the man he would
have become, had he actually been born in this place" (197). - CORRECT ANSWER -
"Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter From the South" by James Baldwin
-Baldwin's father moved to New York during the Great Migration
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Who wrote "Killers of the Dream"? - CORRECT ANSWER - Lillian Smith
Look Out For:
Discussion of being raised in the South / Southern ideology from white perspective
The term "the white South"
Southern "values" condemn Blackness and sex
Story of Janie (adopted white-passing child who Smith's family returns when they discover she is
Black)
Author condemns racism of the South
First person / collective first person
Themes:
Reflection on childhood and the place where Smith grew up
Production and reproduction of ideology // imposition of ideology on children
Contradiction between Christian principles and principles of segregation - CORRECT
ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
"It is a strange thing, this umbilical cord uncut. In times of ease, we do not feel its pull, but when
we are threatened with change, suddenly it draws the whole white South together in a collective
fear and fury that wipe our minds clear of reason and we are blocked from sensible contact with
the world we live in" (26). - CORRECT ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
-This is the first time we see the phrase "the white South"
-This phrase labels white supremaciest ideology and those embedded in/participating in racist
society
,"We who were born in the South called this mesh of feeling and memory 'loyalty.' We thought of
it some- times as 'love.' We identified with the South's trouble as if we, individually, were
responsible for all of it. We defended the sins and the sorrows of three hundred years as if each
sin had been committed by us alone and each sorrow had cut across our heart. We were as hurt at
criticism of our region as if our own name had been called aloud by the critic. We knew guilt
without understanding it, and there is no tie that binds men closer to the past and each other than
that" (26). - CORRECT ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
Explores the way that the identity of the white South is intertwined with the past, making the
white South resistant to change/progress
"And then I found it possible to say, 'Why is she leaving? She likes us, she hardly knows them.
She told me she had been with them only a month.' 'Because,' Mother said gently, 'Janie is a little
colored girl.' 'But she's white!' 'We were mistaken. She is colored.'" (36). - CORRECT
ANSWER - Killers of the Dream by Lillian Smith
-Shows how the markers used to inscribe race are arbitrary
-If Janie is albino, a minor genetic difference makes her white
-Shows how racism is an unnatural imposition on children like Smith, but is impossible to
reverse once it becomes naturalized in people like her mother
Interpolation - CORRECT ANSWER - Relevant Source: Killers of the Dream by Lillian
Smith
Definition:
-The insertion of something of a different nature into something else
-Ideology surrounds you and impacts you, whether you want it to and realize it or not
-Whether you accept authority or not, you will respond to it (Ex: the police)
Important because:
The ideologies of white supremacy and the white South surround white Southerners, allowing
these ideologies to be reproduced and transferred across time
, Who wrote "Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter From the South"? - CORRECT
ANSWER - James Baldwin
Look out for:
First person
African American view of the South
Urgency of desegregation
Violence and Brown v. Board are worth it — education is super important
Racism as emasculating
Compare African Americans who moved North during Great Migration to immigrants
Atlanta
Discussion of old Black man
Themes:
Paternalism
Pace of desegregation
Importance of education - CORRECT ANSWER - "Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter
From the South" by James Baldwin
"Negroes in the North are right when they refer to the South as the Old Country. A Negro born in
the North who finds himself in the South is in a position similar to that of the son of the Italian
emigrant who finds himself in Italy, near the village where his father first saw the light of day.
Both are in countries they have never seen, but which they cannot fail to recognize. The
landscape has always been familiar; the speech is archaic, but it rings a bell; and so do the ways
of the people, though their ways are not his ways. Everywhere he turns, the revenant finds
himself reflected. He sees himself as he was before he was born, perhaps; or as the man he would
have become, had he actually been born in this place" (197). - CORRECT ANSWER -
"Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter From the South" by James Baldwin
-Baldwin's father moved to New York during the Great Migration
