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RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION
Note how the film answers these questions as you watch the clip from Episode 2: “The Story We Tell” of the film Race:
The Power of an Illusion.
1. According to the video, how did the Founding Fathers explain the contradiction between their ideals
of freedom and liberty and the existence of slavery in early America?
2. In 1619, when the first Africans arrived in Virginia, what defined social status? What types of
differences had the most meaning?
3. Why did planters eventually identify Africans as the ideal labor source to enslave—better than
indentured servants from Europe or Native Americans?
4. Why did whiteness become important to the identity of many Virginians? Why did being white
become a more important characteristic than being Christian or English?
5. What gave white Americans the idea that Africans were “a different kind of people”?
6. What do we mean when we say that the idea of race is “socially constructed”?
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