fomative IO 2
EXTRACTS
FORMATIVE IO 1
How are religious values used to justify the
supremacy of one group at the expense of
another?
BoW: Caste: The Origins of Our
Discontents
⭐ Things to note
→ TRENDS:
Verb tone
juxtaposing verb connotations
(humiliated and smiling)
Enumeration and ellipsis
God is referred to as the single
definitive factor determining one’s
role in society
As seen on other pages
“God Almighty designed him
for a menial. He is fit for
nothing else.” (125)
“God first created them, by
being made our slaves”
(123)
“I don’t think God meant for a
superior race like the whites
to blend with an inferior
race.” (105)
“Why did God make me an
outcast and a stranger in
mine own house?” (32)
most of these are in the first
person showing the subjectivity
of values and beliefs
BoW: The Underground Railroad
fomative IO 2
Extract Caste (241) (24 lines)
I thought to myself, Did the German people know the carnage they
were celebrating? Yes, it turns out, clips of bombing raids were
shown
during news reels before the feature film at the cinema. They knew
that
the French had been violently defeated. It was two years past
Kristallnacht. They knew that Jewish friends and neighbors had
been
rounded up, publicly humiliated, taken away, never seen again. And
the
people in the crowd were smiling and happy. Everything that
happened
to the Jews of Europe, to African-Americans during the lynching
terrors
of Jim Crow, to Native Americans as their land was plundered and
their
numbers decimated, to Dalits considered so low that their very
shadow
polluted those deemed above them—happened because a big
enough
majority had been persuaded and had been open to being
persuaded,
centuries ago or in the recent past, that these groups were
ordained by
God as beneath them, subhuman, deserving of their fate.
Those gathered
on that day in Berlin were neither good nor bad. They were human,
insecure and susceptible to the propaganda that gave them an
identity to
believe in, to feel chosen and important.
What would any of us have done had we been in their places? How
many people actually go up against so great a tide of seeming
inevitability? How many can see the evil for what it is, as it is
occurring? Who has the courage to stand up to the multitudes in
the
face of a charismatic demigod who makes you feel better about
yourself,
part of something bigger than yourself, that you have been primed
to
believe?
Extract TFA (266) (25 lines)
“We come up with all sorts of fancy
talk to hide things. Like in the newspapers nowadays, all the
smart men talking about Manifest Destiny. Like it’s a new idea.
You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” Ridgeway
asked.
Cora sat back. “More words to pretty things up.”
“It means taking what is yours, your property, whatever you
deem it to be. And everyone else taking their assigned places to
1
 ⭐ Things to note/other takeaways
→ TRENDS:
allow you to take it. Whether it’s red men or Africans, giving
up themselves, giving of themselves, so that we can have what’s
rightfully ours. The French setting aside their territorial claims.
The British and the Spanish slinking away.
The American Imperative or
“My father liked his Indian talk about the Great Spirit,”
American spirit are concepts
Ridgeway said. “All these years later, I prefer the American
repeatedly used by Ridgeway and
spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to
his cohort as a patriotic undeniable
conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to
justification for white supremacy.
be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate.
terms like these and Manifest And if not subjugate, exterminate. Our destiny by divine
Destiny as well are often used, prescription—the American imperative.”
as Cora puts it, to euphemize
“I need to visit the outhouse,” Cora said.
white supremacy and racial
The corners of his mouth sank. He gestured for her to walk
oppression
in front. The steps to the back alley were slippery with vomit
PRONOUN USE: us vs them (we vs and he grabbed her elbow to steady her. Closing the outhouse
they) (first/second person vs third door, shutting him out, was the purest pleasure she’d had in a
person) long while
especially possessive pronouns
regarding abstract possessions
(destiny, rights, property)

used to create a separation

between groups and as an
othering tool.

One group would be

“Americans” and those
agreeing and adhering to the
American Imperative value
system.

The other group would

include everyone else
(especially other races)

Verb tone

juxtaposing verbs (lift and

exterminate, build and destroy)

create impact and show the

double standards inherent to
these values

fomative IO 2 2