Direction: In each of the following questions, a sentence with a blank is given, followed by five words labeled (A), (B), (C), (D), and (E). Choose the word that cannot fill the blank appropriately in the context of the passage.
As a country, the United States enforced slavery and segregation, engaged in bombings that killed civilians all over the world, imprisoned alleged ‘conspirators’ under (A) _______during the Red Scare, and on and on. The US continues to grapple with devastating harms caused by the state, and it isn’t alone. Nearly every country and every organisation that has wielded power for (B) _______has a record of moral harms.
The Catholic Church subjugated, forcibly converted, murdered, and abused millions of people across continents. The legacy of the residential school system, through which the Church abducted, forcibly converted, abused and even killed Native children in the US and Canada remains (C)_______, one Pope Francis is trying to address. Germany, Rwanda, the Balkans, Sudan, Turkey and Myanmar all have genocides in their history (and that list is hardly exhaustive). Most of Europe and many countries in the Middle East and east Asia have histories of colonialism that include the occupation of other states, extraction of resources, and the oppression, enslavement and murder of (D) _______.
The individual people who perpetrated these acts are in most cases long dead, but the states and organisations remain. Individuals can commit heroic acts and horrible crimes, but so can states and organisations. Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon; the US put him there. President Andrew Jackson ordered the forcible and violent displacement of tens of thousands of Native people, killing thousands; the US, the nation, committed genocide. Armstrong and Jackson are dead but the US still exists, and the fact that states and organisations outlive individual actors creates the problem. In the US, we’re happy to claim (E) _______for Apollo 11. Yet as a community, we are uncomfortable acknowledging collective responsibility for acts of genocide perpetrated against Native people. If we want to take collective responsibility for Apollo 11, then we should be willing to reckon with taking responsibility for genocide, too.