Has the Black community truly been afforded equal access to literacy necessary to be successful in contemporary America? Reference Richard Wright’s “The Library Card” and any other sources, including your own experience, if you wish.
With contemporary America being considered as starting in the 1960s, I think we need to consider Black Americans in adulthood at that time to weigh in on this question. When watching Richard Wright’s library card video, we see that the young black man was not given the opportunity to read freely. It was luckily followed up by him persevering and becoming a successful writer before his death in the 1960s, but we see his experience as an adolescent just simply trying to go to the library. He had to use his boss as a conduit to enter the library and take out books for himself. This was followed by secrecy and even ridicule from those around him if he was seen reading. I think his story really represents the struggles as a black teenager approaching adulthood in what is considered contemporary America.
Discuss your experience of taking one of the literacy tests from Activity 4. Provide examples of questions and your responses.
I actually chose this prompt for my final paper! The literacy test I chose was the one that was given in Louisiana in the 60s for black voters. I found some of the questions to be quite easy and some so confusing after reading it once it threw me off when it came to actually answering it. I struggled to get through it all, I could only imagine how a potential black voter would do on this test in the 1960s given the limited resources black Americans were given while growing up in that time period.
What is the argument in the article titled “With COVID, the African American Literacy Crisis will get much worse”? Support your answer with evidence from the text, and with your own thoughts on this topic.
A 2017 report by the National Assessment of Educational progress showed that only 17% of black 12th had reached full reading proficiency compared to the 50% of white 12th graders by the end of school. These are the statistics recorded in normal times, imagine if the whole educational system came to a halt, and any resources to improve literacy were taken away. This is what occurred when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Classrooms, which tended to have overcrowding which took away from individual reading attention closed and learning was dependent on online classes. Taking away the in-person interaction was bad enough, but Black students were among the group with little to no access to online connectivity, therefore taking away even that possible interaction. With different learning and reading levels, learning online is hard enough. Imagine if as a black child or teenager, the was a lack of being set up for success from the beginning. Being confined to only online schooling could greatly stifle a black student who was not given the ultimate attention and advantages in literacy.
One thought on “Conversation 7”
It is true that the tests given to black voters back in the 1960s seemed quite challenging as you mentioned given the fact, they were not given the tools and resources needed in order to be at the same literacy level as others. No wonder they are also referred to as “Impossible” tests. They were obviously not ready for these exams as they were obviously not given the chance to be ready for them in the first place. As Benjamin Franklin said once “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”