2. White people use literacy as a hegemonic tool against Black/ African Americans. One example of literacy being used as a hegemonic tool is in the 1964 Lousiana Voter Literacy Test, which made Black / African Americans not be able to vote. Another example of how literacy is used as a hegemonic tool is in “The Library Card” where black people were not allowed to own books because of their race.
3. My experience with the Louisiana Voter Literacy test was confusing because each question seems to be worded in a way that confuses people. In the beginning, it was easy for me, I just had to read each question carefully. one of the easiest questions was #2. The question is “Draw a line under the last word of this line”. this question was self-explanatory the last word was “line” and that is the word that should be underlined. On the other hand, the most difficult question was #13. the question is
“in the line below cross out each number that is more than 20 but less than 30”
31 16 48 29 53 47 22 37 98 26 20 25
I just did not understand this question at all while I was taking the test. I think that time pressure is also a factor that affects the test results. now that I have more time to read the question I sort of understanding what it is asking for.
4. I think this is a difficult question to answer because an answer like” giving Black / African American easy access to resources” is not as simple as it sounds. Put into Szwed’s words we first need to understand “what the community wishes are”. based on that information we would know what type of resources to provide.
5. One argument made in the article “With Covid, the African American Literacy crisis will get much worse”. is that schools are failing to teach Black / African American Students. Especially during the pandemic when most students don’t have access to the resources needed for online learning. The article mentions that this will lead to low literacy levels and low literacy levels will obstruct a kid’s success in college, career, and life.
2 thoughts on “Santos Chamorro DB7”
I can definitely relate with you when it comes to the questions for the Louisiana Voters Literacy Test. It was also easy for me until I was towards the middle and ending of the test. The way the questions were worded was very difficult to comprehend and it slowed me down a bit.
I agree- most of questions from the literacy test were hard enough just to understand, much less complete correctly. With an approximate 20 second-per-question time limit, I can’t imagine many people were able to pass it at all.
I think a lot of times America uses simple solutions to be able to say we’ve addressed an issue, but the performative nature of that approach ignores the nuance involved in access to literacy. Understanding the needs of the community should be a baseline for resource allocation, but that gets overlooked when we consider it addressed after throwing some money at k-2nd graders.