In school you’re taught that, even after the 15th amendment, blacks were kept from voting by crooked literacy tests — tests that they failed in heaps. Teachers invariably end these Social Studies lessons by saying, “Those tests were so hard even you couldn’t pass them.” No shit, Mrs. Anderson — you’re talking to a bunch of 9-year-olds.
Even after taking institutionalized racism into account, this always seemed like some Affirmative Action type rewriting of history. I mean, isn’t it just as likely that after a couple hundred years of chattel slavery and the non-existence of schools catering to them, a sizable amount of black people simply failed the test on their own merits?
To figure out if literacy tests were in fact crooked, I dug up a bunch of questions from exams used in Alabama in the 50s and gave them to a white Law student and a black Accounting student.
Left: Olek, 22, white guy; Right: Josh, 21, brother
SBTVC: 1. Name the attorney general of the United States.
OLEK: Current?
No, from the 1950s.
O: You know, I think I’m going to pass on that one.
JOSH: Dude, I don’t know.
Answer: Nicholas Katzenbach.
—
2. If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted?
O: I’m going to say two.
J: I’ll say three.
Answer: Two.
—
3. If a bill is passed by Congress and the President refuses to sign it and does not send it back to Congress in session within the specified period of time, is the bill defeated or does it become law?
O: Then it goes into law.
J: Defeated.
Answer: It becomes law unless Congress adjourns before the expiration of 10 days.
—
4. True or false: Each county in Alabama may decide by vote whether or not it will have legalized sale of alcoholic beverages.
O: I’m going to say true.
J: True.
Answer: True.
—
5. If the United States wishes to purchase land for an arsenal and have exclusive legislative authority over it, consent is required from …
O: I’m going to say their City Comptroller.
J: I want to say Secretary of Defense.
Answer: Legislature.
—
6. Name one area of authority over state militia reserved exclusively to the states.
O: Authority over … uh … black people.
J: Don’t know.
Answer: The appointment of officers.
—
7. Name one person by name or title who is part of the judicial branch of government in Alabama.
O: Albert Grossman.
I’m going to have to look that up because I only have one answer. [He was wrong.]
J: Come on! I don’t know.
Answer: Chief Justice Livingston.
—
8. In what year did the Congress gain the right to prohibit the migration of persons to the states?
O: Like 19 … 28.
J: 1949.
Answer: 1808.
—
9. True or false: Women may now serve on juries in Alabama State courts.
O: Bullshit. Wait. No. Maybe? The 50s? They got the right to vote … I’m going to say yes.
J: Yes.
Answer: True.
—
10. The only legal tender which may be authorized by states for payment of debts is …
O: Shit, I don’t know.
J: United States currency.
Answer: U.S. Currency.
—
After the scores were tallied, both these kids failed. Terribly. Olek earned a dismal 40% and Joshua a slightly worse 30%, demonstrating that though these tests might be slightly racist, they are mostly just really, really fucking hard. Basically, if you had to take this test, you were fucked regardless of how much education you had. By way of the grandfather clause, it was mostly only blacks who had to take the exam to prove their “voting competency,” so yeah, I guess literacy tests were a crafty means of disenfranchising blacks. Touche, racists.
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So, at the risk of sounding racist, can we bring back *actual* literacy tests? Like ones that test for the ability to read, and a general familiarity with current events? And maybe the ability to vote in one’s own best interest, as opposed to the fear mongering of… you know what? Fuck it. We’d have a few thousand people voting in the entire country, and I’m not even sure I’d be on the list.
01.27.10 at 10:17 am
See, they have these things called “IQ tests,” and no matter who devises the tests and no matter how confined the tests are to absolutely non-cultural things such as comparing shapes and patterns to one another, the racial results skew the same way every time:
1) Asians
2) Caucasians
3) Hispanics
4) It would be racist to say
01.27.10 at 12:36 pm
@smegma:
And that would be different from today… how?
01.27.10 at 12:37 pm
@loose – indeed. At least as it is, they still let *me* vote.
01.27.10 at 1:09 pm
did u specifically choose people whose initials would spell o.j.? Also, whitey looks like a tool, but probs to blacky for rocking the lindy england.
01.27.10 at 2:11 pm
The irony is this would be a great requirement for everybody. If everybody had to take a test to vote we would ensure that only the people who knew what the hell is going on could decide on issues. This will be the first order of legislation when I proclaim my sovereignty.
01.27.10 at 2:15 pm
A professor at my University, J. Phillip Rushton, did a major study of the intelligence of races and found that Asians were the smartest and that whites were somewhere in the middle, with blacks clearly being the most unintelligent of races. He was promptly fired from his job and a big outrcy ensued in Canada about discrimination.
He was rehired and is now teaching my psychology class. Look into it, dickbag, because his theories make a whole lot of sense.
His famous quote around here is “”It’s a trade off, more brains or more penis. You can’t have everything.”"
You can check it all out here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
01.27.10 at 2:48 pm
I would rather go with more penis.
01.27.10 at 4:55 pm
Bump to the more penis comment.
02.03.10 at 1:40 pm
There was a big kerfuffle when one of the guys who discovered DNA called for the paying of attention to the predictable variations in IQ scores among races. The articles I read all gave hispanics lower scores than the blacks though. Also, if you filter out the very lowest scores (say, only testing people with jobs) the variation goes away. Black cops have the same average IQ as white cops and asian cops for example.
I like the idea that somehow identifying which little drawing doesn’t belong in a group of 4 because all the others have small triangles inside a large square and the odd one out has a large triangle and small squares is somehow racially biased.
08.20.10 at 1:37 pm