Some of the questions in the Literacy Test definitely popped out as being racially insensitive. For example, when they ask "How many states are in the Union?", they aren't taking into account how a majority of black people, previous slaves, live in the South, and weren't educated about the North. In addition, when the questions about the President come up, they are almost pointing out how all presidents are white. And when asking "Who elects the President?", black people are yet again reminded of their minority in the political system.
In a lot of these questions, I have realised how unfair they are towards black people because of their slave history. As slaves, they weren't educated about anything. And they didn't know about anything other than what happened on the plantation they lived on and possibly in the town, if they lived in one. So all the questions about law making, branches of the government, Amendments, they are all things that normal black people definitely would not know about. In addition, slaves weren't really a big part of the economy when the original colonies were founded, therefore they wouldn't know facts about them.
One question that shocked me was: "What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence?" I think this is awful because the main belief was that "all men are created equal." But black people were definitely not treated equally, and still aren't. This is very insensitive to the fact that whites in America during this time thought of black people as animals, and inferior to the human race. But black people are humans and are just like white people, so their main justification for this was completely false.
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