Right-Winger DEVON STACK is a mad man, defends "literacy tests," certain forms of vigilante justice

submitted by Richard_Parker from self.debatealtright

Very interesting commentary at about 1:22:

https://odysee.com/@Blackpilled:b/2021-07-04-00-04-44-(3):0

It is in reference to this analysis of some stupid show called Quantum Leap, where some mad scientist has to travel through time possessing the bodies of people who lived in the past to right some wrong. Really don't know but two shows present propaganda about the civil rights era and Devon Stack offers some pretty insightful but most provocative commentary.

Of real interest, in reference to a scene in the second episode where the scientist is in the body of a klansmen in the 60s, they show a nice, kindly older black man getting the unfiar literacy test treatment, and DS defends the practice, pulling up a notorious Louisiana Literacy Test.

I certainly agree that--in principle--literacy tests are a good idea, and that if we do not eschew this bullshit about liberal democracy altogether. That stated, if the law of the land is a democratic republic, any literacy test needs to be even-handed. The few questions DS goes over are things a third-grader should be able to do, but other questions are simply unfair. It is also with a ten minute time limit (with thirty questions), and one wrong answer disqualifies you.

I took the test during a bout of insomnia (way past two):

https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/exhibits/aale/pdfs/Voter%20Test%20LA.pdf

Pretty sure I answered all the questions correctly, although some were befuddlng to me in a way a legitimate literacy test should not. That is until I came across the last question.

The last question has a typo that makes the question incomprehensible, so I would have failed that. It is possible that the error was transcribed from reproducing it. Even if corrected so it makes sense, "one inter-locking part" seems somewhat inprecise in terms:

Draw five circles that [have] one common inter-locking part.

I am only up to this point in his stream. It is certainly some provocative commentary as always. I do think he opens anti-democratic right-wingery up to criticism when he does not discuss things like this literacy test fairly. I believe he was actually befuddled by one of the questions and thought the document was corrupted from downloading (when it was not). Or do you guys think this test is fine?

all 14 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Girondin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

literacy tests, residency requirements, poll taxes, and the new scheme the republicans are doing in Georgia are all legal copes. We should really just have white primaries, which were constitutional (see Grovey v. Townsend (1935)).

I am probably wrong on the history (been a while since ive read about it) but Smith v. Allwright (1944) ended the practice of whites only primaries and so these literacy tests became increasily unfair and retarded.

A white primary will probably exclude a stacey abrams, literacy tests prob not.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It was a poor attempt to keep Blacks from voting in southern elections. The south should have taken a direct stand against the 15th amendment as a form of legalized voter disenfranchisement. It could have sprouted another civil war but it would continue to undermine the legitimacy of the union.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I do not understand why a legitimate literacy test does not suffice. It weeds out people who should not be votin, which would be quite disproportionately black, perhaps overwhelmingly so. And it withstand scrutiny from outside interlopers. I do think much of the test is fairly unaligned and I think the error in part 30 may have risen from reproduction.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I do not understand why a legitimate literacy test does not suffice.

How does this test get past disparate impact laws in the United States? All the courts would need is to do is collect the racial demographics of people that passed the test and failed the test. Upon the realization that less Blacks passed the test than Whites, they would rule in favor of banning literacy tests. There is no way to game the civil rights movement using their premises, Whites will always lose every time by attempting to push meritocratic barriers to exclude other racial groups. The courts can also create new legal precedence from the ether and reinterpret laws to suit their current political activist ends.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Disparate impact test was later. Washington v Davis. Perhaps abiding by fair play would have slowed the progress of the so-called civil rights movement.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Supposedly the key, only 19 questions.

http://www.odonnellsclassroom.com/homework/PDF/Key%20for%20literacy%20test.pdf

[–]Blackbrownfreestuff 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Blacks can't tell time with an analog clock. I doubt they would be able to pass a poll test.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The last question is a problem. Another key I saw had it so that four cirlces are lined in rows of two, with the fifth circle interlocking them. I would think each intersection connecting the center circle with each outside circle would constitute an "interlocking part." Otherwise I agree the test is not otherwise so unreasonable.

[–]Alan_Crowe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It is tricky to work out whether the tests for voters achieved their aims because they had different esoteric and exoteric aims.

The name tells us what the Southerners wanted the Northerners to think: they were just checking that the voters were literate. More subtly perhaps, the name tells us that the Southerners noticed that the Northerners somewhat repented the loss of life in the Civil War. The North didn't want to be involved any more, so the South could do what it wanted but there had to be a figurative fig leaf, letting the Northerners save face.

So the South wanted to disenfranchise blacks without antagonizing the North. We call that goal both the real goal and the esoteric goal. The South couldn't tell the North the real goal (or at least the had to let the North save face by maintaining plausible deniability).

I think that the tests were "unfair" and achieved their esoteric goal. The moral I draw is about the feasibility of tests for voters. Will tests for voters achieve what they aim to do? I think that generally a voter test will achieve its real aim. If you really care that voters can do arithmetic with millions and billions so that they can understand the numbers used in fancy talk about fiscal policy, you really can devise a test for doing arithmetic with millions and billions, and it will really work for that limited goal. Will public policy be improved? I don't know, but the history makes me confident that the test will do what it is actually intended to do.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah except you could "disenfranchise" both illiterate blacks and illiterate people altogether by a fair, even-handed test that do-gooders cannot second guess and drum up sympathy. I do have doubts whether this is a faithful facsimile of the original. Maybe back the fifth grade education include d geometry puzzles that involved arranging shapes with do many "interlocking parts." Devon Stack's point does lose credibility when he does not assess the test fully and completely.

[–]YJaewedwqewqClerical Fascist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Literacy tests were a hamfisted way of keeping the stupid out of the polls. The reality is that the polls would be tainted regardless because it was democracy and there are/were much better ways of keeping non-Whites and morons out of the polls.

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Again, legitimate literacy tests (assuming this is a faithful reproduction, which I have some doubt about.... do the same job, while insulating themselves from criticism.

That lest sentence should have be written as follows: "Draw five circles below. Arrange these five circles, such that one circle interlocks with the other four circles. The other four circles must not interlock with any of the other four, non-interlocking circles." That is a legitimate, clear, concise set of instructions that educated people with an IQ of one hundred can understand. Playing games just invalidates the test and smacks of cruelty that begets sympathy from do-gooders. A legitimate literacy test proves that there are biological, racial differences.

[–]Node 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The questions were so imprecisely written that the examiner could decree almost any answer correct or incorrect, at his whim.

A huge percentage of the questions have fatal flaws.

  1. Cross out the number necessary, when making the number below one million.

10000000000

Do you cross out 4 or 5 of the zeros? If you cross out 4, then you're taking the italicized phrase from the question as referring to the number below the question, and have made that number equal to one million.

If you cross out 5 zeros, then you've followed the instructions to make the number less than (below) one million.

  1. Draw a figure that is square in shape. Divide it in half by drawing a straight line from its northeast corner to its southwest corner, and then divide it once more by drawing a broken line from the middle of its western side to the middle of its eastern side.

How do they regulate which direction the test taker is facing?

  1. Divide a vertical line in two equal parts by bisecting it with a curved horizontal line that is only straight at its spot bisection of the vertical.

From the google:

A horizontal line is a straight line that is drawn from left to right or right to left and it is parallel to the x-axis in the coordinate plane. In other words, a straight line that has an intercept only on the y-axis, not on the x-axis is called a horizontal line.

I would give more credit for malign intent than an honest attempt at a "literacy" test.

Bonus question:

  1. Draw five circles that [have] one common inter-locking part.

In the context of a circle, wtf is a "part"?

[–]Richard_Parker[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think many of your objections are pedantic. It is pretty clear that "making the number below one million" means the number below. TO interpret the instuction to mean to make the number less than one million is not a natural reading. I am not sure a horizontal line needs to be straight. If you hang a curved ~ cat shelf, you hang it horizontally, even if it is not a straight line. I agree the last question is fatal. Somethings like not putting quotations may be product of antiquated rules or customs, in a time when regions had pronounced dialects not just in spoken language but written language as well.