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A near impossible literacy test Louisiana used to suppress the black vote

(www.openculture.com)
243 points rcarmo | 3 comments | 21 Oct 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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inreverse ◴[22 Oct 24 04:48 UTC] No.41911288[source]▶
Leaving aside the topics of authenticity and the questions' historical context, it's interesting that the article claims that "most" of the questions are impossible, while >80% have a single clear interpretation. For example, "draw a line under the last word in this line."
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tptacek ◴[22 Oct 24 05:00 UTC] No.41911327[source]▶
Yeah? Which word do you draw the line under?
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happytoexplain ◴[22 Oct 24 05:14 UTC] No.41911387[source]▶
Is there a word trick here I'm missing? I can only interpret it in the face-value sense of underlining the last word, "line".
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tptacek ◴[22 Oct 24 05:15 UTC] No.41911396[source]▶
Sorry, no votes for you; it was "word".

No, wait, you needed to underline every occurrence of the word "line".

Again, no idea if this test is real, just, that's the gimmick.

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1. happytoexplain ◴[22 Oct 24 05:22 UTC] No.41911435[source]▶
I get that the idea is that some questions create ambiguity using wordplay or subjectivity, but do you really think this is one of them? Your examples seem like a stretch even in the context of being unfair on purpose.
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2. reverius42 ◴[22 Oct 24 09:54 UTC] No.41912754[source]▶
Yes, because it is well known that these tests were in fact designed to be unfair on purpose (to a specific racial group). So it's not a stretch to think that these "unfair on purpose" examples are realistic.
3. cedilla ◴[22 Oct 24 10:02 UTC] No.41912790[source]▶
There are three reasonable interpretations I see. The instruction is clearly to draw a line under something. That something may be whatever is followed by "under", so you underline "the last word in this line". Or "in this line" just narrows it down, so only "the last word" is to be underlined. Or the whole "last word in this line" is meant as an instruction to be interpreted, so it's "line". In that case, be careful not to underline the period, as sentence marks clearly aren't part of a word. Or maybe they are.

Oh wait, it could also refer to "the last 'word' in this line", so you would need to underline "word".