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

(www.openculture.com)
243 points rcarmo | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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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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1. 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.