5 ms·

No offence, but your comment is quite racist. > literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of Ameri

No offence, but your comment is quite racist. > literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of American history; The rates only looked okay if you cut out at least 20% of thr population? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic... Yeah, it was okay in New England but many states had laws preventing slave education.

intuitionist 2y ago
It’s racist to break out statistics along what was literally the single most determinative factor for life outcomes in antebellum America?
- happymellon 2y ago
  No its racist to claim that literacy rates in the States were the highest in the world. As long as you ignore all those pesky non-whites.
  - quacked 2y ago
    Unless the original commenters sneak-edited their comment, they included the word "whites" specifically to not ignore the non-whites and point out that universal literacy was not "universal" in the early US.
    - happymellon 2y ago
      > > 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate > Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. Later on the a small caviet about it being for whites only, but then goes back to ignoring it by saying > It may or may not be relevant to your point, but at least in the US the idea that the average person was illiterate is ahistorical. They were the best read population in the world 150 years ago, and took some pride in that. The average person had a 20% chance of being enslaved and illiterate. Of the remaining ~80% there was high rates, but there was absolutely not universal literacy when there were strict laws in place to prevent it.

5 ms·

No offence, but your comment is quite racist. > literacy rates among whites were not much different than they are today. It is one of the bright spots of Ameri

by happymellon 2y ago

intuitionist 2y ago
It’s racist to break out statistics along what was literally the single most determinative factor for life outcomes in antebellum America?
- happymellon 2y ago
  No its racist to claim that literacy rates in the States were the highest in the world. As long as you ignore all those pesky non-whites.
  - quacked 2y ago
    Unless the original commenters sneak-edited their comment, they included the word "whites" specifically to not ignore the non-whites and point out that universal literacy was not "universal" in the early US.
    - happymellon 2y ago
      > > 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate > Not true in the case of the US, which famously adopted a culture of universal literacy earlier than the rest of the world. Later on the a small caviet about it being for whites only, but then goes back to ignoring it by saying > It may or may not be relevant to your point, but at least in the US the idea that the average person was illiterate is ahistorical. They were the best read population in the world 150 years ago, and took some pride in that. The average person had a 20% chance of being enslaved and illiterate. Of the remaining ~80% there was high rates, but there was absolutely not universal literacy when there were strict laws in place to prevent it.