Current Events > I have a query about slavery in the US. How true is this

(+) Yeah! (+)

it was illegal in many states for slaves to learn to read or write



That's not my query.
My query is this: what the fuck why? Wouldn't it have been more beneficial to let slaves read and write so they could do more than... labour that did not require reading and writing? I'm trying to understand why it would be illegal but can't think of any logical reason

please advise and do the needful ce

I suspect the concern was that they worried about slaves getting too smart and/or non-verbally passing notes to each other to try and plan an uprising or some shit

RealityDose posted...

Wouldn't it have been more beneficial to let slaves read and write so they could do more than... labour that did not require reading and writing?

No. Not really.
Keeping the slaves dumb and illiterate was union busting before unions existed.

I'm just thinking of it from the attempt at erasing Irishness when the English took over here
Like literally everything was attempted to be removed, all aspects of culture almost

Surely they'd see the people who can read/write in the same way that we would have seen Irish people who can read/write in Irish, fucking inspirations

like the whole concept is confusing

RealityDose posted...

it was illegal in many states for slaves to learn to read or write

That's not my query.
My query is this: what the fuck why? Wouldn't it have been more beneficial to let slaves read and write so they could do more than... labour that did not require reading and writing? I'm trying to understand why it would be illegal but can't think of any logical reason

please advise and do the needful ce

For the reason they weren't allowed to gather in groups, carry weapon-like objects, or a ton of other things. They did not want their enslaved workers having the ability to threaten them in any way.

RealityDose posted...

I'm just thinking of it from the attempt at erasing Irishness when the English took over here
Like literally everything was attempted to be removed, all aspects of culture almost

Surely they'd see the people who can read/write in the same way that we would have seen Irish people who can read/write in Irish, fucking inspirations

like the whole concept is confusing

They weren't attempting to integrate. They were enslaving them. Their culture was already destroyed. It was replaced with being a slave. At best they were allowed to attend church...that they had to build themselves after doing slave work all day

It's true. Even after slavery was abolished, there were a bunch of ridiculous Jim Crow laws. The reason a lot of older black Americans like butter pecan ice cream is because black people weren't allowed to eat vanilla ice cream in public. So people found the closest flavor to vanilla and started eating butter pecan instead.

Stops slaves from being able to communicate with other people. Stops slaves from reading any news or legal documents or correspondence or anything that would inform them about what's happening in the world. Stops slaves from getting "ideas" about how their lives might be different. All these things could lead to a revolt. Even worse, a coordinated revolt. Without the ability to read, slaves are forced to rely on their "masters" to get any information, which allows their "masters" to doctor the information to keep the slaves under control.

It's still happening today. This is why the Republican party wants to dismantle the public school system. This is why Trump calls everything fake news. Literacy and education are powerful weapons against oppression.

Gonna leave this here
https://mronline.org/2021/12/03/the-american-prison-systems-war-on-reading/

In some ways it was cruelty for cruelty's sake.

It's the same as the Catholic church did in the early days, attempting to monopolize literacy. People who can read and write are much more likely to learn and not do what those in charge tell them.

Part of this is why they broke families up, exercised traditional names and customs, and promoted illiteracy.

It deprived your identity of all but that of a slave.

Education is power

Any kind of work requiring reading and writing most likely have been dedicated to hired help or maybe a single "trusted" slave in a higher position than the others. Overall, giving them any tools with which to organize would have been seen as a bad thing. Also, in dehumanizing them, they probably saw such acts as "above their station."

Would you have an easier time or a harder time enslaving someone who was smarter and more educated than you?

Because they could communicate

and if they learned to read, they might learn that slavery was bad

and then rebel

Think of it like today, how they try to ban books about gay couples. Because of people learn that gay couples arent demons, then the party who has been hating gay couples for years suddenly seems evil