this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
599 points (98.2% liked)

Microblog Memes

10027 readers
1987 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 41 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Pacattack57@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I hate people who use this rhetoric (the op) because literally every citizen over the age of 5, sometimes younger, is a tax payer. Any child that has gone to the corner store to buy candy is a tax payer.

What they really mean is a white, land owning male.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If you could pass an 8th grade civics class, you would know that testing for voting is peak jim-crow era BS.

Go back and try again.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Difference here would be the test is applied to everyone, not only a racial monitory. Still, the idea makes me squirm.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There can absolutely be a difference between a facts based civics test and the intentionally vague bullshit of the Jim Crow era.

Just because a process was used as a cover for systemic discrimination in the past doesn't mean the process is invalid.

We require it for gaining citizenship after all. I've taken the test myself and it's pretty basic 8th grade level stuff about how the government is supposed to function.

I don't think it's inherently wrong to insure that the people participating in the process actually know how the process works.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Disagree, any barriers to participation can (and historiclly will) be abused by those in power. I understand the desire for a minimum level of expectation of society, but unless those expectations are set in stone, they will be moved to disadvantage someone. It would be nice for people to behave and be informed, the world does not work that way...

[–] wander1236@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Seeing as the quoted post is from Matt Walsh, I'm a little concerned about what would end up in his definition of an 8th grade civics exam.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 49 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

(That's page 1 of 3, BTW, just in case anybody thought the 10-minute time limit sounded easy.)

[–] Broadfern@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is one of the tests they used to disenfranchise black voters before, isn’t it?

Matt Walsh is a racist POS.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago
[–] Asetru@feddit.org 19 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I mean... I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe that's why I'm having a hard time here? But there's just too many things that throw me off completely.

  • "Draw a line around"... How would anything I draw "around" something still be a line? Shouldn't a line be straight?
  • "Draw a line around the number or letter of this sentence."... There's no number in that sentence but lots of letters. I'm literally lost in the first question. Or does that refer to the number that comes before that sentence?
  • "write the last letter of the first word beginning with 'L'"... For some reason, this in particular doesn't limit it to "this line", so I was utterly unsure if I was supposed to find the first word on the line, the page, or get a dictionary and find the first L-word there.
  • "Cross out the number necessary, when making the number below one million"... Wat? Like, is this referring to the number being below the written line on the paper and it should be exactly one million or is this just saying the number should be anything below one million? Also, there's just one number there, so crossing that out leaves me with nothing, so I'll just assume I should cross out a digit? Then again, I can't cross out a single digit for the number to become exactly one million, so this is something I really don't get.
[–] nickhammes@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago

No, it's tricky for native English speakers too, and that's the point. It's a literacy test that was given to black people in Louisiana in order to justify taking away their right to vote

[–] grue@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

It's intentionally ambiguous so that the officials administering it always have an excuse to fail you if they don't like the look of you (i.e. you're not white).

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago

It was literally designed to keep Black people from voting.

It's not supposed to be passable.

[–] Cavemanfreak@programming.dev 14 points 2 days ago

The confusion was the point. It was used as a test to disenfranchise black voters 🙃

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

I had the exact same comments. The fifth one mentions drawing a circle so they do know what that is as opposed to a line around something. The first question is just nonsensical to me.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

3 pages of this? I'd say it's a test designed to fail people with ADHD

And dyslexic people

[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

maybe it's my ESL, but draw a line around…?

is that circling something?

Question 5 says circling though…

[–] grue@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

It's intentionally ambiguous so that the officials administering it always have an excuse to fail you if they don't like the look of you (i.e. you're not white).

[–] arudesalad@piefed.ca 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In my gcse class my teacher made us do this test when we were studying civil rights. No one passed it.

Iirc, when it asks you to draw a line around something you fail the question if you draw a circle around it.

That's how deliberately impossible these tests were. No one can pass it without looking at the answers first.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago

I would love to have some contemporary material discussing this, like the officials who designed it, or the campaigners trying to get rid of it

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

This sounds like a goods idea until people start voting for certain people to get less education. Oh wait…

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

College educated voters lean Democrat and people with no college experience lean Republican. So not the winning idea Matt Walsh thinks it is. Especially considering how dumb MAGA voters are

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I would be curious if it's the educational component or the money component that influences people to be right or left leaning.

Yes more people who have second education degrees lean blue, but how many of them are arts degrees and whatnot where they never got to work in their field and are wage slave baristas at Starbucks or whatever.

Meanwhile a lot of people who never went to college went to trade school and are making bank, but most lean towards Republicans.

There was one article I read where people tend to move from Democrat to Republican as they get older, since they eventually amass wealth and net worth and then all of a sudden have more to lose by taxes going up or other policies benefitting those with less then they have and they won't benefit directly anymore.

I'm sure higher education has a role to play, especially down south where even grade school public education is abysmal and most lean to the right.

But money plays a big role too I imagine.

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Civics wasn’t a class we took until high school where I was from.

So.

No exam.… too easy.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anyone who supports something like this and doesn't make more than $200k a year shouldn't have passed their 8th grade civics exam.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

90% of the country doesn't make that much money

[–] friendlymessage@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

The funniest thing is that people who think you need some kind of qualification to vote also think they would be part of those qualified

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Aren't all US High School students required to pass a civics exam before graduation? I was.

[–] __Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

No civics classes when I graduated

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Not me. Graduated '89.

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

"Camel, lion, donkey, camera, man, woman, cheese. See I can remember five things. Easy. Aced it. Sleepy Joe wouldn't admit to what I've just admitted to. Tremendous."

[–] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Idk, we should start with a spelling bee to set the baseline.

[–] Lvdwsn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

A really underrated part of the right always saying this is that your average uninformed viewer leaves the interaction thinking “educated people prefer the right” when nothing could be further from the truth. If this rule was actually fairly implemented and you actually had to pass an 8th grade civics exam idk if republicans would get a single vote.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If you want socialist democracy, sure.

[–] Cabbage_Pout61@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Honest question, why does wanting a politician to know the absolute bare minimum of civics, hence being a regular society member, is akin to a socialist democracy?

Follow up, if a civics test would be mandatory for a politician job, it should also be free to every taxpayer, period.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago

Because civics teaches you the reason for taxes and what the government is for. It will lead to people not being able to run on "taxes bad" platforms and will lead to some kind of centre left , welfare enabled government.

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

socialist democracy

Well, duh! Sign me the fuck up.

Can op pass gas correctly?

[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

8th grade has civics exams?

[–] incompetent@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Not in America.