What Is Literacy?

Do literacy and reading level determine the websites a person visits?

I grew up admiring my idols - my parents, my friends' parents, my parents' friends, my teachers, my Cub/Boy Scout leaders, Fran Tarkenton, Mean Joe Greene, Richard Petty, Bill Cosby, Sid Vicious (his freedom of expression, not his drug use), Maynard Ferguson, Gandhi, J. R. R. Tolkien, Samantha (from "Bewitched"), the "Mad" magazine writers/artists, my Scottish religious leader (whose sister passed away this year at the age of 102) and many of my peers, to name a few.

During my youth, there weren't a lot of females or minorities in higher leadership positions.

So, primarily I hung out with literate people whose major leaders were white males.

If you met me, you'd see a middle-aged, overweight white guy with a smile on his face.

In my thoughts, I'm still part of a young person who reached out, through literacy, to see a colourless/raceless, genderless world.

Yet, here I am, on the Internet with all the other people who can operate input/output devices to access websites (of course, we can also access FTP sites and other non-WWW electronic destinations but few do or even know how to), some who use the Internet to promote specific race/colour or gender ideas.

Literacy is not an instant-on function like a light switch.

Literacy is a process of bringing a person up-to-speed in one or more types of communications using familiar social symbols to teach new ones.

I live in an area called the Heart of Dixie, with all its traditions and history related to literacy.

Along backroads and hidden behind grassy fields, you'll find the consequences of illiteracy.  Prisons have many illiterate people behind bars.  Low-wage jobs are often filled by those with poor literacy.  Illiteracy knows no colour/race or gender.

By consequence of writing here, I do not aim this blog at those in the last paragraph.  Not directly at them (they could depend on someone to read this to them - that's fine with me).

Literacy creates certain socioeconomic/demographic conditions but not always.  Leaders of the past were known not to be able to read.  Many leaders of today wouldn't know the computer on/off button if it was lit up with an arrow pointing to it.

Basic literacy - being able to read - is not reading comprehension or computer literacy.

I am neither pretentious nor presumptuous.

I use this tool called the Internet, communicating via writing, because it is the easiest form of putting my thoughts down in front of me for both access later on and the safest way to back them up electronically.

By use of this tool, I do not intend to imply that literacy is a requirement to be part of our species, although it does make some forms of social interaction and marketplace exchange move smoothly.

To be alive as part of our species, in whatever form you find yourself or someone with you finds yourself, is being alive.

There are no special requirements to be you.

Curiosity drove me to read about other people's lives and other people's scientific discoveries but my curiosity is probably different than yours.  You may be curious about racing cars, running a country, or logging trees, which may or may not include basic literacy.

We are alive together in this moment, with you or someone you know able to read and operate a computer.  That's all that matters.

Literacy can help us overcome incorrect assumptions perpetuated by local community standards but there are many ways to empower individuals in a community to see universal truths and still care for the community standards that make sense.

I happen to be a white male of my species who grew up in a community led primarily by white males which could have led me to draw certain conclusions about life.

However, I discovered through access to uncensored literacy (which today includes using a computer to access the Internet) that white male leadership is not a universal truth, just a consequence of historic experiments in social engineering, some successful and some not.

Thus, I can happily celebrate who I am - a member of my species - and look for ways to encourage us to find the best leaders for our communities, regardless of their genetic background or literacy rate.