I need the world to be clear on what it means when one says another “can’t read” at the United States. (Because I’m unsure if – in other parts of the world, people are shunned or looked down upon like they are at the U.S. if they “can’t read”).

Just because someone cannot read English does not mean they cannot read at all. But at the U.S., folks love to shame the people and create class systems by saying one who cannot read English “can’t read” or is “illiterate”.

One may not be able to read the nation’s designated language, and if one is not originally an Englishman, but has been forcefully conditioned to read a particular language apart from their genetically original tongue by English powers, then how does one assume another cannot read altogether?

Have you tried teaching/communicating in another language to see if they have an easier time reading that before you mark one “illiterate”?

English is a bastardized Proto-Indo-European language that changes all the time. Before consonants and vowels, there is simply sound. How do we know the one who “can’t read” or is “illiterate” does not know a variation of another tongue that WE may not comprehend? Or perhaps a genetic predisposition toward a language that has not been presented to them for THEM to even realize that they lean toward one language or another?

These are very important things to consider before we label folks illiterate or put them down for “not being able to read”. Now, if they have no reading comprehension of ANY language and/or no ability to learn it, then this is what it means for someone not being able to read for whatever reason.

Yes, it is important to be able to communicate the colonial language or the one of the local populations to get around, but we have to do better making assumptions folks, when it comes to that.