It seems like literacy is at an all-time low. It’s not only that people don’t read. People aren’t even encouraged to do so. Why read when you can put an iPad in front of a kid’s face? Adults won’t read because they’re likely to decompress their brains after an exhausting day at work. Consequently, they’ll doom scroll and won’t read, either. Moreover, with the emergence of AI, our brains are dulling, and our curiosity is burned out of us. As a result, you have people like Juelz Santana, who earnestly argued that people do not have to actually read.
When he was on the No Funny Sh*t podcast, Juelz told the hosts that financial literacy means significantly more than knowing how to read. Essentially, if you can speak numbers, everything else doesn’t matter to him. “By the time they get to ninth grade, they should be learning how to start businesses. But they don’t really need to learn how to read,” Juelz Santana says. “You could listen to a book on YouTube; you can still obtain the information. You don’t have to know how to read. I believe common sense is better than everything.”
Lastly, Santana says that “reading is just when people want to embarrass you and try to play you.” Now, Charlamagne Tha God has made him Donkey of the Day for discouraging people from reading and learning.
Juelz Santana Ends up On The Hot Seat After Arguing that Literacy isn’t Important
Recently, Charlamagne presented Juelz as the ‘Donkey of the Day’ on the Breakfast Club over his comments about reading. Ultimately, he makes the firm argument that we don’t necessarily have to pick and choose. We can always know how to read and be financially literate. But in order to gain the latter, you have to be good at the former.
“There shouldn’t be an either/or to this discussion,” Charlamagne argues against Juelz Santana. “You should be able to read, and you should learn financial literacy. If you’re going to learn financial literacy, you need to know how to read.”
Additionally, when tackling the idea that you can just listen to an audiobook, The Breakfast Club co-host says you’d never build the necessary comprehension skills you need to prosper, to think for yourself. “If you rely on the apps and audiobooks, then you’re always going to be dependent on someone else’s translation,” Charlamagne continues.
“But if you know how to read, then you have direct access to the information yourself. And what you can’t comprehend, what you don’t understand, then you can ask questions. That is the beauty of reading. But you can’t comprehend or understand if you don’t know how to read first. Kids need to learn how to read, full stop. Adults need to learn how to read, full stop. Reading matters so much, man.”
Lastly, Charlamagne tries to appeal to Juelz Santana and people who think like him with something a bit more personal. “You don’t know how to read to your kids, man?” he says. “That’s something that money can’t buy. Reading to your kids before bedtime, you can’t put a dollar amount on that. But the way this world is going, you’re gonna have kids in first grade reading to daddy before he goes to bed, if the father is even in the house.”
The post ‘You Don’t Know How to Read to Your Kids, Man?’: Charlamagne Gives Juelz Santana Donkey of the Day for Arguing That Kids Don’t Need to Read appeared first on VICE.
