#24 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[brcibake]

For this question, I was stuck between D and E. Both were strong but I did not pick E as it was referring to the latter part of the 19th century and didn't include the 20th century.
For D, the passage does discuss how dissatisfied African Americans were with their citizenship rights or lack thereof. D seemed more fitting. Why is it not right?
Thanks in advance

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hu Brcibake,

Answer choice (D) states that we would be able to tell by reading this passage whether there were any textual ambiguities in the Fourteenth Amendment that spurred the citizenship conflict for African Americans. You correctly stated that we can tell that there existed conflicts over the question of citizenship, but we have no way of knowing if this ultimately cam from a textual ambiguity in the amendment itself, or if the conflict originated elsewhere.

Let me know if this helps!

[Capetowner]

Isn't "conflict" too strong in Answer D? Citizenship was a "central issue", but doesn't "conflict" require some other party?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Capetowner,

I wouldn't necessarily say the word "conflict" is a problem with Answer D. "Conflict" simply means "a serious disagreement or argument." While it can describe actual violence/war, such as an armed conflict, it can also just mean having opposing views, such as "I'm conflicted about whether or not to go to the gym today." In other words, it's a very broad/general term that can be used in many different ways.

In the passage, the two sides of the argument over U.S. citizenship among African Americans were the group who wanted to remain U.S. citizens and the group that wanted to leave the U.S. and become citizens elsewhere (lines 18-21).

As Francis notes in the post above (Post #2), the real problem with Answer D is that there is no indication in the passage that "there were any textual ambiguities in the Fourteenth Amendment that spurred the citizenship conflict for African Americans." Textual ambiguities in the Fourteenth Amendment were simply not discussed in the passage at all.