Census 2010 - What's Wrong With This Picture?

Have you received your 2010 Census form yet? After a bevy of reminders on the news, public advertisements on television (on heaven knows how many channels) and radio, and then, a mailed notice to your address saying “Hey! Your 2010 Census form is coming!” I sincerely hope you have. I suspect all this brouhaha has cost us all another billion dollars or so. You’d think it was the second coming of a Messiah.

So then, you open it up. What’s the big deal here? There are only about 10 questions all told. O.K. I understand “they” need the numbers for an allocation of political state representatives country wide, and “government funds for highways, schools, health facilities and many other programs you and your neighbors need.” Cool. However… Would you please tell me why it’s any of the government’s business to know our marital status? The IRS already has those figures. What exactly does that serve here?

Now. Here’s my major complaint causing me to blog about the 2010 Census:

Why on earth is it important for the government to know our racial makeup?????? Good Grief! This smacks of blatant racial profiling. For the disbursement of government funds? That only makes it much worse. Paranoia? Perhaps that’s it. The government wants to identify communities of one predominant racial type. That way, should the gov’t get nervous – all those folks of one racial type can be “easily” rounded up, and held in modern-day internment camps (or less politely, concentration camps). I am appalled that here in the 21st century, our government is apparently going to base a lot of its decisions upon the racial makeup of neighborhoods, communities, cities and states. If this isn’t racial profiling, it’s damn close!

And hey – writing as a “white person” – all whites are not the same! Why only one category for whites????? For instance, I’m an Anglo Saxon white person with a genetic makeup from at least 5 countries. Is that the same as an Eastern European white person with a genetic makeup of 5 other countries? Or is the cultural background unimportant?

It’s all a matter of perception. Why our government needs to know what color its populace is - is beyond me. Is this a hangover from the early history of this country when it was solely run by rich white males? Are their descendents still worried about “other” folks taking away their power – both economic and political? If so, that might explain why they want to know how many people are male vs. female. Maybe they should ask how many people identify as neither gender, or both, or something entirely new. No. That might prove to be too worrisome.

To review the main 2010 Census questions: Age – o.k. Location – Great. Number of children vs. adults – Great. Gender – pushing it. Marital Status – Why? Looking for a date? Racial Makeup – Completely unacceptable. As I understand it – they need a simple head count of the number of people in this country, and where they live. They really need to stick with that. Anything else is highly provocative.