THE 2010 U.S. CENSUS: PROS AND CONS

The 2010 U.S. Census, which is scheduled to be held in March, 2010, is causing various concerns to rise among the public. Some say the condition that every question on the form is required to be filled out is a clear violation of privacy. People of this opinion argue that the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows them not to participate in the Census. There are other groups of people who, while agreeing to, and even supporting participation in the Census, think certain categories and questions of the form should be changed or omitted. For example, the use of the term “Negro” in the form, which was one of the options to the question that asks a person’s race, sparked a public outcry among various ethnic groups in the society. Similarly, gay/lesbian communities called for boycotting the Census because marriage between same sexes were not recognized or considered as an option when families were counted. Also, participation of aliens in the Census is currently another hot topic for debates among Americans in the social media.
Let us have a close look at each one of these issues. For this, I content-analyzed several social media entries on the Internet. First, I googled the phrases “The U.S. Census violates privacy,” “Boycott the U.S. Census,” and “Support the U.S. Census.” Among these search phrases, “Support the U.S. Census” yielded the largest result, 9,410,000 hits. Second was “The U.S. Census violates privacy” which brought 97,800 results, while the phrase “Boycott the U.S. Census” had relatively less number in hits, 89, 400. However, based on these findings, it is too early to conclude that certain issues of the Census concern Americans more than others because the number of results varies tremendously when a word or phrase changes in the search. Rather it would be more appropriate to analyze these issues within the selected entries. Through this, we can qualitatively be able to identify which issues attract more attention, or which ones cause more public concern among the citizens of the country.
Costello, a blogger at Amfix.blogs.cnn.com, poses a direct question in the title of her entry which reads as follow: “Should 2010 census ask, ‘Are you a US citizen?’” The blog post that asks readers to answer this question has turned into a hot debate that can be noticed through the given 163 comments. The main message that can be deducted from the comments is that most of the readers support the position that the Census form should ask the citizenship status of the respondents. Many messages have a negative tone towards not only illegal immigrants, but even towards legal foreign residents in the nation.
In another news story published in web page of USA Today, titled “Hispanic groups call for Census boycott,” readers are much harsher when the issue of illegal immigration was discussed. The story, which had 848 comments within three days of its publication, is full of hatred expressed against undocumented residents of the U.S. “If the MILLIONS of ILLEGAL aliens would go home and take their anchor babies with them, there would be many MILLIONS fewer people to count,” writes a reader named John Doe 2. “This is America, if you don’t like the way we do things – LEAVE!” says another reader, iGeek.
Another major Census-related issue that is being discussed much in the social media is privacy. “Obama’s White House Controlled Census Violates Your 4th Amendment Rights, Will You Comply?” is the title of the blog entry posted by Persing at Resistnet.com. The blogger says that since the survey is mandatory under the threat of an imposed fine for noncompliance, it is a violation of privacy rights provided by the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some of the readers say they will comply with the Census, while several other readers harshly criticize the survey questions. For example, Doug said: “I’d burn it in my tire fire. Anything to contribute to global warming.”
Another opponent of the Census, Eric Smith, who says he has announced his candidacy for NC House District 65 in his blog, calls for boycott of the Census. According to him, the long form asks 53 questions, which is 52 more than the Constitution requires, as the U.S. Constitution says the purpose of the Census is to make only an enumeration; that is, to take an accurate count of Americans for the purpose of apportioning Congressional districts.
Similarly, a YouTube video uploaded by Newsydotcom highlights several hot issues related to the 2010 Census debate among which fear of privacy violation was mentioned as one of the major concerns. The video report also talks about the attitude of the gay/lesbian communities towards the Census since this is the first Census to be conducted after same-sex marriage was legalized in some states. However, because the same-sex couples were not included on the questions form as a family, members of the community are raising their voice against the Census. “Well folks, it looks like we’re going to remain invisible to the 2010 U.S. Census,” writes a gay blogger in his blog entry titled “Census Will Not Count Married Gays in 2010.” He calls his community members to boycott the Census saying, “if you’re LGBT and half of a married couple, throw the damn thing out.” In the given 21 comments, almost all readers support the position of the blogger.
The next big issue that sparked a huge public debate among the various groups is the use of the term “Negro” in the Census form. The news story, “The word ‘Negro’ on 2010 census form sparks debate,” which was posted at http://www.topix.com, gave rise to various feelings among the readers towards the use of the word “Negro”, the term that is deemed offensive by black people. Some said the word is a proper name for the African race, while others described the negative attitude of the minority, non-white groups towards the use of any sensitive word too excessive and unnecessary. “I pulled my kid out of Karate just before he became a BLACK belt just in case MSNBC decides he’s a racist,” comments A Nnoyed in irony.

From the 2010 questionaire. (Census.gov)

A Twitter user, offthemeathook, when come across the news story, “U.S. uses ‘Negro’ on new census forms,” expresses her surprise in the following way: “for real? 2010 census uses the word “Negro”? Guess having black prez didn’t make us “post-racial” after all, eh?” Interestingly, when Npr.org/blogs conducted a poll that asked if it was OK to put “Negro” on the form, 53 percent of the respondents answered “Yes.” Total number of the participants in the poll was 4,671.
David A. Love, an African-American human rights advocate and journalist based in Philadelphia, provides both pros and cons of the use of “Negro” in modern times in his professionally written blog post, “Is Negro the new black?” He says the word Negro symbolically connotes black self-sufficiency and pride. On the other hand, it reminds people of slavery.
As the use of “Negro” has both pros and cons, according to journalist Live, so does the 2010 U.S. Census for me. The primary objective behind the Census is to estimate accurate number of people, which is of utmost importance for the federal distribution of resources and for other purposes. However, there are other concerns against the Census, as mentioned above, which also look reasonable to consider.