It's 2010, and that means the Census will go down later this year.
I was a Census taker in 2000. I lucked out into a motherload of information and basically got to chill all summer. I knocked on doors for two days and let me tell you something right now - THAT SHIT SUCKS. You are treated like a combination of a Jehovah's Witness Bill Collecting Government Paid Snitch, if such a thing were to exist.
Well towards the end of the 2nd day, I went into the management office of this HUGE residential development near my mom's place in Montgomery County, MD (a suburb of DC) called King's Farm. I asked the gal up front if she had a list of the units and how many people lived there. Whatever she gave me met the government's minimum basic requirement for turning in a Census form, and she gave me a LOT of papers. The funny part is, a few of my teammates had been in before and asked for the same thing. I think I spoke to the non-manager on the manager's lunch break, or maybe I'm just a charismatic guy and people can tell I have a warm, caring soul, full of good intentions.
Anyway, because of that list, I was able to turn in the maximum number of response forms per day for the entire summer. I gave the rest to some teammates. Not that they said thank you, but "you're welcome".
Sometimes, things work out for me that way =)
I'm Dr Hak, and I'm a lucky son-of-a-gun - BANG! BANG!
Back to 2010, I am already tired of seeing the commercials, button, advertisements and "awareness" campaigns and everything else they are doing to encourage people to participate.
As far as I'm concerned, they are wasting their time and the taxpayers' hard-earned American money.
For various reasons, certain groups of American residents are wary of filling out anything closely resembling paperwork. Despite all the claims that the Census is NOT going to collect data that will be turned over to "the law", the fact remains that a lot of Black and Brown people just don't fucking believe them.
I'm not going to act surprised at this, because Black people don't fuck with the police. And why should we? Did you see that shit they pulled on Terrence Howard in Crash?!?! I don't know how he didn't snap.
Anyway, illegal immigrants from Mexico, Africa and everywhere in between are NOT going to tell someone with a button and a stack of paper and pre-sharpened pencils a gotdamn thing about how many people
That's too bad.
The Census is America's way of figuring out everything from school funding to political election boundaries. The more people in your area the better. Stand up and be counted!!!
At some point, things may change and poor people trust the Census Bureau, or at least see them as definitely NOT the police.
Until then, I say we get gangster and tie their unemployment/tax refund/welfare checks to responding to the Census. I bet you $15,000 that'd get the folk counted.
And i'm not singling out poor people either. The Census needs to be responded to by EVERYONE, so I say for non-poor people, if you don't respond to the survey you get an AUTOMATIC IRS AUDIT.
All it takes if for people to start losing money or having uncomfortable questions asked to start acting right...
Thoughts? Leave a comment!
Most people don't realize that Census workers are forbidden by law to turn say anything. If a census worker witnessed a drug sale in a home while they were there, they could not report them to the police. If they did, they would subject themselves to a fine of up to $250,000 and/or up to 5 years in jail.
ReplyDeleteCensus forms will be mailed out on or around March 15. Fill out the form, and send it in and no one will come looking for you. If you haven't within 2-3 weeks...well...they'll eventually find you.