Everyone Must be Counted in the 2020 Census
Black and Brown communities have been undercounted in every census — meaning a reduction in resources for our communities. Together, we can change this.
Ebony Miranda , Board Chair, Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County
April 6, 2020
Every 10 years, the federal government conducts a census to count everyone living in the United States. For people of color, especially Black people, the census has traditionally been exclusionary and deeply flawed.
Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution was intentionally designed to protect the institution of slavery by immorally reducing those enslaved to three-fifths of a human being. It remains the only reference to slavery in the Constitution and was the law when the first census was completed in 1790 and for 75 years thereafter until the 14th Amendment was passed. Two hundred thirty years later, Black and Brown communities have been undercounted in every census — reducing our communities, in essence, to three-fifths.
Significant institutional and systemic barriers remain to accurately counting our communities, which is why Black Lives Matter Seattle King County is coordinating the Demand to be Counted 2020 Census Project in Washington state to ensure that everyone is counted in this census. We are being left out and made invisible in the census — meaning a reduction in resources for our communities. Together, we can change this.
Efforts to politicize the census are intended to prevent us from being accurately counted. Among other recent examples, in advance of the 2020 census, an effort to improve the clarity and accuracy of the questions about race and ethnicity was rejected, and there was an attempt to add a citizenship question. This effort to add a citizenship question was not successful — there will not be a citizenship question on the census. But as a result of these efforts, we are either terrified the information will be used to target us and our friends and family for illegal detention or deportation, or we are outraged because failing to ask certain questions means the fullness of who we are as people is discounted.
https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/everyone-must-be-counted-in-the-2020-census/?initms_aff=nat&initms_chan=soc&utm_medium=soc&initms=200406_tw&utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=&utm_content=200406_votingrights&ms_aff=nat&ms_chan=soc&ms=200406_tw
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