The Fair Count to Fair Share Census Initiative seeks to ensure that the Census and its ensuing policies, from the count to its implications for money and representation, are conducted fairly and that the interests of people of African descent are on the agenda.   The initiative has at its core four basic principles:

 

The impact of this undercount touches all African communities in the United States, including those recently immigrated from the African continent, Caribbean, or Latin America. As partners, we are developing a plan that is steeped in the understanding that the historic exclusion of Black people is a key factor in policy-making and practice in this country. And, that ensuring a complete and fair count is not a panacea, but it is a critical factor in all the work we do as part of our larger racial justice agenda.

 

In its own estimation, the Census Bureau asserts that Black men are the most undercounted group in America, as high as 30percent. The term “Hard-to-Count” (HTC) is a catch all phrase for people who, the Census Bureau has determined, are apathetic, disconnected, lacking knowledge, fearful/distrusting of government, displaced, living in hidden, over-crowed, temporary, housing, too busy, or get less mail. While this list seems to be diverse, the faces of HTC communities are not. They are more often than not, Black and/or immigrant communities.

 

It is responsibility of the Census Bureau to overcome barriers to a complete count. Much of the current strategy of the Bureau puts the onus to be counted on people faced with everyday challenges to basic survival. Also, their strategy over-simplifies the legitimate disconnectedness, fears, and mistrust that oppressed communities have toward government. A complete count means that the government uses all means available to accurately enumerate communities, including statistical adjustments. 

 

Prisoners all over this country are counted where they are held vs. where they are from. In 1790 when people in servitude were counted, in part, to provide additional representation and political power to those who owned them, it was a process of clear racial injustice. However, now in 2009, millions of people are counted yet their political representation is siphoned off to communities employed to contain them. In addition to gaining congressional and assembly districts from falsely inflated population counts, communities housing prisoners receive additional federal funds for their public school systems, public hospitals, fire and police departments, roads and transportation –none of which are used by their prison population. At the same time, the communities where prisoners are from lose political representation and federal funding due to population shifts cause by high levels of incarceration. A fair count means that all community members are counted at home.

 

The data collected by the decennial census accounts for nearly 500 billion dollars in resources to communities for critical infrastructure. Internally displaced communities, such the hundreds of thousands of people from the Gulf Coast impacted by Katrina, will be devastated again once the 2010 Census rolls around. Already physically and economically distressed, the region stands to loose millions of dollars for schools, hospitals, roads and public safety. There must be exceptions made in the resource allocation process for displaced communities. The people rebuilding those communities must not loose more ground and the people still displaced must have something to come home to.

 

For more information contact Monifa Bandele, FCFS Project Director at 
mbandele@thepraxisproject.org