Last week, a routine visit by a U.S. Census worker in Yuba City, California ended in violence when “police officers shot and killed a woman they said had first threatened the worker with a gun, then later confronted officers with a shotgun.” The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports today that the threat against a Census worker was not an isolated incident. In fact, the Census Bureau says that “more than 113 census takers have been the victims of assaults or attacks this month”:
In response to inquiries by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Census Director Robert Groves said the bureau’s temporary workers knocking on doors to collect information have faced 29 threats involving a gun, four robberies and three instances of being held against their will or carjacked. Seven workers died in car accidents and one was killed while off duty.
The Census Bureau hired about 635,000 people to follow up with people who did not return questionnaires by the end of April. The process is more than half completed, and is scheduled to continue into July.
Bureau officials said the overall pattern and types of incidents are similar to the 2000 census, but cautioned this year’s figures are already much higher than ten years ago and include a mix of news accounts and formal reports to the bureau’s safety office.
As ThinkProgress has noted, for months, conservatives have spread unfoundedfears and rumors about the Census, and some have even endorsed intimidating Census workers. In April, CNN contributor and RedState editor Erick Erickson threatened on his radio show to “pull out my wife’s shotgun” if a Census worker approached his home for the American Community Survey.
Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) took to the conservative blog RedState to call out “blatant misinformation coming from otherwise well-meaning conservatives” about this year’s Census. “There have been calls to only partially fill out Census forms – even though that would be a direct violation of federal law,” wrote McHenry. RedState editor Erick Erickson, who recently became a CNN contributor, has joined McHenry in urging conservatives to fill out the Census because “it’s a Constitutional obligation.” But on his radio show yesterday, Erickson railed against the American Community Survey (ACS), a more-detailed supplemental survey conducted by the Census Bureau, saying that he would “pull out” his “wife’s shotgun” if someone tried to get him to fill it out:
ERICKSON: This is crazy. What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property. They can’t do that. They don’t have the legal right, and yet they’re trying.
Listen here:
According to the Census Bureau, response to the ACS “is required by law (Title 13 , United States Code, Sections 141, 193, and 221). The same law protects the confidentiality of the information.” Erickson basically repeated his comments on RedState this morning, complaining that “naturally the left is out today saying I was on the air advocating killing census workers.”
Update On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart mocked CNN's hiring of Erickson, running through some of his most offensive comments.
M.C.L Comment: "My wife's shotgun" one if I was one of these faux tough guys on the right I wouldn't say I'm going to get my wife shotgun. And two is this kind of talk typical of guys on the right? This false showing how much of a Billy badass I am in front of other wannabes? And I bet the only time these male conservatives like Erickson fired a gun is when they played "Halo" or "Call of Duty" on their Xbox 360s.I bet they crapped themselves if a paper bag is popped right behind them.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
The Census is a popular topic of right-wing conspiracy theories and Fox News host Glenn Beck spent a good portion of radio show today fear-mongering about it. Going through the form, he determined that the government doesn’t have the right to ask any of the questions — except for the first one asking how many people live in your home.
He took particular issue with a question asking for the respondent’s race. But after Beck’s co-host pointed out that the question has been part of the Census since the Founding Fathers’ time, Beck twisted the three-fifths law to claim that the Census is now breeding slavery:
BECK: Why were they asking the race question, you said when, in 1790? … Right, they want to know, do you count as three-fifths? Do you count at all? So, you have to know how many slaves did you have? People find that offensive today because the idea was, if we’re going to count, we want to know how many are here for services etc. etc. and slaves would get less. Well that’s not right. One. One. ‘I’m not three-fifths, I’m one. Whites are not worth than me.’ Now reverse it, why are they asking this question today?
CO-HOST: Because minorities are worth more than whites.
BECK: Exactly right. So you will get more dollars if you are a minority. So you are worth more as a monitory. Well there is no difference. The reason you don’t answer the race question is because one, everyone counts as one. All men are created equal. If you were offended back in 1790 about slavery and that everyone should count the same, do not answer the race question. How dare you. How dare you. At least in 1790, they were doing it to slow the South down on slavery. To try to stop it as much as they can. Today they are asking the race question to try to increase slavery. Your dependence on the master in Washington. No way, don’t answer that question.
Listen here:
Beck seems to be arguing that because a handful of federal programs provide funding to help minority communities, minorities are “worth more” than white people. Of course, the Census actually counts everyone equally, as the Constitution requires, so Beck’s complaints seem aimed more at civil rights programs than at the Census.
Moreover, there is a big “difference” between a law that counted people as less than human and a question that helps minority communities get needed aid. The Census’ race question is “critical” to enforcing civil rights policies and is used to “promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks.” So by urging his listeners to not complete this question, he’s potentially damaging these important efforts.
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, the three-fifths law was not an abolitionist provision designed to “slow the South down on slavery,” as Beck claims. Many of the Founders were from the South and owned slaves, and there were otherpro-slavery clasuses in the Constitution that Beck’s revisionist history can’t explain.
So does Beck think the Census has a “deep seated hatred of white people or white culture”?
Update A new Facebook campaign is calling for the Census to include "American" as a race option, saying "when America QUITS asking people what their COLOR, RACE, Ethnicity is, then we will all become a stronger Group: Americans."
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