Reader responses to census cartoon (4-3-00)
I've received a bunch of email from people pointing out that the Census
was used to expediate the World War II internment of Japanese Americans,
and will post some of these when I have some more time. It's a point
well taken -- as always, the issues I tackle are usually more complex
than a cartoon can adequately convey, even the world's wordiest four
panel cartoon. Nonetheless, there are several problems with this
argument. For one thing, this sort of racial information is readily
available to the government, fifty-five years later, through drivers
license databases or any number of sources. If you're seriously worried
about the possibility of a future racially-based internment, you've got
bigger problems than the Census. And of course, there is another point
to be made here, something that I've even heard Jello Biafra, who isn't
exactly a friend of the status quo, state quite strongly: not
everything government does is bad. Census information determines
federal aid to schools, money to cities for anti-poverty programs, the
locations of roads, sewers, etc., etc. -- all of which address
real-world problems somewhat more pressing than the imminent invasion of
the black helicopters.
It is, nonetheless, touching to see the newfound concern for minority
rights being displayed by Trent Lott and all the right-wing yahoos on
talk radio...