Tally

An original poem about the census

Now there are places of the uncounted Places of poverty and poetry Of skin tone, language and culture A decade’s determinant Detriment

Deciding between Pretended space and status quo When the reality is Elbow room and wantful need

Last moments Have been stingily offered For the abacus to remain Suspended over us

Let us slow the clock And block the apathy So that in this day of Silenced waiting And crumbling deliverance No one will be allowed to say Anyone deserves to go

Unrecognized

The current administration has worked hard to derail the 2020 census. Although they have been blocked from officially doing so by court rulings, they have none-the-less still largely achieved the goal of under-counting undocumented and documented immigrants, minorities, and those in underserved, impoverished neighborhoods.

The attempt to add a question to determine if residents are citizens may have been thwarted, but it frightened enough immigrants that many refused to complete the census. The effort to then stop counting early before these hard to reach populations could be fully counted was played out back and forth like a yoyo. The October 31st extended date was reverted to September 30th, then October 5th, then back to October 31st. Although it has been pushed back to October 31st, there is unofficial pressure to cut corners in order to complete enough people to make further counting unnecessary as soon as possible.

Although they may not be officially laying off workers, the number of workers still getting cases to complete has dwindled significantly. This is leading to inaccurate data and ignored procedures and quality measures.

The Trump administration's argument against a challenge to their attempt to cut the census short was that the Constitution requires a count but does not say it must be accurate. This further suggests the belief that allowing certain people to go uncounted meets the criteria set forth by the founding fathers for conducting the census.

Natalie Frank has had her poetry featured in several anthologies including Untimely Frost. Her fiction has been published in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found on Amazon under her pen name, Taye Carrol.

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