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the The African American legend series highlights the accomplishments of blacks and areas as varied as aviation sports, business, literature, music politics, and education. We will explore how African Americans have succeeded in areas where they had been previously excluded because of segregation, racism, and lack of opportunity. I'm your host, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., and joining us on today's program is John Flattow, Director of the Du Bois Institute at Medgar Evers College, and he is also the coordinator of census in New York City, and we're going to be talking in this new millennium about census 2000. Welcome to African American legend, and could you begin by telling us why this census is really so important to the African American community?
Well, Dr. Brown, thank you for hosting this very important show and discussion. What we should know is that the census is as old as this nation. It's been going on for over 200 years, and it was a time in our nation's history when black people were not even counted as a whole person, but only as three-fifths of a person. In the last 50 years, there's been a major problem with an undercount of African Americans in this nation, and in fact, the last census in 1990 was the worst undercount for black people in this country since 1940. And when your undercounted, that means you will definitely be short-charing changed in terms of political representation in terms of government programs and services, et cetera. So as we move into the new century in new millennium, it will be critically important that black people stand up and are counted so that we will receive our fair share of it. How do you know that we were counted adequately in 1890?
That's a hard question. The census bureau has only been monitoring this situation since 1940. So that's the reason we were probably undercounted before, but now it's an official undercount. Now, how do they determine that it's undercount if they undercounted in their first place? Do they go back and count again? How do they determine that? Well, they do do comparative data. They use sampling techniques and projections to determine whether or not they've missed people. And in some instances, they're able to determine that they, while we're being undercounted, there are certain populations that are being overcounted. For example, people that only have more than one residence wealthier persons could actually be counted at more than one address or location. So over 200 years period of doing this, they've been able to develop techniques for figuring out under and overcounting. Now, in terms of the census, do they just count numbers of people or do they actually put down names in the census? Well, they know your name when you receive that census form, but according to the law, once that information is in gathered by the bureau and its data process, they actually suppress the names of individuals.
So, when that data is suppressed, meaning that only census bureau staff who are under pain of law required to keep individual identities confidential, even from other government agencies, under pain of punishment and firing and imprisonment, they required to do that. So that the type of data that anyone would subsequently access would not be able to identify as individuals, you know, specific information. This is 1999 because those of us who do research in African-American history go back to census records. Yes. And we can actually find those. So basically, are you saying that they keep these records suppressed for a certain number of years, or that if you're really doing research, you could find out about today. Well, today, I don't not believe that you could find out an individual's name. So only make data, for example, available to researchers down to block level, and there's certain kinds of information that they might even suppress below that level.
For example, if there were only one millionaire living in one in an area who happened to be an African-American, they would figure out a way to manipulate the data that you would not be able to locate that individual, you know, literally at their household. But the proliferation of data-gapping mechanism between Social Security numbers and critical numbers, I get 20 pieces of mail a day that have a little code in it that they got it from the Social Security or whatever. Now, that seems to complicate the issue in terms of who's where and who's counted. Yes, it does. And there are large major corporations that make millions of dollars in terms of cross-referencing that data, as you suggest, and build marketing research information to know so that they can know about lifestyles, about income levels, and where people live, usually go down to the zip code level, not literally down to a block level next time. So the need for African-Americans to be counted is a political need or an economic need because it's not a historical need at this point in time.
We just established that the generic patterns that come out of looking at the massive data. But why is it? I'm a citizen. Why is it so important that I be counted? What did I get for it being counted? Okay, I think the needs are actually all of the above. They're political, they're economic, they're historical. And the reason that it's important is that if you take the budgets, for example, just with three levels of government, the federal budget is 1.8 trillion dollars. The New York State budget is close to $70 billion, and New York City's budget is about $32 billion. The process by which those dollars are allocated for programs and services. In large measure, you sense this data to develop allocation formulas, to decide how many poor people are in a given area or how many people with poor health status. And then, for example, certain types of health care programs at the federal level would be allocated to local communities based on that type of account or analysis they have of people with poor health status or people with tuberculosis or heart disease, etc.
So that data is used for those purposes. When you talk about unemployment figures or poverty levels, it is census data that defines what those levels are and therefore drives what type of resource allocations should go to those communities for social services, for job training programs, for health care, for those types of needs. But this means that the census goes beyond getting name, birthplace, date of birth. Now, aren't there two kinds of census? One that gives you basic information about how many in the family and where they live. And then there's another kind of long-form that talks about health status, economic status, etc. And if I recall correctly, not everyone has asked every single question.
Absolutely right. There are two forms. There's a short form and a long form. And I believe it's one out of every six Americans will receive the long form and that asks for very detailed information. So, as you mentioned, not only do they know your name and address, they will ask you information about your family size, your residents, the nature of the housing that you live in. They'll ask you about for educational data, income data, etc. And then they'll extrapolate from that one sixth sample, you know, up to track level, census track level, what the income is in that area or poverty levels or education levels, etc. So, yes, there are two forms, a short form and a long form. And then this gets into a problem that the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting about. Do you have to do a head-by-head count of the residents? Or can you use a sample to estimate the total population? I believe they finally worked it out. That for purposes of apportionment, for Congress, they're going to use a head-by-head count, but for purposes of allocating the budgets and the number of poor people and so on, they're going to use the sampling.
Now, this sounds like a bad bargain to me. Sampling supposedly is more correct or accurate because in the head-to-head, you just might miss some folks. So, what do you think about that compromise? Well, I think that the sampling issue is a correction to what is going to be, in fact, some human error when you do literally try to count every head. And, but the courts, as you mentioned, have decided, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution literally to indicate that a head-to-head literal count must be made. And it will be, that same number will be used for determining federal representation, mainly congressional representation. And they've allowed the states and localities to use, as you mentioned, statistically corrected data for other kinds of purposes. It might be for state and local programs. But I think that in some ways, we do lose out because unless we internally mobilize our community, and that's where the New York City Black Advisory on the census comes in, we definitely will have people missed.
And at least in some areas, there will not be the opportunity to correct that on the count without with statistical sampling because it will only be legally allowed for certain purposes. Tell us about the New York City Black Advisory Committee on the census. Who heads it? What is it going to do and how it's going to work? Excellent. The census, as we mentioned, is a federally driven initiative. It actually literally comes out of a provision in the United States Constitution, which requires a count once every 10 years of the U.S. population for purposes of congressional apportionment. That's what the Constitution says. So one of the things that community activists did was reach out to our congressional represent representation in New York City, our Black congressional representation. Congressman Charles Wrangle, Congressman Towns, Congressman Owens and Congressman Meeks.
So they sort of form the bull walk in terms of this organizing effort because we feel that when we reach some of those types of issues that you raise about how well people will or won't be counted, it's one federal agency supervises this whole process to U.S. Census Bureau. So we wanted to make sure that we have leverage with the census bureau in the U.S. Department of Commerce. So it stands the reason that we should, we wanted to work with our congressional delegation. But we also have a cross-section of civic organizations, the NACP and the Urban League church groups, organized labor, educational institutions, such as mega rivers, college and others. We sort of formed in a collective coalition in that sense. And we've also reached out in terms of making sure that this body is diversified in two other ways geographically. New York City is not a monolithic Black community. New York Black people in this city live in all five boroughs. So we reached out. In fact, our first five organizing meetings were consciously held in five different boroughs to make sure that we reached into every corner of the city.
And then New York, New York's Black communities are represent the whole spectrum of the African diaspora. So we made sure that we have African Americans, Caribbean Americans and continental Africans involved in this mobilizing coalition effort. Is this count just of citizens or is it of residents? It's of residents, citizens and non-citizens. And that's one of the major challenges that we have because non-citizen populations, immigrants, people that might not feel comfortable communicating with government are going to be the hard to reach constituents. Let's suppose they're illegal. Well, what happens there, and this is one of the issues that we've raised with the census bureau with the INS Immigration and Natural Service and the Justice Department. Technically, an illegal immigrant, first of all, is supposed to fill out that census form, and their legal rights are to be protected. In other words, when they fill out that census form, that information is not to be turned over to the INS, the FBI, the IRS, the social service administration, or any other government agency.
Trust me. Well, that's that we're going to have to get beyond that stamp because there is cynicism out in our community. We do have huge information. What are some of the safeguards that the advisory committees proposing on this? Well, first of all, there are some safeguards already in place through the law. The line and imprisonment can be imposed upon any census bureau employee that is found to have leaked or released or illegally accessed that type of information. Beyond that, what we must do, that sort of technical legal leads, there are a memorandum that we've gotten copies of from government agencies where they are giving assurances, but the real challenge is going to be to convince our people through our own credible representation. We're not going to listen to an INS official announcing, you know, no, we're not going to read your neighborhood if we find out that a lot of illegals are filling out these forms here. They need to hear that. Our people need to hear that from clergy leadership, from credible neighborhood leaders, civic leaders, giving them those insurances, encouraging them to participate, and providing some legal backup in the event that we do have to protect their rights, if we feel that they're being...
There's some clarification around this. You do the census, and you find one particular set of census tracts that is primarily illegals in it. And supposedly this is going to set up a pattern of federal funding to deal with the issues. Yes. Could not people say, well, look, why are you sending so much money to these folks who are not really citizens? There's a philosophical as well as legal issues there. So what generic position is being taken on this? Is it that people are human beings, deserve services, who are also where they are, or is it that we do have to make some political decisions as to who we are giving money to. For example, we give more money to disable and handicap people than we do to normal people because not normal, but due to people who don't have disabilities.
So how is that being worked out? I know that's part of the issue that comes to this because people in the immigrant community are just as concerned about this as citizens. In fact, more so because they feel that potentially they have more to lose if they do participate in this government sponsored process, and then the information is used against them. And not just non-citizens, by the way, persons who are doubled or tripled up in public housing, homeless people, ex-offenders. There are a lot of categories of citizens in our community and non-citizens who could potentially be threatened by this unless we do our homework and advocate on their behalf, but you raise the point. The we who will determine whether it's appropriate, politically correct, that, you know, immigrants should be receiving government funding for this. Who is the we? The we is our elected political representation, and that is the other outcome of this census process. To the extent that the black community is accurately counted, we will have the maximum political representation representing our interests, our issues, our concerns that will, and they will be the ones to make those decisions.
Let's give you a couple of figures in 1990 where we lost out. The Dinkins administration actually sued the federal government over the 1990 undercount. In that analysis, they projected that there was approximately a 10% undercount of New York City. You're talking about a city, according to the 1990 census, had 7.3 million people. That means the bureau missed 3 quarters of a million people in New York City, and most of them were blacks with the largest undercounted subgroup in the entire country. Immigrants and homeless persons. What does that translate into in terms of political representation? We were short-change, one and a half congressional districts, two senatorial districts, state senatorial districts, and six assembly districts, and a number of those seats would have probably been represented by African Americans or Caribbean Americans, had they been accurately counted and had those districts been properly apportioned and redistricted to cover their neighborhoods.
We would have had more political clout at the table when those budgetary decisions were being made about who should get and who should not. Where these services and programs should go to which neighborhoods or to which communities. So the political representation outcome is also a very important part of this census count and undercount. Well, let's describe actually what's going to happen. First of all, when does the census start for the date? Well, when you say start, it has already started. The races have begun. The bureau has been on the ground in New York City since 1998. But they're not counting anybody yet.
Well, they've actually done some drive runs. They've hired people, they've hired small groups of enumerators who've gone out and they're testing out their field procedures and techniques. So they've already started that. Officially what they're going to do is mail out those that long and short form sometime around mid-March in 2000 and then wait about 45 days and then analyze what the mail response rate is. And then in those neighborhoods and by the way, the worst neighborhoods for mail response happen to be black communities in New York City, Central Brooklyn, Central Harlem, and South Bronx, all the most undercounted areas in the entire nation actually. And based on that low response, then they're going to organize, they're going to hire a massive field force to go door to door in those same neighborhoods and try to get to the people that didn't answer them. Well, that's exactly the point. When this form is sent, it's sent to John Flattow at an address or sent to a resident of. As far as I know, they will use whatever names they have and you also raise a great point because if they don't have an address, supposing it's a new building, then none of those people are going to receive a census form.
Well, if they send a form to a house, let's say that Dr. Roscoe Brown owns this property and it's four stories and he happens to be putting up his sister's family who was burned out six months ago and she's got her husband and six children in there, they're only going to send one form to your house. And if only you answer the form, that means they're automatically going to miss the other eight people that they're going to answer and put all those other people on the form. But it's going to ask you about your family and I think most people would consider only their spouse, their husband, wife or children as their own family. But I'm just pointing out there are several ways that you can miss people. And the form is sent in and they type it up or put it on the computer. And then they say, well, at 105 second street, there's a house, but we didn't get a form from 105. So then they go to 105 or they go back and take the whole of the 100-box of second street.
And they will zero in by address and I think when they have this analysis that shows a very low response rate, they might go door to door as well. And the point you're raising and perhaps literally just go door to door knock on the doors because they know that only 25% of the people in that area mailed their forms back or 25% of the addresses that they have. So they have been doing matching of mailing lists from the utility companies, bank companies, city planning commission, U.S. Postal Service, but it's not going to be a perfect process in terms of working with those people. Because suppose somebody doesn't get counted, should they pick up the phone and call an 800 number and say, hey, hey, hey, I'm counting. Well, they will have phone numbers, but those will probably be locked out. So what they are talking about doing the Bureau is setting up questionnaire assistance centers and we should be able to do mass distribution. That's why we should get organized ourselves. We should have locations and get the word out in communities that if you didn't receive a form in the mail, you can go to your building lobby or you can go to the nearest public library and just pick up a form and use it.
They're trying to work out those procedures, but basically that's going to be one of the alternative techniques to have those forms physically available on the ground so that if someone does not get one in their mailbox, they'll know where to go, fill out a form or get assistance filling out a form and then get into the process that way. I believe I've seen a brochure that says why you should be counted. Yes. And how are you going to distribute that around? How are you going to get that out into the community? What it needs to be a mass distribution and we need to use our own civil society, our own community infrastructure. We need to go through our religious institutions, our churches. We need to go through our public school system. We need to work with organized labor. There were certain unions in this town, municipal unions and private sector unions like 1199 that have thousands of people in certain zip codes. So we're working with organized labor with our churches and with our government agencies.
There were certain key government agencies like the Board of Ed. They have one million children. Can you imagine if one million children took home a flyer notice to those households? They're very likely a number of those households are going to be immigrant households. A number of those people are not going to be on somebody's mailing list. So we're trying to use a multiplicity of techniques for massive literature distribution, community education to help make sure that New York Black New York is our county. So after this first run in March and April, let's say that they look at it and say, look, we still have missed people. What are they going to do in July, August, November to get this thing right? They'll have an analysis. I've actually seen the maps from 1990 where they can show you zip code by zip code where there was a 90% return, 70%, 60%. So the lowest areas with the mail returns are going to then have deployed into those neighborhoods, massive numbers of people who will literally work door to door. And the key there is that we're working with the Bureau to ensure that indigenous local people are hired, not people from Iowa who are afraid to walk some of these neighborhoods or not even somebody from the Bronx being sent to Brooklyn.
But there's enough people in each of our five boroughs who know those local neighborhoods, those should be the people that are hired to go right back into their own neighborhoods. Those are the people that are going to have the credibility to have someone open the door for them, whereas they wouldn't open it for a government official or they wouldn't pay attention to a mail that might come in. So that's the next sort of the quote field operations phase that they're going to use right after, I would say I think it's about 30 days. They're going to allow about 30 to 45 days for the mail to come in and then they're going to roll out. Are you reaching out to community-based organizations? Yes, others. Is there going to be a political test? You have to belong to one particular party or another to be able to be hired. That's a very interesting question. The answer is no. And in fact, Medgar Evers College served as a major testing site on our interterm recess. When the students left, we basically opened up the doors of the college and we had about 2,000 people come through in one 10-day period.
They were in the auditorium, the library, the classrooms. You are required to take a test, a civil service exam. You have to score a certain level and then they're supposed to call you in, get work, negotiate an assignment with you and put you to work. That's the Bureau's basic process. So there will be more testing. So that's another role that we can play in our own community. We need to recruit our own qualified candidates. Otherwise, we may wind up with a lot of people who don't live in our communities and neighborhoods coming into those areas. Reportedly to do a door-to-door count, but they're not going to be effective if they're not from those communities and don't know the people and the neighborhoods. So a good deal of what you and the advisory committee are doing is sensitizing the African American community to the importance of the census. And Caribbean and continental African community. Well, I use African-American generically. Let's use the more generic term, the African community.
African-American community to the importance of the census with some of the safeguards, etc. and also the values we go along with it. And finally, the employment opportunities. Absolutely. Now, once the census is done, how are you going to publicize the results? Well, it'll take a lot less time in 2001 to get that information back out because of the dramatic advances in technology. So, in fact, according to the law by December of 2000, the Bureau transmits to the President of the United States counts for every state in order for them to do, begin to do reapportionment and congressional redistricting. So I'm saying that they start the census officially April 1 of census day. Before the year is out, they will already have preliminary counts out, at least we'll go into the new millennium. Yes. We won an accurate count. Yes.
And John Fletot, Medgarvus College, and the New York Black Advisory Committee, will be out there helping to facilitate this count in the African-American community. On January 14, 2000, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at One Chase Plaza in Manhattan, the New York City Black Advisory Committee on Census 2000, and the Chase Development Group, will co-sponsor a Citywide Conference on Census 2000 and the Black Community.
For more information, please call Area Code 212-290-5779. That's 212-290-5779.
Series
African American Legends
Episode
Census 2000
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CUNY TV (New York, New York)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/522-2v2c82586k
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AAL 099008
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Description
Series Description
African-American Legends profiles prominent African-Americans in the arts, in politics, the social sciences, sports, community service, and business. The program is hosted by Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., Director of the Center for Urban Education Policy at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a former President of Bronx Community College.
Description
In this edition, John Flateau of the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy talks about Census 2000. Taped November 15, 1999.
Description
Guest: John Flateau. Taped 11/15/1999
Created Date
1999-11-15
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Episode
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Moving Image
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00:28:54
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CUNY TV
Identifier: 15798 (li_serial)
Duration: 00:29:08:26
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Citations
Chicago: “African American Legends; Census 2000,” 1999-11-15, CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-2v2c82586k.
MLA: “African American Legends; Census 2000.” 1999-11-15. CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-2v2c82586k>.
APA: African American Legends; Census 2000. Boston, MA: CUNY TV, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-522-2v2c82586k