Am I the only person who gets really excited about the census? I didn’t know this was a nerdy thing until I recently realized none of my friends had marked in their calendars the week the form would arrive or had taken the practice census online just to see how the questions are worded this year.
The census is an awesome wealth of intriguing statistics. Only 2.5 percent Portland’s businesses are black-owned firms? Thirteen percent of the city lives below the poverty line? That’s fascinating! I love the census! So, uh, with that in mind, it was a little disappointing to fill out my form this week. Sadly, the census doesn’t ask any juicy, person questions like whether you bike to work or what kind of drugs you do. I’m white, I rent, okay, that’s all, thanks.
But as I reported on this week in the news section, those simple questions have a major impact on how the nation perceives itself. This is the year first in American history that same-sex marriage won’t be treated as a clerical error. So while there’s still no question on the census about gender identity or sexual orientation, LGBT advocates are celebrating the census tonight at the Q Center on Mississippi. Tonight’s event is the official launch of two upbeat census PSAs the City of Portland released last week, including this one featuring former Mercury news editor Amy Ruiz, her wife and cute dog.
Correction: That dog is not cute.
Is that Pedro’s boyfriend from Real World San Fransisco?
I’ve got a friend who volunteers for the census. He recently shared this interesting fact with me:
“The United States is the only western nation to do a comprehensive census of its population. All other modern nations derive their population counts from statistical inference. The United State’s Constitution requires an accurate count (to avoid disenfranchisement), and as a result we have the most accurate population totals out of any country in the world.”
So take that, cheese-eating, socialist, gay-population-inferring Europeans!