Miscounting Americans Correctly: Post-Truth as a Guide to Race and the US Census

Gregory Smithsimon — 2018-06-12T15:11:04Z

Paul Schor's book Counting Americans demonstrates that, in the hands of the US Census Bureau, the concept of race has consistently been both tenacious and malleable. In this review, Greg Smithsimon explores the census as the “hidden abattoir” of a deeply racialized American society, a renderer of categories that, while seeming clear and self-evident in daylight, are the contingent product of brutality.
As the best available portrait of an increasingly diverse and multiracial country, the US

- Reviews / United States, history, race, population, demographics, census, data, ethnic identity, US Census Bureau, racial classification

Looking Forward to 2020 While Looking Back: A Brief History of the US Census

Frank Donnelly — 2018-02-27T06:00:00Z

As preparations for the 2020 census are under way in the United States, Frank Donnelly looks back at how the census evolved from a basic head count to a sophisticated operation. The reapportionment of seats in Congress, the distribution of $600 billion in annual federal aid, and a countless number of derivative data sets all depend on the accuracy of the decennial census.
In 1790, the recently established United States became the first nation to conduct a population census designed

- Essays / United States, history, race, population, demographics, census, data, US Census Bureau

Metropolitics

Miscounting Americans Correctly: Post-Truth as a Guide to Race and the US Census

Looking Forward to 2020 While Looking Back: A Brief History of the US Census