Census 2010 gets a "bad rap" in Dallas

Christopher Bridges, better known as rapper Ludacris, came to Dallas as part of a tax-funded $300 million "Luda on the Block Tour" to "change the perception of African Americans" about the 2010 Census.

His campaign includes talking to people on the street and going door to door to convince them "they have nothing to fear about the census. The information they provide is protected by law and will not be shared with the INS or any other Agency that could cause them harm."

The message, no matter how it's delivered from Census 2010, is always the same: how much tax money a person's community will get from the federal government.

The Ludacris rap to the black community is typical of this approach: “The reality is that if they fill in the form and mail it back, it will help revive their community by improving schools, increasing jobs and job training, health clinics, emergency medical service, fire stations, elder care and more."

Cowboy's linebacker Bradie James joined the Ludacris echo chamber: "It's big, man, for emergency services, education, all kind of stuff."

The Constitutional purpose for the census, enumerating the population to determine how many representatives each state gets to send to Washington, is almost never mentioned.

It's as if the Census Bureau has decided that poor folks and people of color are too ignorant to understand anything beyond government handouts.

But some in the Dallas black community still aren't buying.

Monday, when hip-hop blog Nah Right posted his video, which includes a live push on Dallas radio K104, reader response wasn't kind.

• "Luda is def catching a check from the Fed for this…he was clearly reading off a script"
• "luda is a sell out"
• "hiphop been dead"
• "I’d love to know how much they gave Luda to do this"
• "wtf is a community? my house is my community"

Given rapper reps in general, cynics might suspect that Ludacris, rather than being paid by the Fed, is paying off a community service sentence.

Libertarians may be the severest census critics of all (Constitutional issues, political gerrymandering, government overreach, the criminal redistribution of wealth, government database hacking, distrust of government in general) not to mention government's incessant bribery-laced marketing ploy – fill out your forms and we'll dump a load of taxbucks on you.

It's the government, and their census, that's ludicrous.