Georgia Census Implications

Old Woman with Child in Nepal - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Mike Burnaugh

It has been said America’s two greatest problems are ignorance and apathy, but I don’t know and don’t care.

Proof of this saying can be seen in the shocking results of the recent census results for Georgia. The overall gain was one and a half million people, with metro Atlanta getting 1.2 million and the rest of the state 300,000. All the documented growth took place in Georgia’s northern arc which is 100 percent Republican. They will get another seat in Congress. The stunning development is the lack of any real increase in the city of Atlanta. The announced population is 420,000, versus census projections of 520,000. That has to be a complete embarrassment for the Census Bureau. They had a putrid 59% response rate from Atlanta residents, and despite paying $18 an hour for canvassers, couldn’t find a hundred thousand people.

Believe me, Atlanta has been on a residential building boom. Even if some high rise condos are empty, 100,000 people didn’t die or move away. I have a high degree of confidence in the Census Bureau’s statistical projections. For example, in my home town of Bakersfield, California, they forecast a 40% increase and that’s exactly what they got. The difference is that the growth was in the Mexican population, who cooperate with the census, versus blacks, who apparently do not. Imagine the mindset, not only of residents too inept to function as citizens, but of the Census workers allegedly working up to forty hours a week at $18 per hour, but unable to find anybody. It’s enough to give the third world a bad name.

Call it what you will: corruption, stupidity, fecklessness—it has consequences. In the northern suburbs, a predominately white electorate absorbs Mexican, Asian and black growth while its twenty mega high schools supply eighty percent of admissions to the University of Georgia. In Atlanta’s DeKalb and Clayton counties nothing much seems to be working. Ignorant infighting causes school systems to lose accreditation. Sheriffs go to jail for murdering their successors. Mayors are in federal prison for corruption. Black people ordered released from jail have waited up to two years, and it is black incompetence that keeps them there.

And the Federal Government? Let’s just say they’re still trying to protect blacks from whites, while blacks who can afford it march to the northern arc suburbs. They don’t seem all that afraid of white majorities. If you have an answer, please respond. If I know or care at the moment, I’ll read it.