'We Want What Is Ours'

What exactly is it you want, Big Al, other than money?

Black groups on Wednesday urged the government to improve the count of African-Americans in next year's high-stakes census, saying they won't be satisfied with a tally that has historically overlooked millions in their community.

The National Urban League, the NAACP, Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to voice their concerns the Census Bureau might not be doing enough to ensure an accurate tally. Roughly 3 million blacks were missed in 2000, while many whites were overcounted.

"The undercount of blacks in the last count and the overcount of whites by 1 percent is not just a Washington statistic," Sharpton said at a news briefing after the meeting. "It manifests itself in goods and services that cost us."

"We want what is ours," he said.

Sounds like a none-too-sublte threat to me.

Naturally, no evidence is provided to support the theory that 3 million blacks weren't counted and whites were overcounted. If it did happen, take it up with Bill Clinton, who was president at the time of the 2000 census.

The group said it wanted the Census Bureau, an agency of the Commerce Department, to expand its paid advertising to cities such as Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; parts of Mississippi and other areas that have high percentages of hard-to-count blacks, many of whom are distrustful of government workers.

No wonder the Obama people are fighting tooth and nail to get their goons from ACORN to do the counting. I suppose they're more trustworthy.

The black leaders said they wanted to see a change in how the government tallies prisoners, so they are counted as residents of the cities in which they previously lived, not in the places where a prison is located.

Maybe they'd prefer we just empty the prisons?

I wonder whether Sharpton will count as a New York resident, where he plies his shakedown trade, or New Jersey, where he actually lives?