Looking forward to having his voice heard, Josh O’Brien of Nashville, Tennessee, was disappointed when his 2020 census form failed to ask for his opinion of the government or of society in general.
“I had a lot of feedback that I really think could have been really helpful to the government,” said O’Brien. “Admittedly, not all of it positive, but constructive, for sure. I don’t understand why they didn’t ask for ideas about effecting overall societal change.”
Instead, O’Brien found the census questions rather superficial. “Race, gender, age – I mean, haven’t we gotten beyond that surface-level stuff in this day and age?”
He chuckled, and shook his head at his own question. “Apparently not – in fact, that was one of the very points I’d been planning to make.”
Given the census’s lack of interest, O’Brien intends to summarize the information he’d planned to include in his census responses – his “Top Ten Tips for Making Nashville and the World a Better Place” - and send it to Nashville Mayor John Cooper.
“The fact that the federal government isn’t interested, doesn’t give us an excuse not to engage,” he said. “Be the change, is my motto. And I’m making a point of changing every darn day.”
