Outtakes from 2010 Census Video, in Swahili
5 May 2010
5 Comments
If the U.S. Census Director Robert M. Groves can spend our money on video guides in 63 languages–including Swahili–well, we can at least make fun of this questionable use of our tax dollars.
I bet my version gets more views than the one our taxes paid for.
From the video, here is how his Uncle Betoto uses his discriminating tastes to categorize redheads.
What in the world is wasteful about translating important government communications into a variety of major languages? Swahili is spoken by about 100 million people worldwide, similar to German. The two minute video is dubbed into *excellent* Swahili, giving information that is necessary for people of African origin comfortable in that language to fulfill the constitutional mandate for participating in the census.
The subtitles are particularly un-funny. Much of the text is about the terrifying prospect of a black man being attracted to redheads. Otherwise, the subtitles fixate on the notion of greedy Africans trying to mooch off legitimate Americans. It closes by saying, “It is your duty to get the fair share that the Founding Fathers of this great country wanted you to get” – which, considering that the Founding Fathers enshrined slavery for Africans in the constitution, is particularly twisted.
Perhaps there is good reason to spend the thousands of dollars to produce a Swahili version. Unfortunately, only 61 people watched the Swahili version on YouTube when I did this. I don’t think it’s worth the expense.
And if Swahili is justified, how about the video they did in Chuukese? There are an estimated 45,000 people who speak it in the world. The point is these aren’t the times to throw money at unnecessary things.
I thought we were supposed to be post racial? The uncle who likes redheads was supposed to be funny, not terrifying. The speaker isn’t a greedy African but an innocent immigrant who loves this land but who believes what the progressives have been telling him about getting his fair share.
Although the video is available on YouTube, the main intent would seem to be for people to view it on the Census Bureau Swahili page. That page contains detailed information about the census, and a link to download the actual census form in Swahili.
Given the amount of text involved, it probably cost the government a few hundred bucks to have the webpage, video, and census form translated. Heck, let’s round it up to $1000. Then let’s multiply that by 63 languages. $63,000 in pursuit of the constitutional mandate to make the census as complete as possible. Total bill to each American for all these translations: $0.00021. Horrors.
The Chuukese people mostly reside on the Caroline Islands, US trust territory from WWII to independence. Some Chuukese now live on Guam, which is US territory. How many? I suppose we could count them to find out. How would we do that – maybe include them in the Census for a thousand dollars? What a radical idea.
As to the racial messages in your subtitles, I’ll leave that to your viewers. But I trust you are not counting how many people watch your work, because counting people would be – what’s your word? – questionable.
Yes, I agree, it probably got more views from their own site. I wish they published how many views it got from there. I disagree about the cost, though. The translation work we’ve done in our business is very expensive, and I don’t see the government ever pay less than the private sector (unless you count medicare).
But you make good points about the Chuukese and the racism some might see in the video. I don’t think counting Chuukese is a goal worthy of spending money, or counting any race for that matter. If they want to measure the content of my character, I’d go for that, but not the color of my skin.
Rubani, are you saying that our federal government spent no more than $63,000 on this idiotic project? Surely you jest…jms
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