If you’ve got 10 minutes, you’ve got time to fill out the 2020 census—and time to watch TT The Artist’s Full Frontal census rap
So, how’s everybody doing out there in social distancing America? [Cacophonous shriek of mingled rage, boredom, and terror.] Understood. Well, at least there’s late-night TV, right? Or, at least, the patchwork of distorted video chat footage, homebound prop comedy, and monologues echoing in empty rooms that pass for your favorite late-night show at this point, as every host is either broadcasting from their (admittedly luxurious) coronavirus survival bunkers or just hanging up a sign reading, “Back when the world gets it act together.”
Full Frontal host Samantha Bee’s taken a more woodsy approach to the whole DIY late-night show genre, however, committing to doing her show from the chilly but bucolic comforts of her backyard. After all, as lots of us are discovering, turning your home into your workplace is a sure way to transform your once-cozy study refuge into, well, a workplace. Still, for those stuck at home in accordance with the strenuous advice of reputable medical professionals (and not forced back to work or school by right-wing evangelical bosses who seem to assume that faith is God’s EPA-approved COVID-19 cleaning product), there’s plenty to do. Apart from curling up in a ball at therapeutic intervals, Bee noted that there’s also ample time to remember that we’re at least partly in this mismanaged mess thanks to the fact that America’s selected a startling number of unfit dong-dongs and assorted jerks to represent them. That’s sort of Bee’s métier, of course, but this time, she’s come armed with a very easy, effective, and practical method to right this rudderless poop-cruise of a nation. It’s time to fill out the census, people.
Noting that everyone has received the 2020 Census in the mail already (and that you can complete it online for this first time this year), Bee urged everyone to dig the envelope out of the Lysol-sprayed mail pile and spend ten easy minutes filling out the decennial American head-count. “I do know that you have ten minutes right now,” Bee admonished, explaining—as one of her late-night colleagues did so ably before—that filling out the census is vital, if for no other reason than it will truly and righteously piss off the GOP. You know, since the census determines not only local funding but also legislative representation, and since—as is the case with voter suppression every election day—Republicans are conspicuously invested in making sure that lower income and communities of color aren’t proportionally included in the process. To help her cause, Bee then busted out an old-school rap about the importance of the census! Relax, Bee wasn’t doing the rapping, instead throwing to actual Baltimore rapper and filmmaker TT The Artist for a Schoolhouse Rock-style banger about, well, filling out the census. As Bee puts it, if you’ve got time to instagram pictures of the “busted-up bread” you just baked in your self-imposed exile from society, you’ve got ten minutes to make sure that your community gets a truly representative voice in how we deal with the next global crisis.