The pejorative term ‘welfare queen’ became part of the American lexicon when Ronald Reagan coined it during his 1976 presidential campaign. While Reagan told the true story of a woman who had bilked the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the woman’s case was isolated, and in the decades since Reagan’s campaign and presidency, the term has taken on a life of its own.
The term ‘welfare queen’ has come to be a way to play on racial anxieties without summoning them directly by conjuring up the image of an indolent Black woman who relies on the government to fund her foolishly lavish lifestyle. The term is stereotypical and racist, and adding insult to injury is the fact that the fraud and racial demographic of recipients of government benefits is nothing like what the term leads people to believe.
The myth of the Black welfare queen still persists, and recent remarks by Republican Mississippi state representative Gene Alday illustrates just how pervasive and persistent the stereotype is.
Alday made a racist statement to a Clarion-Ledger reporter in which he said, “I come from a town where all the Blacks are getting good stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.”
What Alday and so many others fail to realize is that most of the people who are in food stamps are, in fact, white.
Read more here.
Ok let’s be real. Whites DO make up more than 50% of welfare roles. However truth be told they under represent their proportion of society whereas other ethnicities make up 13% of society yet double the proportion of the percentage of welfare rolls.
Can you clarify your point?