Jessica Mena

Professor Berghof

Writing 39C

14 October 2015                          

The Real Problem: African American Stereotype as a “Welfare Queen”                                                          

          Stereotypes of “welfare queens” in connection with African American women have remained in our society and as a result, it has penetrated specific views in many people. Serving as one of the major themes for former President Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in 1976, the issue of public welfare was greatly known through his retelling of the anecdote of the “Welfare Queen.” A women in Chicago who received welfare money through “80 [different] names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, [and in addition was] collecting veterans’ benefits on 4 non-existing deceased husbands”[1]. Although, President Reagan did not explicitly say the race of the women in the anecdote it “left little doubt about the implied racial identity of the abuser”[2].

COMMENT: Since this was my first draft of the HCP and also my first research essay draft I felt that one of my weakest paragraphs was my introduction because when I was trying to start my essay I was trying to start general and then introduce the topic that my paper was going to focus on. I started my essay by saying how the welfare queen stereotype has affected many people by altering their perceptions. Follow that I introduced the history aspect of the stereotype; however, instead of doing this I should have started directly by addressing who are the people getting stereotyped and the effect of the stereotype, which was an important aspect of this essay. Yet, throughout the essay I mentioned more about the history than about the actual importance of the problem.

              Media has played an important role in creating a specific representation of “welfare queens” and as a result, it has been used to misrepresent the entire low-income African American mother’s community. The stereotype categorizes low income African American recipients to be “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mothers” who only care about the amount of money they receive through the federal program[3].

For example, the photograph shows the representation that today on most people have of a “welfare queen." Holding her son on one arm without any concern of him falling, her facial expression represents some sort of happiness and calmness. Her posture shows relaxation. She is not completely sitting up straight but instead her neck is tilted and her eyes are closed. By closing her eyes it can be implied that she is not worrying about anything and instead is lazily enjoy the tranquility of the room. In addition, the smile on her face also shows that she is in a calm state of mind.  In many occasions, President Reagan referred to “welfare queens” to be “abusers, [which] enjoy lives of leisure, whereas [other Americans] work harder than ever before.”[1]

In the video, he firmly asserts in his speech that “if government planning and welfare had the answer” there would have been a decline of people needing help each year but instead, “the need grows greater, [and] the program grows greater”[1] (sec 19-21). However, the fundamental causes of the increase number of recipients were never discussed, such as the high number of African American women who drop out of high school leading it to be more difficult for them to continue post-secondary education and the great amount of low paying jobs there are that indirectly contribute welfare cycle[2]

            In 1965-1975 the amount of American families depending on AFDC tripled from 2.2% to 6.4% and most recipients were African Americans.[3] However, the issue of poverty among the African American community exited prior to that but it was not seen because the AFDC was “structured in a way that limited African Americans to become recipients” and if they were they were not given equal ADC payments[4]. In 1940 the national average payment was $13 per month while African American women recipients were give $3.52 per month[5]. The later increase of African American women recipients under AFDC “resulted from variety of influence” such as the “social security survivor’s benefit” that removed more white widows than black women[6].

COMMENT: In the paragraph above I tried to include more of the history of African American families depending on welfare and went further back into history which did not benefit my paper since I was only supposed to go as far back as 40-50 years. Yet, I included information about African American families being welfare recipients during the 1940s which made my paper a bit longer in the history portion. In addition, another flaw of the history part of my essay was that the history that the primary focus on  this paragraph above was more based on the history of  the increase of African American families becoming dependent on welfare instead of focusing more specifically on the history of the welfare queen stereotype.

Figure 5.1 shows that in 1936 there were less than 20% of African American women receiving AFDC rolls while in 1973 there was a great increase to about 45% that now dependent on welfare[1]. Even though, it can be seen that the number of African American recipients did lower from 1973 -1995 the issue regarding welfare still remains in the present.

          Fairly recent, a discussion between Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel shows the concern about the increase of money invested in welfare and the amount of dependency towards it.  In the beginning of the video, John Stossel uses a short interview with a women that works for a welfare office to show that people still abuse welfare.

The setting of the interview plays an important part in vividly depicting the lines of people, mostly African Americans, waiting outside the welfare office.  The people on welfare continue to get a bad reputation by what the worker states, “a lot of them are not” looking for a job but instead greatly depend on welfare money and the solution to stop this “will be to stop giving away the money” [1](sec 16-39). This statement insinuates that the people depending on welfare are lazy, adding more support to how welfare queens “game the system” [2](sec 50).  Stossel uses a chart to indicate the cause of the welfare problem is that the government has taught people to be dependent on welfare.

The chart indicates how War on Poverty helped lower down the poverty rate but even before there was welfare people were already helping themselves come out of poverty; however, after the law was passed, progress stopped.[1] As well as President Reagan, Stossel fails to mention the indirect causes that have led to the high numbers of African American welfare recipients. He just analyzes the poverty rate and how it has not improved over time. It can be said that he jumps to conclusion by saying that government is teaching people to become more dependent but does not take into consideration why people cannot find a job. Is it that most African American women lack education and that makes it harder for them to find a well-paying job to support her family?

          According to “Welfare Receipt Trajectories of African-American Women Followed for 30 Years,” “half of the welfare recipients that remain on welfare” for more than two years “are African American women who are less educated” and only 18% of the welfare recipients stay longer than 5 years.[1] As a result, African American women that dropout of high school are “three times more likely” to receive welfare as well as being long term welfare recipients.[2] In addition, Hamil Luker studied high school drop outs and identified a “pattern of welfare use and nonuse” among four welfare recipient groups.[3] Which were identified as “chronic recipients (17%), young adult recipients (14%), mid-adult recipients (11%) and nonrecipients (57%).[4] Differences between the groups indicate and support the fact that most African American women recipients lack education. Compared to the nonrecipients, the chronic recipients were more likely to be African American women that “had lower scores on skills test,” had “three or more kids,” and had “never received job training.”[5] The article explains how there is a correlation between low levels of education and the number of African American on welfare but does not provide enough evidence to support the indirect causes in high school that “demonstrate that adolescent schooling experiences are important to shape progress toward poverty (and) welfare.”[6]

           Similarly, “High school and Women’s life Course: Curriculum Tracking, Race/Ethnicity, and Welfare Recipient” emphasizes the greater possibilities of women who drop out of school are more likely to be welfare recipients; however, further explains how (continue discussing this secondary source)

COMMENT: Towards the end of my draft where I started to incorporated notes about what I was planning to write for my next draft it showed how my essay was going to switch routes by starting to talk about the education aspect of poverty and how it is more likely for welfare mothers to be ones who drop out of high school. However, if I was going to continue to write about the effects of poverty with the cause of welfare mothers not continuing their education and longtime outcomes because of that for my second draft of my HCP essay it was going to become disorganized by switching topics. Since out of all the paragraphs that I wrote for this draft none addressed the causes of the stereotype that African American women were exposed to. It wasn’t until my second draft where I added more of the psychological effects that the stereotype caused. However, the paragraph that I added it in was not fully developed since it did not analyze the causes of that psychological effect and how it further affected mothers.

Bibliography

1. Mann, Coramae Richey, and Marjorie Sue Zatz. Images of Color, Images of Crime: Readings. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Company, 2002. Print. Page 129
2. Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New, 2012. Print. Page 49
3. Mironov, Phil. “Ronald Reagan Welfare” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 24 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2015
4. Professor Berghof. Research questions. 12 October 2015
5. Gilens, Martin. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1999. Print
6. USAhistorywriter. “Bill O’ Reilly: Lazy Welfare Queens Gaming the System.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 October 2015.
7. Hee-Soon, Juon, et. Al “Welfare Recipient Trajectories of African-American Women Followed for 30 Years.” Journal of Urban Health 87.1 (2010):76-94. Academic Search Complete. Web 10 Oct. 2015
8. Beattie, Irenee R. “H.S and Women’s life Course: Curriculum Tracking, Race/Ethnicity, And Welfare Recipient” Journal of Poverty 15.1 (2011):65-87. Academic Search Complete. Web 14 Oct. 2015