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, 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” (Mann & Zatz 129) [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” (Mann & Zatz 129)[2]  The overuse of welfare and the stereotype on African American women as “welfare queens” have been and continue to be seen as a major political problem. However, the fundamental causes of the increase number of recipients were never discussed, such as the lack of education that African American women have and the low paying jobs there are indirectly contribute to the welfare cycle.[3]

          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 women to be “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mothers” who only care about the amount of money they receive through the federal program (Alexander 49).[4] For example, the photograph shows the representation of what most people have of a “welfare queen."

COMMENT: The second draft was very similar to my first draft in terms of the introduction. When I was continuing to write my HCP second draft I did not become aware of how I was missing one of the most important part of my essay which was establishing the actual cause of the problem in the beginning. Instead as you can see I went straight intro describing the history of the stereotype where Reagan used the term welfare queen in his presidential speeches. Information I could have used in my body paragraphs as support/evidence to when I was going to address the problem's history and add a multi-modal. Also in the second paragraph of my HCP draft 2 I was very general in some parts such as when I was talking about the media where the stereotype has been reinforced that led my readers  (classmates and professor Berghof) not know what media I was referring to.

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” (Mann & Zatz).[1] In the video, he firmly asserts 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).

COMMENT: When I was writing the paragraph of the first multi-modal that I was going to include I remembering thinking that I was doing a good job analyzing the picture but it wasn’t until I received the comments from Professor Berghof that I became aware of what I was doing wrong, I was supposed to use the multi-modal to make an argument or to use it as support/evidence. However, she said that the picture itself did not make an argument but maybe the context did. When I read the comment I realized that the picture was not going to be a very good chose to use it in my paper because I wanted to add multi-modals which were going to help me prove my argument; that the welfare queen stereotype is damaging psychological aspects of African American women and that it has had negative economic effects vs. hurting welfare recipients financially.

          In 2012, similar views on welfare were seen through Mitt Romney’s campaign ads which appealed more too white voters (Gilman 256).[1] He believed that president Obama was “loosening TANF’s work requirement” that was established by President Clinton in 1996 (Gilman 249).[2] Attacking President Obama’s Administration and promising that if he was elected president, “he [was going to] put work back in welfare, and end the culture dependency and restore a culture of good, hard work” it can be seen that the problem of Welfare dependency remains the same and instead of trying to find a solution or a way to decrease the number families depending on welfare, the dispute between Romney and Obama “failed to confront the failures of TANF to move families out poverty” (Gilman 250).[3] In addition, in a Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel video it also shows the continuous concern of high dependency on welfare.

In the beginning, John Stossel uses a short interview with a women that works for a welfare office to show how 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 a welfare office.  Stereotype of the welfare queen continue to be affirmed with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq3A-dztXJA   the worker’s statement that “a lot of them are not” looking for a job but instead greatly depend on welfare money.[1](sec 16-39). It insinuates that people depending on welfare are lazy and it adds more support to how welfare queens “game the system” [2](sec 50).  Stossel continues by using a chart to indicate a similar cause that Romney stated, which is that government has taught people to be dependent on welfare. The chart shows that even before there was welfare, people were trying to bring themselves out of poverty but after the law was passed, progress stopped.

COMMENT: The multi-modal that I used above was not a good one that could have been use for this topic since the chart’s focus was to indicate the history of poverty and how people in poverty were coming out of poverty before the welfare legislation, AFDC, was passed. However, when it was passed progress stopped. Now that I look back at my draft I think that adding this multi-modal was where I started to stir away from my topic because I was beginning to talk about poverty. The a added a paragraph that focused on the causes of poverty such as lack of education.

However; Stossel does not focus on how the stereotype against black women on welfare has added more concern to the problem.

          Poverty has always been an issue in the African American community prior to the awareness of welfare abuse but it was not seen because the AFDC was “structured in a way that limited African Americans to become recipients”(Gilens 106).[1] According to “Why American hate Welfare” majority of the recipients were white widows leaving only 13% of the recipients to be African American women (Gilens 106).[2] While later the “Social Security Survivor’s benefit” removed most white widows from AFDC, in 1965-1975 the concern of welfare rose up when there was a triple increase from 2.2% to 6.4% of mostly African American families depending on AFDC (Gilens 106)[3]  Figure 5.1 shows that in 1936 there were less than 15% of African American women receiving AFDC rolls while in 1973 there was a great increase to about 45% (Gilens 106).[4]

However, it fails to state the different biased views people have towards white women recipients and African American recipients. As claimed by the “Return of the Welfare Queen,” white widows on welfare received sympathy while unmarried women of color have been the targets of approbation” (Gilman 257).[1] As a result, the mother’s pension programs that were passed in the early 20^th century gave aid to “suitable” women that were mostly white; in contrast AFDC did not give equal aid to African American women (Gilman 258).[2] Now that most welfare recipients are African American women there is an increase concern of the high number of African American women depending on welfare but less concern on how lack of education is what leads them to become welfare recipients and prevents them from leaving the welfare cycle.

           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 (Juon, Green, Fothergill, Kasper, Thorpe & Ensminger 77).[3] 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 (Juon, Green, Fothergill, Kasper, Thorpe & Ensminger 77).[4] On the contrary, having a high school diploma, GED or some work experience “doubles the possibility of working and staying employed” (Fisher 32).[5] A study conducted by Hamil Luker identified a “pattern of welfare use and nonuse” among four welfare recipient groups.[6] Which were identified as “chronic recipients (17%), young adult recipients (14%), mid-adult recipients (11%) and nonrecipients (57%).[7] 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.”[8] Furthermore the consequences of low education affects African American women in losing welfare benefits because they are not able to comprehend complex welfare regulations or they don’t have the opportunity to find a well-paying job, since they are only limited to low paying jobs because they are not qualified enough for a blue collar job. The negative stereotype of a welfare queen given to African American women has not encouraged a solution to the high dependency of welfare but instead “many report feeling “trapped” on public assistance” because they do not have the opportunities others do in finding a well-paying job (Beattie 66).[9] The term “Welfare queen” has made African American women feel like they have no other alternative but to stay on welfare because they are not receiving the support, such as better job opportunities they need; instead they are continued to be criticized like they were in 70s and 80s. This leads them to have low self-esteem about themselves and it affects them negatively as well because “research [shows] that self-esteem plays an important role in women transitioning from welfare to work” since self-esteem works as a “motivator” and also being only exposed to low payed vocational work does not help the African American women completely move out of the welfare cycle (Bruster 4).[10] 

          Lack of better job opportunities are a major cause of high dependency within the African American women community. The transition between welfare and work is very difficult for African American women since they become more vulnerable economically. After they are not under the welfare program they experience an “increase cost in child care, medical care, transportation, housing,” and etc. which they are not able to offered because low wage (Kalil, Schweingruber, Echols & Breen 201).[11] That’s why so many women feel like they are “on a carousel of low wage temporary, and unstable jobs with little chance of promotion to self-supporting employment” (Kalil, Schweingruber, Echols & Breen 201).[12] Many return to welfare because they aren’t able to support their children. Therefore, women do not get out of poverty but return to poverty once they get off of welfare which leads them to come back.

COMMENT: The paragraphs starting with “According to Welfare Recipient Trajectories of African-American Women Followed for 30 Years,” and “Lack of better job opportunities are a major cause of high dependency” were ones of my weakest paragraphs and were where I was going off topic by stating causes of poverty which included lack of jobs and education. Instead of uses those two paragraphs to focus on how low level of education has affected welfare mothers I should elaborated more on the psychological effects that they experience because of the stereotype not the causes they experience because of poverty. However, now that I look back at those two paragraphs from my second draft of my HCP, I can see that I was already trying to think ahead by adding how jobs and education need to be fixed in order to also approach a solution to the welfare queen stereotype and helping individual mothers better themselves by disconfirming the stereotype and obtaining better jobs (profession jobs).

          The information presented in “Coping with Poverty” raises awareness of poor job opportunities for African American women but like the rest of the sources it does not provide a clear solution. The welfare queen stereotype itself and not providing adequate educational resources to African American communities make them more prone to depend on welfare. However, if there are better job opportunities, more emphases on education and less on “welfare queens” being the problem maybe the issue of welfare will be finally solved.

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.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. Web 14 Oct. 2015
9. Gilman, Michelle Estrin. “Return of the Welfare Queen” American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, Vol. 22, Issue 2 (2014),pp. 247-280. Web 17 Oct. 2015
10. Fisher, James C. "Research On Adult Literacy Education In The Welfare-To-Work Transition." New Directions For Adult & Continuing Education 1999.83 (1999): 29. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.
11. Bruster, Belinda E. “Transition from Welfare to Work: Self-Essteem and Self-Efficacy Influence on the Employment Outcome of African American Women.” Journal of Human Beehavor in the Social Environment 19.4 (2009):375-393. Web. 19 Oct. 2015
12. Danziger, Sheldon, and Ann Chih. Lin. Coping with Poverty: The Social Contexts of Neighborhood, Work, and Family in the African-American Community. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2000. Print.
13. Gilman, Michelle Estrin. "Return of the Welfare Queen, The." Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 22 (2013): 247.