In case you watched Netflix’s “GLOW” — a short sequence in regards to the Beautiful Women of Wrestling within the 80s — you in all probability bear in mind the character “Welfare Queen” (Kia Stevens)— a towering, flamboyant, fake-nail-clad, sequined nightmare conjured straight from white America’s creativeness.
She was every thing the nation had been taught to worry: a Black lady residing giant, flaunting her success, and supposedly milking the system to do it. The joke, in fact, is that she wasn’t only a fictional heel in a wrestling ring. She represented a really actual, completely faux stereotype — one which dominated the Nineteen Eighties, the precise period when “GLOW” is about, and one which has returned to the nationwide dialog as meals stamps had been paused this month amid the continuing authorities shutdown.
The time period “welfare queen” traces again to Reagan-era politics, however its roots stretch deeper into racist folklore. Whereas the time period took place throughout Reagan’s marketing campaign — impressed by an actual lady who recognized as white — it was shortly weaponized to color Black ladies as manipulative, lazy parasites gaming authorities packages, a caricature constructed on racism, sexism, and generational fearmongering. And it’s the identical stereotype comic Mike Epps brushed up towards throughout a current look on “The Breakfast Membership,” when he mentioned he was “glad” meals stamp advantages had been being lower off.
“I informed folks when these meals stamps and stuff get lower off, ‘Don’t fear about that,’” he mentioned on the time. “See, Black folks, we’ve been getting our shit lower off. We’ve been getting our doorways kicked in and stuff. This isn’t for us.”
He continued: “So don’t take this as private in regards to the meals stamps and all that. I’m really glad they’re chopping a few of these n—as off meals stamps as a result of a few of us must not be on meals stamps as a result of it’s a trickle-down impact.”
Epps insisted that reliance on advantages doesn’t simply harm wallets — it contributes to unhealthy diets and poor outcomes.
“You get the meals stamps, then you definately go purchase the meals that offers you most cancers, then you definately eat the meals that offers you most cancers, then you definately’re unhappy, you’re strolling round right here upset, your weight loss plan’s f—d up,” he defined. “Now, I’m gonna inform you some sincere to God reality. Your weight loss plan performed despatched a whole lot of n—as to jail.”
When co-host Charlamagne Tha God joked the rant would land him on Fox Information, Epps brushed it off.
“No, they will’t say that about me. See, that’s one factor about me and little Boosie Badazz: we will’t be canceled.” After extra teasing, he doubled down: “F— the web! … and all people on the market that assume they wanna be mad and say one thing: F— you, man.”
However whereas Epps framed his feedback as blunt, powerful love — even tossing in used arguments about unhealthy consuming habits, regardless of analysis on a hyperlink between SNAP and poor diet selections remaining combined and nuanced — feedback like these land in a different way in the actual world. They reinforce the identical outdated myths that preserve resurfacing each time advantages are threatened—that Black folks make up a lot of the program (they don’t), that fraud is rampant (it isn’t), that help is an ethical failing as a substitute of a lifeline. In keeping with current knowledge by Pew Analysis, 61.1% of SNAP recipients are white, 30% are Hispanic, and 28% are Black.
In actuality, the trendy meals stamp program was established within the Nineteen Sixties to handle starvation and stabilize the agricultural financial system. It has at all times served a racially numerous group of low-income households, seniors, and disabled People. And for many years, the biggest share of recipients has been white, not Black. But the “welfare queen” stereotype persists exactly due to how successfully it has been used to racialize poverty and justify chopping security nets.
That misinformation is now fueling the newest wave of shock, confusion, and bad-faith arguments about who “deserves” to eat as thousands and thousands navigate the disruption in advantages throughout the shutdown. And the political penalties are already exhibiting. Simply days after Epps’ interview, President Donald Trump mentioned SNAP recipients must show “they will’t survive with out” the help.
A decades-old caricature is as soon as once more shaping actual coverage. And so long as the parable lives on, the individuals who need assistance probably the most pays the value.
