Anonymous wrote:OP, you comments were not racist, at all. There is a lot of abuse in the system, people who think there is no abuse are either naive or willfully acting ignorant. Something to share: The Starbucks I go to has nice young girl (AA) working as a Barista there, we chat a bit everyday and she is very nice and provides excellent customer service. One day in the matter of conversation she mentioned that her mom lives in the projects not too far from the Starbucks and has been living there for 27years. I still like her the same and respect her work ethic but for the life of me I can't understand why somebody would use temporary housing benefit for their entire life. I walk by that section of project housing everyday, every single one of them has cable and majority has young, able people living in there. I understand the concept of generational poverty but government needs to set a time limit for the good of these people, otherwise they have no reason the change a perfectly subsidized lifestyle and OP and me can work ourselves to our grave.

Ummm...you do know that there ARE time limits to certain types of assistance? And what most entitlements these days are kids in the household or diabilities. An "able" person cannot stay on welfare forever - at least legally

But it so nice of you to be concerned about the perceived lack of ambition by the barista's mom as you are waiting for your $4.00 cup of coffee. LOL

OP, you comments were not racist, at all. There is a lot of abuse in the system, people who think there is no abuse are either naive or willfully acting ignorant. Something to share: The Starbucks I go to has nice young girl (AA) working as a Barista there, we chat a bit everyday and she is very nice and provides excellent customer service. One day in the matter of conversation she mentioned that her mom lives in the projects not too far from the Starbucks and has been living there for 27years. I still like her the same and respect her work ethic but for the life of me I can't understand why somebody would use temporary housing benefit for their entire life. I walk by that section of project housing everyday, every single one of them has cable and majority has young, able people living in there. I understand the concept of generational poverty but government needs to set a time limit for the good of these people, otherwise they have no reason the change a perfectly subsidized lifestyle and OP and me can work ourselves to our grave.

jsteele wrote:OP, Sock Puppeting is also a form of fraud. If you want to have a discussion with yourself, please do it elsewhere.

LOL! Love it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this racist? A majority of those on "welfare" are white.

That's what I was going to say. I'm from WV. I associate welfare with white people. If you want to look at a group that has been systemically oppressed and can't break the cycle, looked at Appalachia. It started out with coal mine towns, people being paid in scrip instead of actual money, the company store, coal mining wars (Google 'Battle of Blair Mountain'). Now the same people are dependent on social programs.

+1 I came here to post the same thing. Now I'm leaving because reading threads like this makes me angry. Welfare reform (and certainly "welfare queen") can certainly be a dog whistle but appropriate and productive responses don't begin with "you're racist" or "check your white privilege" but with facts and discussion. Censorship is not a traditional liberal value but it's becoming one and it's frightening.

Anonymous wrote:This weekend at a get together the subject of government assistance came up and I made the statement that I thought the entire system should be scrapped and a better more cohesive one put in place. I feel like people aren't getting the hand up that they need and that should be the focus, to get the support they need until they can stand on their own. I feel like if all assistance went through one agency we could better provide for each specific case and maybe weed out fraud (there will always be some fraud I am sure). I feel like the system is overwhelmed and overburdened and one of the reasons is its just so large and spread out. Some people who might not even know all the help that is available to them. A central agency could even collect data on charitable organizations for easy access to those who needs match the service.

Anyway, for this I was called a racist. Straight up to my face, "Wow, that is racist, I wouldn't expect that from you" then a lecture about my white privileged and not "grasping the concept".

I rarely curse but WTF just keeps going through my mind. Seriously was that racist? Wanting people who are in need be able to get better assistance and easier access?

1. I do not think what you said was "racist." I do think that it does not sound like an informed opinion of someone who understands much about the public assistance system in this country, but it does not read as racist to me.

2. However, when talking about issues related to the public assistance system in this country, there is a very strong prevailing narrative that the system is being abused by people of color. The "welfare queen" held up by Reagan as a standard for why welfare must be reduced was not a young black woman with many children. It was a middle aged white woman (who may or may not have been multiracial, but who definitely self-identified as white). However, the term "welfare queen" has mostly been used to mean young black women with many children. When you start having conversations about welfare reform, people who feel strongly about it are likely to have the kneejerk reaction you described, if only because that reaction would be the correct one in many, many cases.

3. I agree that there is much that can be done to overhaul the system. I think that the introduction of EFT and debit cards for SNAP was a huge thing for food assistance, both to cut down on the stigma associated with using that benefit as well as the fraud that occurred previously. Regarding fraud, the majority of SNAP fraud is on the business end, not the consumer end. If we are going to talk about malfeasance, it needs to be institutional as well as personal. I think that what you're talking about sounds like a great idea, but I would be very worried about implementing the kinds of sweeping reforms you're suggesting in the current political climate. Right wing politicians, who are basically in charge right now, are CUTTING benefits, not expanding them. I do not believe that their motivation is to help, and I would not want the programs that provide life saving assistance to poor people to be reformed by a party who demonstrates their contempt for poor people over and over and over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This weekend at a get together the subject of government assistance came up and I made the statement that I thought the entire system should be scrapped and a better more cohesive one put in place. I feel like people aren't getting the hand up that they need and that should be the focus, to get the support they need until they can stand on their own. I feel like if all assistance went through one agency we could better provide for each specific case and maybe weed out fraud (there will always be some fraud I am sure). I feel like the system is overwhelmed and overburdened and one of the reasons is its just so large and spread out. Some people who might not even know all the help that is available to them. A central agency could even collect data on charitable organizations for easy access to those who needs match the service.

Anyway, for this I was called a racist. Straight up to my face, "Wow, that is racist, I wouldn't expect that from you" then a lecture about my white privileged and not "grasping the concept".

I rarely curse but WTF just keeps going through my mind. Seriously was that racist? Wanting people who are in need be able to get better assistance and easier access?

I like the bolded idea. I think there are so many great charities out there and might even give better help for certain situations.

NP. I agree and was just thinking a couple of weeks ago that we seem to have more charities/entities supporting the same or very similar causes these days and wondering if it would be more efficient to merge them. Seems true for social services too. Personally, I want more money to go to child care, life skills, and job training for people who are capable but don't have the training/education for good, well paying jobs.

Just based on what OP has relayed here, I would not say it is racist.

That being said, this whole thread is odd. Because it appears that OP is providing info to us in such a way as to result in the answer she wants....to validate her own view. IMO, that is a red flag and makes me wonder what was actually said. If it were me and the person who was offended was my friend or acquantaince, I would apologize and clear the air with the person - try to understand from them what was offensive. Coming to an anon forum to get that validation to the tune of "See, I wasn't racist - DCUM agrees with me" kinda says something about you. If you are really open minded - talk to the person who was offended. They are the best person to tell you WHY waht you said was offensive.

Althoughyour views may not be racist, they come off as uninformed. As PP said, advocating lumping all of the aid programs together shows a fundamental ignorance of how these programs are designed to work and how they are funded. Now, depending on your tone and how vocal you were, I could see someone being out off. Heck, I would be put off if someone was arguing loudly about something that they knew little about.

Second, sometimes our intent makes us tone deaf to the message we are actually sending. OP may not have meant to come off that way but maybe the fraud aspect of her statement was argued with more fervor.

Finally, when it comes to welfare, there ARE political dog whistles and it goes both ways.

NP - I don't for a minute believe that OP's toned-down, rational, version of her comments is the full and complete truth.

I'm guessing there were some dog whistles involved, as well as some lumping in of totally different types of benefits. For what it's worth, streamlining benefits as disparate as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, WIC, Veteran's benefits, SNAP, Section 8, etc. would be an absolute nightmare and likely much worse than the system we have.

Anonymous wrote:I think it was an out of line comment and I would not be impressed if I heard it.

What?? Why is the OP out of line? What exactly did she say that is so offensive?

FTR, I work in healthcare and there is a TREMENDOUS amount of fraud.

Anonymous wrote:Why is this racist? A majority of those on "welfare" are white.

That's what I was going to say. I'm from WV. I associate welfare with white people. If you want to look at a group that has been systemically oppressed and can't break the cycle, looked at Appalachia. It started out with coal mine towns, people being paid in scrip instead of actual money, the company store, coal mining wars (Google 'Battle of Blair Mountain'). Now the same people are dependent on social programs.

I don't think it's racist so I guess I'd call the person who involved race in the discussion racist. I'd have responded 'who's talking about race?'

I think with legacy welfare recipients- yeah, there's a bigger problem here that needs fixing- race may be an aspect but I'm not victim-blaming, just wanting to get to the bottom of how to actually help.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:OP, Sock Puppeting is also a form of fraud. If you want to have a discussion with yourself, please do it elsewhere.

Ha! Any chance you'll identify some of OP's sock puppet responses?

Sure, the sock puppet posts are throughout the thread including the first page, but 09/30/2015 07:45 on this page is one example.

Here's 7:45: It's not like OP said there should be no welfare. Sounds like she is looking for a better welfare. But the touchy ass f*ck PC police have to clutch their pearls and cry racism.

Based on this, I'm thinking that the answer is: yes, whatever OP (supposedly) said at the party actually was racist, and the people who (supposedly) responded by saying it was racist were correct.

FYI there is a great website called benefits check up and it will tell you all the benefits you are eligible for.

Anonymous wrote:OMG!!!! For the last time- GOOGLE IT!

You are not entitled to my time. Or to getting basic lessons about the racial/welfare connection in the United States.

Educate yourself- no one owes anything to you...

NP - google what? You are not being clear in your accusations other than you think op is a racist f*boy (wtf is that, anyway?). You're so intent on calling names (or so stupid - you pick) you can't even express WHAT was wrong with her statement or WHY she is racist. "Look it up, look it up!". Look WHAT up? What point are you trying to make?

I don't know if it was racist, but it was pretty clueless to spout off like that if you have no personal or policy understanding of social welfare programs, and think that fraud on an individual level has anything to do with it.