Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are too quick to label others racist.

It's the 2K we like labels...

racist
sexist
ageist
gay
straight
bi-sexual
Christian
Muslin
Jewish
Hindu
atheist
agnostic
liberal
conservative
SAHM
WOHM
etc. etc. etc.

If there weren't any labels people would lose their friggin minds.

Muslim

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the sort of underinformed opinion that I suspect OP was bestowing on her friends. There is literally so much to unpack here that I'm not sure where to begin, but let's start with the word "projects." Both the word and the concept of "projects" have fallen out of favor in the last 20 years, but they were conceived as subsidized housing for low-income individuals. But, as I said, the concept has fallen out of favor and most low-income individuals now receive housing vouchers rather than subsidized apartments in a concentrated block. So, when you use the word "projects," what do you mean? An apartment complex that is primarily low-income people? Or a large, centralized, block of residences that are all subsidized?

But, let's assume that your acquaintance's mom lives in a subsidized apartment. I'm not sure you know this, but the "projects" aren't exactly Club Med. That's why they are no longer the go-to model for low-income housing. So what exactly is this woman getting that makes you so mad? A small, run-down, apartment built in the 1960s and barely updated since then, and the chance to live in a community solely made up of low-income individuals? Wow, sounds awesome. Sign me up.

Finally, neither the "projects" nor rental vouchers provide free housing. They help low-income individuals by making rent more affordable, but it isn't free. There are also long waiting lists to receive the rental vouchers, and fairly stringent guidelines for keeping them. You can read more here: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/hcv/about/fact_sheet

The vouchers are de facto free. The landlords are willing to take the large portion paid by government and assume the small part will rarely be paid by he tenant. There is a whole industry of slum housing supported by government vouchers.

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't racist, but your fraud comment wasn't cool either. There's not as much fraud as you think.

Love,
a white person on food stamps

What is your data point?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York woman admits she kept her 93-year-old mother's decomposed body for over a year so she could cash her benefit checks.

Fulton County District Attorney Louise Sira says 60-year-old Mary Kersting pleaded guilty Tuesday to grand larceny and improper disposal of a body.

http://www.fox5ny.com/local-news/26542990-story

This has happended more than once. What is the point and how does it relate to the thread. No one denied that fraud occurs.

Who died and made your Welfare Queen?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

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.

Great information in this post.

I'm AA and I don't know anything about the welfare system. However, I have heard the term "welfare queen" often and I know when I hear it, the speaker is referring to what you described. If what you say is true, specifically the above in bold, how did it evolve to referring to black women with many children? Why are white people blaming black people, if a large population of white people are on welfare as well? Honest question. Is it the usual standby reason? The ratio statistics?

This NPR story gives a ton of background. The short version is that the racial lens was there from the beginning, particularly because the woman singled out by Reagan was at best racially ambiguous and possible a light-skinned Black woman "passing" for white. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/20/255819681/the-truth-behind-the-lies-of-the-original-welfare-queen

I'm the original PP who called out the "welfare queen." The NPR article gives a pretty good history. The issue of race and public assistance is huge and complicated. It is related to perceptions of morality and promiscuity based on the values of the dominant class, which in this country has been "upper middle class white men" for pretty much as long as this has been a country. It has to do with the denigration of black men's ability to care for their families ("deadbeat dads") and the evolution of black women as the primary heads of household in many black families. It has to do with poverty, particularly inner city poverty, which is related to housing issues, financial issues, labor issues, you name it. It has to do with drug use, crime, and incarceration.

"Welfare" as it existed before 1996 was called Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Those families were families making very little money, with young children. One of the goals of providing that aid was so that women would be able to raise their children, rather than working. Then those same women were condemned for raising their children instead of getting jobs. The debate became about teen pregnancy, particularly urban teen pregnancy. My personal experience as a white person on welfare in the 80s in the rural midwest was that when teens in my almost exclusively white community got pregnant, their parents made them get married. So you had a lot of young families, with a mother who dropped out of high school, a father who maybe graduated but now works at a gas station or something. My best friend who grew up in SE DC told me that in her experience, teenagers who got pregnant had the baby but didn't get married to the father, who also was not always around later on. As a result, the images you see are young white families and young black single moms.

It is basically impossible to detangle race and poverty in this country, which is probably why OP's suggestion that we reform the public assistance system was met with accusations of racism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York woman admits she kept her 93-year-old mother's decomposed body for over a year so she could cash her benefit checks.

Fulton County District Attorney Louise Sira says 60-year-old Mary Kersting pleaded guilty Tuesday to grand larceny and improper disposal of a body.

http://www.fox5ny.com/local-news/26542990-story

This has happended more than once. What is the point and how does it relate to the thread. No one denied that fraud occurs.

Who died and made your Welfare Queen?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are too quick to label others racist.

Are you kidding? In this country you need to be caught red-handed in a white hood with a flaming cross before someone will even consider you might be acting in a racially insensitive manner.

Even then, someone will come along and defend you by suggesting you were just having a bonfire.

+1. Short of someone using the N word, I very rarely see a White person admit that some incident is racist - and I am half White. Seems to me that some of us are concerned about being labelled a racist - less concerned about whether we actually are.

Anonymous wrote:People are too quick to label others racist.

*People who are more apt to know racism when they see it are too quick to call people out on their racist views*

There - fixed it for you.

Not racist and I completely agree with you !

Anonymous wrote:People are too quick to label others racist.

Are you kidding? In this country you need to be caught red-handed in a white hood with a flaming cross before someone will even consider you might be acting in a racially insensitive manner.

Even then, someone will come along and defend you by suggesting you were just having a bonfire.

Anonymous wrote:People are too quick to label others racist.

It's the 2K we like labels...

racist
sexist
ageist
gay
straight
bi-sexual
Christian
Muslin
Jewish
Hindu
atheist
agnostic
liberal
conservative
SAHM
WOHM
etc. etc. etc.

If there weren't any labels people would lose their friggin minds.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I've read and reread the OP's comments and all the other comments, and I just cannot figure out when and how the OP was at all racist in a discussion about this topic. Unless she is leaving something out about WHO she indicated vis a vis benefits, and WHO might be creating a fraud system, I am seeing absolutely no racism here.
But- interestingly enough, if the person who called her out for being racist assumed[u] that is what she was referring to- a population of people taking advantage, wouldn't that make that person a racist for (for that assumption)!?

OP- call out that person in a quiet conversation sometime. They were extremely out of line considering this was a social event and personally, I would not let it go. If they have an assumption here, then call them out for being racist- and stupid!

If people categorize/stereotype a specific group of people in any way, that is racist. I don't see where that happened here. Poverty, fraud, crime, etc. comes in all flavors,colors, and cultures. Deciding how people can have benefits, when it is best served, and how to control fraud is not racist.

I am the Conservative who posted earlier. There is no doubt in my mind that she is leaving things out and her OP and sock puppeted responses are HUGE red flags for me. I have had these types of discussions too many times to take her posts on face value.

Interesting though that OP offended someone yet you would have her approach the person as if she is the victim. Perhaps, OP should try to UNDERSTAND why her comments were offensive. I tell you what though...if you offended me and then approached me like you suggest, you would "get a good cussin" as my grandma used to say.

People are too quick to label others racist.