CASE #1 AFRICAN AMERICANS & WELFARE

The politics surrounding welfare, particularly since the 1960s, have always been entwined with race and racism. During the "great migration" between the early 1940s and the late 1960s, more than five million African Americans left the South for cities in the North. As Piven and Cloward (1), Wilson (2), Lemann (3), and many others have documented, this migration left many African Americans stranded in poor urban neighborhoods, with diminishing access to jobs and other resources that promote social and economic security and well-being. Concentrated poverty and urban unrest were two of the consequences of this social process, and they have been influential in shaping poverty policy.
Martin Gilens picks up the story nearly 40 years later when the government, ironically under the leadership of a Democratic President, abandoned its long-standing commitment to caring for poor women and their children by rescinding their entitlement to public assistance. President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the so-called welfare reform act, in August 1996. Dr. Gilens, a political scientist, asks why this change occurred and suggests some interesting answers.
By analyzing numerous surveys about attitudes of Americans, particularly white Americans, toward many social topics, the author develops the following hypothesis: Americans support helping the poor and are willing to support social programs that do not directly serve their own class interests; however, they are averse to supporting welfare because they believe that it primarily benefits African Americans and that African Americans lack a suitable work ethic.
White Americans believe that the majority of welfare recipients are black, even though the majority are white, because the news media consistently portray images of African Americans when reporting on poverty and welfare, Dr. Gilens points out. And to make matters worse, sympathetic stories about poverty are more likely to feature white families while critical stories more often than not focus on African Americans. Dr. Gilens explores possible reasons for this perspective, focusing on how attitudes are formed.

THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK REVIEW OF MICHAEL GILENS' WHY AMERICANS HATE WELFARE: RACE MEDIA AND THE POLITICS OF ANTIPOVERTY POLICY BY: Joshua Miller, Ph.D., M.S.W.

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