Why is mentioning “food stamps” or “Chicago” a racist dog-whistle? Because conservatives made it one.
Conservatives have a problem with history. It’s not just that their preferred rhetorical appeals harken back to a Golden Age that only existed on the television shows they watched while their mothers or their maids slaved away in the kitchen—though that’s clearly problematic—nor is it just that they rely on a cursory examination of ill-worded search results to construct their devastating critiques of the evils of everything to their left to hilarious effect. So it’s not just that their fake history is a projected concoction or that their understanding of actual history is wanting that I take issue with: it’s that their understanding of their own history is facile they can’t tell the forest from the seas.
Case in point: the oblivious guffawing about “food stamps” or “Chicago” being metonyms for racism in conservative circles. That this seems as obvious a gambit to liberals as mentioning black people and swimming pools is beside the point: they’re crying “No foul!” so it needs doing. (Sigh.) To establish the metonymic “credentials” of “Chicago” I could go back to the anti-labor sentiment that prevailed during the time of the Haymarket Riot or the anti-immigrant sentiment that prevailed two decades later or the anti-machine politics sentiment that prevailed during the reign of Daley the First or the anti-left and anti-anti-war sentiment that prevailed during and after the 1968 Democratic National Convention but I won’t. To do any more then note in passing that Chicago’s always functioned as a convenient punching bag for conservatives would a waste of time.
Because there’s a particular moment in the history of conservative metonymy that bears mentioning in the light of the “unbelievable” or “outrageous” claim that associating President Obama with “food stamps” or “Chicago” might constitute a “subtle” form of racism supposedly only detectable by liberals. But before we get there we need to perform a simple Google search for “food stamp president” and quick scan of the results. Conservatives are clearly trying to create an association between President Obama and food stamps. It doesn’t matter that the majority of food stamp recipients are white because conservatives aren’t building a factual argument—they’re making a rhetorical appeal. The very fact that movement conservatives embraced the image of President Food Stamps indicates the success of the appeal. Why would liberals claim that there’s a racial component to that appeal? Is it, as conservatives argue, simply because the President is half-black and any policy or entitlement linked to him is speciously yoked to his color?
Of course not. Only a person pig-ignorant of recent history would make such a claim. So here’s where we stand:
- The President hails from Chicago’s South Side.
- Conservatives have successfully branded Obama President Food Stamps.
Where’s the racism? How about we ask the Most Blessed Saint of the Modern Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, who said the following of a woman from the South Side of Chicago during the 1976 campaign:
She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.
Not only did Saint Ronald invent the myth of the “welfare queen” with this remark, by doing so through the image of a woman from the South Side of Chicago he explicitly made it a racial issue because the South Side is 95 percent African-American. I grant that Saint Ronald could’ve done everyone a favor and summoned this mythical woman from the dark depths of a Harlem or a Compton or any other area that even the most ignorant contemporary conservative knows is overbrimming with black folk. But he didn’t. He chose the South Side, which in 1976 still brought to mind images of noted rabble-rouser Martin Luther King, Jr. marching in support of public housing. To whose minds were and are those images brought? The largest block of voters in the Republican Party: old white people.
These old white people just happen to be the same who pine for the Golden Era when Saint Ronald ruled the land. When they claim that the linking President Obama to food stamps or Chicago isn’t racially coded they’re either age-addled or lying. They remember Saint Ronald and are still moved by references to his rhetorical appeals. That they deny knowledge of how the unadulterated appeals themselves worked points to either dementia or dishonesty. So let’s add this up one more time for them:
- The President hails from Chicago’s South Side.
- Chicago’s South Side is 95 percent African-American.
- Saint Ronald linked the South Side to food stamps.
- Conservatives have successfully branded Obama President Food Stamps.
What do you get? I get a rhetorical situation in which conservatives can negatively signal Obama’s blackness to their core constituency of old white people in two interrelated ways that can both be directly traced back to Saint Ronald. Meaning that not only is Obama’s blackness connected to food stamps and Chicago via an established rhetorical appeal, that appeal bears the authorizing imprimatur of the Most Blessed Saint of the Republican Party. The only way contemporary conservatives can credibly claim that there’s no racial component to mentioning Chicago or food stamps would be to disown Saint Ronald. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Good thing nobody bothered to ask Reagan for a name, or even how he knew about this woman. Because this story was so intrinsically plausible that to ask for a citation would be the same thing as Hating America.
Well, not mentioning a name gives his ideological cohorts some rhetorical cover. After all, there’s only a 95 percent chance that this anonymous woman was black, meaning there’s a 5 percent chance she wasn’t, so Democrats are the real racists! today, Democrats are the real racists! tomorrow, Democrats are the real racists! forever!
Look! This Democrat is even quoting another racist Democrat!
He got the story from Janet Cooke.
According to Kaaryn Gustfson in Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty, the term “Welfare Queen (New York Times)”, “Queen of Welfare (New York Times)”, and driving a Cadillac (New York Times and Washington Post), were used in newspaper stories.
And the combined efforts of the worst three cases known are about a quarter of Reagan’s Imaginary Typical Welfare Cheat, so that makes Reagan almost not a racist liar.
I agree that politicians ought not to exaggerate when making their arguments.
You mean lie?
I’m not sure what your point is: that newspapers took Reagan’s grossly exaggerated misstatement of fact and labeled it as if it bore some resemblance to reality? That the rhetorical trope is somehow diminished because Reagan only used it, he didn’t christen it?
Reagan used a label in 1976 he found in the New York Times in 1974. The “Queen of Welfare” label comes from the New York Times of 1978. Gustafson make two interesting points: even Carter wanted to tie welfare eligibility to work and welfare fraud became a big issue in the 1970′s because of computerization of the system. There was already a systematic distrust of women on the dole and there was for the first time evidence that “waste, fraud, and abuse” was a problem.
Also according to Gustafson, in 1983 Dorothy Woods of Pasadena plead guilty to collecting $377,458 in benefits. She drove a Rolls-Royce, a Cadillac, and lived in a house with a pool.
Ronald Reagan didn’t invent or coin the notion of the “welfare queen”. It was there for him to use.
Ronald Reagan didn’t invent or coin the notion of the “welfare queen”. It was there for him to
usemassively exaggerate for racist effect, which Fritz completely unsurprisingly defendsFixed.
Reagan used a label in 1976 he found in the New York Times in 1974. The “Queen of Welfare” label comes from the New York Times of 1978.
This is stupid. You realize I’m talking about an appeal, not a label, right? Even if he merely popularized the label by repeating the appeal, the important thing — the only significant thing — is the appeal. You’re ignoring the argument in order to be pedantic, and it’s tedious.
Also according to Gustafson, in 1983 Dorothy Woods of Pasadena plead guilty to collecting $377,458 in benefits. She drove a Rolls-Royce, a Cadillac, and lived in a house with a pool.
Wow, so seven years after Reagan popularized the appeal by linking it to traditionally African-American communities, a women who didn’t live in a traditionally African-American community actually did what Reagan claimed sans evidence. What’s your point? That’s right, a pointless thread-jack.
You’re ignoring the argument in order to be pedantic,
No he is doing so to divert the argument away from the fact that race baiting has been at the heart of Republican politics for 40 years.
He was making an appeal based on language and terms that were already current in, of all places, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Gustafson makes the argument that concerns about welfare fraud had currency since the Sixties among both the Republican and Democratic parties. This was the result of efforts to enshrine what had initially been intended as stopgap aid to widows and orphans as a property right of the poor generally and the increase in computerization which revealed the evidence of what before could be dismissed as rank suspicion.
And while you’re right that it reflects a kind of racism, sexism, and class-based understanding of the poor and their problems, it wasn’t invented by Ronald Reagan and it wasn’t exclusively used by the political Right. I’m not vindicating Reagan, I’m condemning us all.
Also, it’s not like these concerns are unique to our context: Guvnor, Nesbitt, and Orwell.
Nobody said that he invented it, merely that he deployed it politically and that such race baiting was at the heart of his (and the Republicans’) politics for the past 40 years. Do try to stay on track with the actual argument here.
Nobody said that he invented it
I actually did, for hyperbolic effect, in the original post. But that’s beside the point: it’s strongly associated with Reagan, who employed an exaggerated form it on the campaign trail in ’76, ’80, and ’84. To claim that it’s not racialized is, as noted in the original post, to claim that old white people are liars or unburdened by dementia.
Let’s grant your premise for a moment (gliding over that for a coded message to work there has to be a surface meaning which is itself unobjectionable), and agree that “race baiting” has been at the heart of the Republican appeal for the past 40 years. The question we have to ask ourselves is, even if that is true, does it mean that conservative policies themselves are racist? Do expedient strategies for the sake of winning elections (omelets and eggs, omelets and eggs) say anything about the underlying philosophy of conservationism?
Do expedient strategies for the sake of winning elections (omelets and eggs, omelets and eggs) say anything about the underlying philosophy of conservationism?
The sustained willingness of conservatives to encourage and exploit racism for the sake of votes suggests that the underlying philosophy of conservatism is entirely comfortable with racism.
No, it was not. The stereotype of the lazy negro living off the labor of others has been a mainstay of reactionary politics in this country since the 1800s.
Stop making excuses, and stop inventing bogus history.
Gustafson makes the argument that concerns about welfare fraud had currency since the Sixties among both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Yes she does. And she makes another argument on the very next page:
AND BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!
Like I said before, politicians ought not exaggerate when making their points. Hardly a dynamite revelation that a politician overstates their case.
overstates their case.
What a lovely description of “using lies to put race-baiting front and center in a presidential campaign.” Do you make euphemisms for a living?
Are you saying that nobody had a legitimate reason to pursue welfare reform?
Reagan wasn’t pursuing welfare reform. He was racializing it to get the votes of racists.
The soft discrimination of false equivalence.
JzB
there was for the first time evidence that “waste, fraud, and abuse” was a problem.
Why anyone familiar with human beings would be surprised to learn of waste, fraud and abuse in a human enterprise is a mystery.
Well clearly the ’50s were all sunshine and unicorns, and no wastefraudorabuse was tolerated under the last real Republican government, Nixon being an obvious aberration.
Well, since Nixon was aberrant, the aberration of his administration should have come as no great surprise.
JzB
I’m going to teach my 8th graders not to use “were used in newspaper stories” as a source.
what if they call it an unnamed source?
It’s a similar sordid story for how the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was passed in 1977 in response to how mortgage lenders would redline black neighborhoods, by the 2000s was forcing banks to make so many subprime loans that it led to the housing crisis.
Godzilla could attack tomorrow and it would be black people’s fault.
Where do you find this shit? and why do you believe it?
I suspect Davis W was employing sarcasm, but it is indeed a widespread belief among the wingtards that the housing bubble was indeed caused by Jimmy Carter and the CRA.
David W, that is. Needless to say, I blame Cater for the error.
He’s history’s geatest monster!
He even forced me to screw up on spelling his very name!
I assume he’s much like Voldemort. You were subconsciously afraid to type/say his name in public.
Which explains why the foreclosure meltdown began in rich predominately white suburbs in California, Florida and the New York Metro Area.
Somehow the CRA also fooled well off boomers to use the equity in largely free and clear homes like an ATM.
It also managed to cause securities traders to bundle toxic real estate risk into “mortgage backed securities” to be peddled to mutual funds and retirement plans. It also forced the ratings services to neglect its function and consider them ultra-safe for investment.
Wow that CRA was some comprehensively evil act!
It’s depressing that I know this, but: the answer to this point is that the lending practices of the CRA infected the entire lending industry, making it less responsible.
Never mind that the CRA imposes affordability tests for loans, and doesn’t grant credit to lenders who make risky loans. Never mind that CRA-covered banks had safer loan portfolios than the mortgage companies that didn’t have to abide by the CRA.
Never mind that the housing bubble and bust was global..it happened in many countries w/o “CRA”
It’s like you can’t even call the President a Chicago street thug from Kenya who wants to take money from hardworking people and give it the welfare class without some liberal dragging race into it.
You, SEK, are like 2-1/3 Stalins.
so how many people does that mean had sex in Stalin’s office? and who is SEK’s Beria?
who is SEK’s Beria?
Loomis. Was that not clear?
Damn, I had him pegged as his Kruschev
Assuming your premises for the sake of argument, as a meme, isn’t the “Welfare Queen” (of whom Kaaryn Gustafon claimed there were three whom Reagan used to build his stereotype) simply and logically building on the notion of the “black matriarch” of Daniel Patrick Moynihan?
The names Gustafon mentions in her book were Linda Taylor (Chicago) and Barbara Jean Williams of Los Angeles, who drove a Cadillac and got 8 years in prison.
Sorry, Barbara Jean Williams lived in Compton, California.
isn’t the “Welfare Queen” (of whom Kaaryn Gustafon claimed there were three whom Reagan used to build his stereotype) simply and logically building on the notion of the “black matriarch” of Daniel Patrick Moynihan?
No. Unless you’re using “logically” in some sense with which I’m not familiar.
I think the “logic” Fritz is using can be reasonably summarized as “bitchez be ho’s.”
Moynihan’s “Black matriarch” may be one of the ancestors of the welfare queen, but there is no “logical” connection. Moynihan’s point is that the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the disruptions of mass migration have transformed African American culture into a matriarchal (and dysfunctional) one. However, there is no implication in his narrative about matriarchs defrauding the government or people’s charitable interests.
As I see it anyway, the genealogy of Moynihan’s argument runs from the tendency for folks involved in the “War on Poverty” to assume that impoverished African American communities are pathological, to the culture of poverty arguments in the 1970s and 1980s, to the Murray/Gingrich arguments of the late 1980s and early 1990s that the pathologies of these communities are in fact caused by the welfare system itself (an argument that implies that the best way to show “compassion” is to end the programs). One other interesting feature is that Moynihan’s story draws on a whole slew of similar preoccupations (e.g., he explicitly draws on some of the literature about Nazi concentration camps to discuss the ways in which slavery destroys the personality; his narrative is also, oddly enough, rather similar to the one in the film “Psycho”: the overly powerful mother destroys her son’s sense of masculinity, thus leading to pathology). At any rate, the welfare queen image is connected to this genealogy but, in my view, has a different set of sources, ones rooted in old stereotypes (which were present during slavery) about overly fecund black women, their laziness, etc.
You and your facts. Can’t you see the Republicans were/are trying to run a campaign here?
I buy that “foodstamps” is a racist dog whistle, but I’m not as convinced about Chicago. My impression is that Chicago was subject to far more bad press (whether accurate or not) about political corruption than most other large American cities long before Obama was even on the radar. In my surfing of right-wing blogs, calling Obama a “Chicago politician” seems overwhelmingly to be used to suggest that he’s corrupt without having to, you know, identify any actual instances of corruption. It’s the same as referring to Nancy Pelosi as a “San Francisco politician” to suggest that she’s an atheist who favors taxing churches to pay for lesbians to have abortions without having to identify any actual piece of legislation she’s sponsored that does that.
It’s both, as I noted in my second paragraph via the list of all the things I wasn’t going to say about Chicago. But in combination with the food stamps theme, I don’t think you can deny that aging Americans who worship at the feet of Saint Ronald aren’t drawing that other, explicitly racialized, connection. Another way of putting this would be that these statements are made to a particular audience in a particular historical moment, and that the Republican’s audience is of an age when “Chicago” was synonymous with entitlement abuse, so pairing it up with talk of food stamps is going to resonate in a way that’s designed to cause racially based resentment.
I think what’s going on here is a bad case of buyer’s remorse. The fact is, Obama is not Bill Clinton. So all poor little Sek here can do is boo hoo about baloney veiled racism charges.
Bill Clinton said extend all the Bush tax cuts, I repeat ALL. The democrats have not even been able to pass a budget in years, the Obama budget has been voted down in the senate twice and both times it did not get 1 vote. On the other hand, the house republicans have passed budgets…Harry Reid just prevents the bills from being voted on in the senate.
When you’re on the same piece of the political spectrum as Rosie O’Donnell I guess your to stupid to realize it.
why is mentioning an “oil company” associated with “evil”? Because democrats made it that way! O ho ho ho ho!
why is mentioning an “oil company” associated with “evil”? Because democrats made it that way! O ho ho ho ho!
Just fuck off, Jennie.
So all poor little Sek here can do is boo hoo about baloney veiled racism charges.
First, I’m not a currency. Second, nice evidence you’ve presented here! It’s so nice and evidentiary, what with its words and punctuation. Definitely refutes my argument about the rhetorical situation in the ’70s and how that relates to current Republican voting blocks. I mean, you use words!
I think what’s going on here is a panicked wingnut troll watching his oh-so-clever edifice being systematically picked apart, and who is responding by trying to disrupt the conversation in which his kind’s sleazy practices are being explained and revealed.
a panicked wingnut troll
I can’t wait to see JenBob explain why this is good news for Mittens.
He’s SAVING HIS MONEY. For LATER.
“I guess your to stupid”
Almost too perfect.
Only “yore” could have made it better.
JzB
Maybe. But “your” is wrong here (should have been “you’re). So, along with “to” instead of “too,” that’s two (homonyms are HARD) mistakes in a five word phrase, for a “correct English” average of barely over 50%.
Clearly, no racial component whatsoever.
@informant
Personally I call Obama the food stamp president because he increased the funding for the program and more people are on it, and there has been no evidence of a hunger crisis, or a danger of mcdonalds becoming too big to fail.
there has been no evidence of a hunger crisis
You are a stupid, stupid man, JenBob.
Don’t forget the evil part.
Until there are beggars roaming the streets in his gated whitebread community, he will see no evidence of a hunger crisis.
I eagerly await the storming of his personal Bastille by ravening hordes of armed and starving poor people.
Most especially of they are old and white.
JzB
@malaclypse
according to the Red Cross, more people in the world are obese than starving.
Burned again my little brainwashed lefty.
Burned again
You’re a funny cracker, Jennie. Don’t ever change.
Burned again my little brainwashed lefty.
Why yes you are. There is this. Also this.
What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
according to the Red Cross, more people in the world are obese than starving.
Similarly, more people in the world are women, so I guess no men exist?
The Barack Obama who rolled back welfare regulations was actually a composite of 3 random black people that Mitt Romney saw in a dream.
I don’t think you know what “explicitly” means.
I think I do: as Fritz mentions above, in a comment that somehow is supposed to vindicate Reagan, his other possible source was a woman from Compton, which locale you’ll note I mentioned in my post in a certain context I’m fairly sure you’ll ignore.
As a Libertarian, David doesn’t see race. But stupid he likes like flies like shit.
It is in fact essential to his libertarianism.
Did I say it vindicates Reagan?
Did I say it vindicates Reagan?
You quoted, approvingly, someone who said it did, yes.
To do any more then note in passing that Chicago’s always functioned as a convenient punching bag for conservatives would a waste of time.
I kinda get off when conservatives bash my city. Perhaps I’m a political masochist.
When people bash my city, I just kind of get pissed off. The roots of Chicago’s problems are caused by everyone clustering in their race and class-defined communities.
Some Republican coming in and yelling nigger! in any number of cloaked ways is a multi-layered lie based on the presumption that Chicago is corrupt due to the color of the city.
They should give us a little credit; our corruption goes far deeper.
It was indeed the Poles and Irish who perfected it in the first 2/3 of the 20th century.
Corruption, for lack of a better word, is good. Corruption is right. Corruption works. Corruption clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Corruption is just pure capitalism in work, right? I assume that’s why Republicans are anti-corruption regulation.
It is the essential heart of capitalism. After all, the first thing any successful capitalist does is buy the politicians to increase his competitive advantage.
Political masochism doesn’t sound very sexy. Quite frankly, it sounds dangerous, disgusting, and sad.
Power Line once randomly accused my low-profile congressman of conspiring with FARC — A memo mentioned someone named Jim! It HAS TO BE the same guy! — to destroy America or something crazy and in the process called him “outrageously left wing.” I got starbursts.
Maybe Dan Miller’s (Washington Post) the “Chutzpa Queen” would have been a better name.
You should probably ask yourself why Reagan didn’t choose it then.
(NB: choose =/= invent so no red herrings, please.)
but, but, but, ROBERT BYRD!!!! Klan! ACORN!!!
In addition to this evidence, there is also evidence from social science experiment which show, again and again, that most white people associate welfare with black people, just like they associate crime with black people (and both to some degree now with Latinos). It has gotten to the point that all it takes to prime racial thinking for many white people is to say something like “increased government spending.” See for example: Valentino, Nicholas A., Vincent L. Hutchings and Ismail K. White. 2002. “Cues That Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns.” American Political Science Review 96(1): 75-90.
Oh, the south side of Chicago
That’s the baddest part of town
If you go down there
You’d better just beware
Of a man named Leroy Brown.
No, there are no racist stereotypes associated with Chicago, not at all.
“And so I’m prepared if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps”
~ Newt Gingrich
Please just give it up, trolls. You’re making yourselves look sillier by the minute. Go back to making fun of Michelle’s fat arms or something, it’s far more dignified.
And lest we forget, after Newt was asked about it by Juan Williams, a woman
This is perhaps too long and tedious, but it is somewhat relevant to the discussion.
Thank you for following this chain of evidence to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the top of the Republican party is, if not solidly racist in their own hearts, willing to pander to and use the knee-jerk reactions of every white racist on the continent for their own purposes, in an appalling lack of morals and ethics.
Also, too, showing that the Republican party as an historic entity has been thus immoral and unethical for at least the past 20 or 30 years. Thankfully, available evidence shows that the current Democratic Party, whatever its other failings, is no longer racist in any significant way.
And Saint Ronald, he of the impaired brain, who came to office in a cloud of plotting together with revolutionary and radical Muslims in Iran to keep American diplomats held hostage in a hard-duty outpost taken over by violent revolution in order to facilitate his successful election to the presidency.
He who aided the Revolutionary Guard of Iran by supplying them with weapons in the bloody and interminable war with Saddam Hussein. At least he got us a good price for them, which funds were immediately sent to right wing death squads in Central America!
What’s the constitutional definition of treason again? I seem to recall that plotting with foreign powers was in there somewhere… no, I see that Treason against the United States is “…adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” [in Article 3, Section 3] Is supplying weapons in the definition of aid and comfort?
Oh well, he’s long dead now, and his crimes are well documented for historians.
Is there any wonder the Republican Party also stands for torture? Racist torturers, that’s who democrats compete with for the votes of the citizens – how far from the American Dream we have fallen.
An eternal optimist, I hope we can climb away from those depths by nominating and electing people who understand that the moral action of the nation’s government is what makes us a great nation, not historic leadership as an example of Democratic ideals.
I’m sorry I don’t have time to make this shorter and more concise.
I’m sorry, but this is far too rational to be connected in any way with modern regressive (I cannot in good conscience use the word “conservative”) mental processes (I cannot in good conscience use the word “thought.”)
JzB
mental processes
I think the phrase you are looking for is “random sputtering of disorganized neural ganglia”.
Oh, yes! May I quote you?
JzB
Please do.
Done
Thanx!
JzB
[...] has been another installment in material so obvious I feel dumber for having to address [...]