Of Welfare Queens and Wilbur

I have a really nice car, because my mother insisted on giving it to me. She figured if nothing else, she wouldn't have to worry about me traveling in an old clunker.
I still make very, very little money. Granted, I'm in grad school, so its a choice. But still.

I agree, that doesn't look like a slum. But the catty comments about the TV may just be misplaced.

Matt, I'm taking you up on your challenge. Show me even 1 "desperately poor" person who suffers "genuine disadvantage". Further, document with actual facts the programs the political right wants to "dismantle".

Bill, in Indiana, our conservative governor's priority for Medicaid is privatizing/outsourcing the application process. (I do mostly nursing home Medicaid in my Elder Law practice.) A two-page initial application has become 16 pages. There are so few caseworkers with such horrific caseloads that applications are taking many, many months to process, while nursing homes go unpaid waiting along with the applicant. This will - coincidentally? - remind nursing homes that avoid bankruptcy that the State really would like to see fewer "Medicaid beds" and that maybe they should reconsider the State's lowball offer to buy back some Medicaid beds. The IBM affiliate that's privatizing the application process will probably be rewarded if they find excuses to deny assistance, but we'll have to wait for them actually to finish processing a few (see above) before we can tell if a pattern is emerging.

It appears to me that the party I've voted for all my life is trying to dismantle Medicaid by screwing it up to where nobody in their right mind will waste time applying. I hope I'm proven wrong and that we emerge with a more efficient program that has more dollars for actual aid, less for administration. But I'm not holding my breath.

One of the things my mother said when I was growing up, she a feminist Democratic liberal activist, was that we needed to secure equal rights for everyone so we could actually discuss and differ from one another without the dispute being couched in racial terms. Yet here we are today, where Rod, who is certainly NOT a racist, cannot talk about issues that are real.... the abuse of welfare, the lack of responsible leadership within the 'black' communities, the victim mentalities that blame everyone else, ......the list of tangent topics is huge.... but the 'debate/discussion' is closed before it opens because to dare challenge the failure of many for a long time is suddenly to be heartless, clueless and bigoted.

I could write at length about much that I know and have seen, and I as a card carrying embracer of diversity who has lived half his life in a white/brown/black area, actively contributing to racial understanding, cannot… any more than Rod. THAT is the real bigotry at this point in time; the finger pointing by faux liberals, who, as I wrote once, practice 'activism' by forwarding political emails to like-minded friends while drinking a third glass of Chardonnay from their homes in the whitest white parts of their cities or isolated in their rural worlds-of-their-own.

Me? I’m an inner city white guy who speaks Spanish with my neighbors and is Godfather to another neighbor’s (black) child. Feliz Christmas.

"the finger pointing by faux liberals, who, as I wrote once, practice 'activism' by forwarding political emails to like-minded friends while drinking a third glass of Chardonnay from their homes in the whitest white parts of their cities or isolated in their rural worlds-of-their-own."

I love this, because I agree completely. I call them Volvo-liberals.

FYI, I agree here with Erin although I understand Daniel's point(s). The term 'welfare queen' does not auto-resonate ‘black’ to me either. Perhaps once upon a time, but not any more. It means (to me) exactly what Erin writes.

No one is sneering. It's just been 40-plus years since LBJ's initiatives you properly allude to. That's (minimum) two generations after the fact. There are so many stats that can be trotted out, one after another begging the question, "What DOES it take to get African-America up to speed. For God's sake, if I'm asking that question, is it any wonder conservatives are yelling it?

No one is sneering. It's just been 40-plus years since LBJ's initiatives you properly allude to. That's (minimum) two generations after the fact. There are so many stats that can be trotted out, one after another begging the question, "What DOES it take to get African-America up to speed. For God's sake, if I'm asking that question, is it any wonder conservatives are yelling it? Posted by: Rawlins

One of the questions/statements I catch on a weekly basis here in norte tejas/southern oklahoma/western louisiana is about why Blacks are still sitting with their hands out and immigrants from Mexicans to Vietnamese are going from literally nothing to success in a generation or less.

The answer is so obvious one has to wonder why everyone doesn't see it. The immigrants believe in the American dream of working hard and getting ahead. Most Black Americans don't. However, those that do believe succeed just like everyone else has.

Another point that distorts this topic is Blacks represent a higher percentage of poor people as a race versus the fact there are more Whites on the welfare rolls but they represent a smaller percentage racially. This is exaggerated in the South where traditional vehicles to material success have been unavailable to Blacks.

The quaint southern racism I accuse Rod of having isn't the old N word style of the old south. This thread is a perfect example of it I believe. The emphasis is on the big screen television because that's not what poor Blacks are supposed to have because they're poor and yes, because they're Black.

I had a Louisiana relative complain about going to the VA for treatment and the place crawling with Black patients. That makes perfect sense. Most of the people that are using VA are poor veterans. Louisiana has a disproportionate amount of poor veterans that are Black.

The quaint southern racism loves their Blacks when they're in their place. But let a Black drive up in a high dollar vehicle or buy quality cuts of meat at the market and there's a rise in the pride you might say. It isn't acceptable to have Blacks do better than Whites. They're only allowed to do almost as good.

So to answer your question Rawlins, it'll probably take the same thing to get the African Americans off their butts that it takes to get anyone else to do so. Believing that doing so will make a difference. As long as we have an aptmosphere of Blacks and Whites believing the Blacks can't, they won't.

Reading this thread makes it easy to understand why there is a Democratic Party. The Party understands that there never can be enough welfare because those programs do in fact work as planned, which is the creation of a permanent welfare vote. Keep them on the plantation and keep them voting Democrat.
Want to bet that neither the woman at issue, nor her grandparents, children or grandchildren ever have or ever will vote Republican?
They would be foolish to do so, given the fact that Democratic politicians will continue to tax those that break their backs for their families, and give (in exchange for votes) to those that rely on the Democrats for housing, food and medical care.
The difference between Cuba and the U.S.A. is the absence of a Conservative Party. Everybody is a welfare queen in Cuba, although, of course, not as well off as ours are.
The truly disabled, children and the temporally down and out should get welfare. The rest should work or starve. Posted by: Cleveland

The vast majority of those on welfare fit into your criteria.

You even file this under "welfare queens," Rod.

Even Reagan's supporters now recognize the hideous racism of his infamous "welfare queen in a Cadillac" characterization.

Why don't you?

Dude, that's an old-school rear projection tv. It probably cost a princely sum when it was purchased in 1991. You can't give those things away.

If you're going to pick an inner city vice, it may as well be "welfare queen" rather than "crack whore," even though you would think that liberals would find the latter to be just another sexual orientation worthy of protection. After all, what's a little exchange of copulation and white powder between consenting adults?

JCWNIDC

JCWNIDC

"Apparently, there is no Spanish word for "irony".

Why Spanish? I'm not Latina. Did you make an assumption? And could you possibly be insinuating that if I were Hispanic it would be somehow ironic to note someone's blatant bigotry? Why?

I've seen the gamut of bigotry from the most deadly and murderous, to the cowardly, closeted kind being practiced here, where the bigots like to use hateful stories like Wilbur, Crack Whores and Welfare recipients overstepping their bounds to make themselves feel justified about their hatefulness.

And what's with this? "liberals would find the latter to be just another sexual orientation worthy of protection"

Why bring that up? Got some sexual orientation issues? Lately it seems like everytime a conservative gets excited about sexual orientation, it's because there's something about sexual orientation that has them, well, excited. Got something you want to tell us?

"homosocialist"? Oh, that's cute. But don't think for a minute that it distracts anyone with two brain cells to rub together from what the basis of this post - and most of the comments - was: a racist assumption that because this black woman who lives in subsidized (not rent-free, but subsidized) housing has a large television set, that she defrauded the taxpayers in order to get that television set.

So instead of digging the hole deeper by slandering another entire group of our fellow citizens with insults rather than proof, let's stay on topic, which is: the racism of the person who wrote the post and of those who responded to it affirmatively.

So those who take you at your word are "delusional" because they expect that you are honest in your utterances?

Ok, I'll accept your explanation that you're merely a lying windbag.

Dude, I didn't "call" you anything.

You defined yourself in your comments. Of course, you never would have painted yourself into this corner if not for your enthusiasm for the racist assumption that a poor woman with a big TV is a proven welfare cheat.

Don't sell yourself short, buddyboy...you did it all by yourself, didn't need any of my "socialist" help to do it.

Ho ho ho.

Yes, you don't jump to conclusions. Such as "maybe she stole it". Which is why you posted your original cutesy bit about "homosocialists" to try to change the subject from the topic of the entire thread, which, I'll remind you once again, was the racism revealed in the assumptions of the author and most of the commenters. And, by you yourself, with your "maybe she stole it" comment. And I didn't "assume" you adhered to that racist assumption, only that you showed enthusiasm for it, which was in fact revealed by your attempt to smear and insult the people who pointed out quite accurately that most here were making assumptions based on very little knowledge about the woman and her situation, and none whatsoever about how she came to possess the television.

Maybe you should ask Santa to bring you some integrity.