{"id":44722,"date":"2025-11-19T12:39:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44722\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:39:12","slug":"the-welfare-queen-is-back-and-shes-still-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44722\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Welfare Queen\u2019 is back \u2014 and she\u2019s still a lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you watched Netflix\u2019s \u201cGLOW\u201d \u2014 a brief series about the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the 80s \u2014 you probably remember the character \u201cWelfare Queen<\/a>\u201d (Kia Stevens)\u2014 a towering,\u00a0flamboyant, fake-nail-clad, sequined nightmare conjured straight from white America\u2019s imagination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was everything the country had been taught to fear: a Black woman living large, flaunting her success, and supposedly milking the system to do it<\/a>. The joke, of course, is that she wasn\u2019t just a fictional heel in a wrestling ring. She represented a very real, absolutely fake stereotype \u2014 one that dominated the 1980s, the exact era when \u201cGLOW\u201d is set, and one that has returned to the national conversation as food stamps were paused<\/a> this month amid the ongoing government shutdown.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cwelfare queen\u201d traces back to Reagan-era politics, but its roots stretch deeper into racist folklore. While the term came about during Reagan\u2019s campaign \u2014 inspired by a real woman who identified as white<\/a> \u2014 it was quickly weaponized to paint Black women as manipulative, lazy parasites gaming government programs, a caricature built on racism, sexism, and generational fearmongering. And it\u2019s the same stereotype comedian Mike Epps brushed up against during a recent appearance on \u201cThe Breakfast Club<\/a>,\u201d when he said he was \u201cglad\u201d food stamp benefits were being cut off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told people when these food stamps and stuff get cut off, \u2018Don\u2019t worry about that,\u2019\u201d he said at the time. \u201cSee, Black people, we\u2019ve been getting our shit cut off. We\u2019ve been getting our doors kicked in and stuff. This is not for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cSo don\u2019t take this as personal about the food stamps and all that. I\u2019m actually glad they\u2019re cutting some of these n\u2014as off food stamps because some of us need to not be on food stamps because it\u2019s a trickle-down effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epps insisted that reliance on benefits doesn\u2019t just hurt wallets \u2014 it contributes to unhealthy diets and poor outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get the food stamps, then you go buy the food that gives you cancer, then you eat the food that gives you cancer, then you\u2019re sad, you\u2019re walking around here upset, your diet\u2019s f\u2014d up,\u201d he explained. \u201cNow, I\u2019m gonna tell you some honest to God truth. Your diet done sent a lot of n\u2014as to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

When co-host Charlamagne Tha God joked the rant would land him on Fox News, Epps brushed it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they can\u2019t say that about me. See, that\u2019s one thing about me and little Boosie Badazz: we can\u2019t be canceled.\u201d After more teasing, he doubled down: \u201cF\u2014 the internet! \u2026 and everybody out there that think they wanna be mad and say something: F\u2014 you, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while Epps framed his comments as blunt, tough love \u2014 even tossing in used arguments about unhealthy eating habits, despite research on a link between SNAP and poor nutrition choices remaining mixed and nuanced<\/a> \u2014 comments like these land differently in the real world. They reinforce the same old myths that keep resurfacing every time benefits are threatened\u2014that Black people make up most of the program (they don\u2019t), that fraud is rampant (it isn\u2019t), that assistance is a moral failing instead of a lifeline. According to recent data by Pew Research<\/a>, 61.1% of SNAP recipients are white, 30% are Hispanic, and 28% are Black.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In reality, the modern food stamp program was established in the 1960s<\/a> to address hunger and stabilize the agricultural economy. It has always served a racially diverse group of low-income families, seniors, and disabled Americans. And for decades, the largest share of recipients has been white, not Black. Yet the \u201cwelfare queen\u201d stereotype persists precisely because of how effectively it has been used to racialize poverty and justify cutting safety nets.<\/p>\n

That misinformation is now fueling the latest wave of outrage, confusion, and bad-faith arguments about who \u201cdeserves\u201d to eat as millions navigate the disruption in benefits during the shutdown. And the political consequences are already showing. Just days after Epps\u2019 interview, President Donald Trump said SNAP recipients would have to prove \u201cthey can\u2019t survive without\u201d the assistance<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A decades-old caricature is once again shaping real policy. And as long as the myth lives on, the people who need help the most will pay the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you watched Netflix\u2019s \u201cGLOW\u201d \u2014 a brief series about the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the 80s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[232,9,24,63,122,124,123,10604,25636],"class_list":{"0":"post-44722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-lifestyle","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-queens","13":"tag-queens-headlines","14":"tag-queens-news","15":"tag-snap","16":"tag-welfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}