Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor

What is welfare racism? It is the images that politicians evoke when they speak of "welfare queens" or "deadbeat dads." It is the disproportionate representation of people of color who are in the US poverty population. It is the view that welfare is a black problem. In Welfare Racism, sociologists Neubeck and Cazenave analyze the impact of racism on U.S. welfare policy. For decades, they argue, Americans have been bombarded with racist comments and stereotypes about those who receive welfare, allowing politicians to exploit racial cliches for their own political gains. Even liberal politicians have now joined in playing the "race card" by supporting the ill-conceived welfare reforms of 1996 which abolished Air to Families with Dependent Children. Such recent reforms are anti-welfare not anti-poverty. In a hard-hitting and eloquently written investigation of historical and current attitudes toward welfare, Welfare Racism shows how racist motives, policies, and administrative policieshave long undermined public assistance programs. Challenging the current contention that racism is of decreasing importance in our society, Neubeck and Cazenave warn that avoidance of the race issue will lead to unprecedented racial conflict in the 21st century. A powerful expose of a deeply-rooted but woefully ignored form of racial blindness, Welfare Racism is an important first step toward more humane and rational policies for the men, women, and children who have been ravaged by the current system. Kenneth J. Neubeck and Noel A. Cazenave have written extensively on poverty and social problems in the U.S. Neubeck is the author of Social Problems: A Critical Approach, and Cazenave is an expert on the War on Poverty of the 1960s. They are both Associate Professors of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. *Biting analysis of Clinton's promise "to end welfare as we know it" and the devastating impact of welfare reform in the 1990s * Most welfare recipients in theU.S. are white, despite the images that pervade the media * The first book to fully explore the racist baggage that has repeatedly undercut U.S. welfare policy

Kenneth J. Neubeck and Noel A. Cazenave have written extensively on poverty and social problems in the United States. Both are Associate Professors of Sociology at the University of Connecticut