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Forgive all the crass words I'm about to use.
That Fucking Racist Pig!!! How does he have any credibility AT ALL when he spouts shit like this? As the first part of his quote above came on the screen, I started screaming, "No, don't you fucking DARE go there!!!" My BFF said, "What's the problem? He's always an asshole." And I answered, "because of what's coming next," and sure enough, we got his unfuckingbelievable racist bullshit!!!
Ok. I'm better now. Melissa Harris-Lacewell's response was perfect. We are actually treading on ground with which I am very familiar. I studied Latin in college, but I also majored in history, specifically American women's history.
Since it is women's history I know, I will stick to that. The stereotype of the black welfare mother can trace its lineage directly to slavery, and specifically, Reconstruction. At this same time, white women, mostly middle class, were being told that their contribution and presence in the home was vital to the health and happiness of not only their families, but the country. The Cult of Domesticity, as this movement has been named, was strictly for white women.
Meanwhile, in the Reconstructionist South, black women who were able to, and wished to, stay home and raise their families, were vilified. For those very same choices for which white women were applauded, black women were called selfish, lazy, and much worse. Because the American economy relied on the labor of black women, when they dared to live lives on their own terms and leave the public workplace, terrified white people demanded that the black woman get back to work.
And we arrive here, some 140 years later, at the stereotype of the lazy, black welfare mother. White women are on public assistance in greater numbers than black women. What sort of "reparations" are being made to them? Not that I can't think of dozens of reasons that all women, regardless of race, are due reparations.
MHL, "There's a black man in the White House! Be afraid!"
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