A new video from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was standard issue Republican messaging for promoting her state’s stricter rules for people on Medicaid. No more could able-bodied people lounge around while receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare, she said — they needed to work.
But the decision to portray an unemployed moocher as a young, white, cheeseball-chomping gamer named Brad upset some conservative commentators last week. Five decades after Ronald Reagan popularized the “welfare queen” trope about people living luxuriously while not working, they wanted to know why the video wasn’t featuring a Black woman instead.
“Republicans don’t have the balls to do this ad with ‘Shaniqua’ as the villain,” posted Matt Walsh, a conservative writer. “Even though that would actually be an accurate portrayal of the problem at hand.”
I also moved out of Arkansas in 2021. I had lived there almost my entire life.
My hometown and the surrounding areas are almost entirely white. So it makes sense that the majority of welfare recipients are white. Hell, I was dirt poor growing up and we got assistance. I specifically remember WIC and food stamps.
I have family who know that we were on welfare who would still reference “welfare queens” because they’re conservative and it goes without saying, also racist.