The Welfare Queen stereotype animated 1980s attacks on the welfare state

Evidence

If the Minutemen trade on racial presumption implicit in the representational codes they readily express and circulate, racial meanings have animated neoliberal attacks on the welfare state. The most obvious example is the strident attacks, notably but not only in the 1980s, on the “Welfare Queen.” She is projected as the stereotypic single black mother of multiple children, usually portrayed as having different fathers, minimally educated, irresponsible, refusing work, and collecting welfare while partying all night long. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, at state expense. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1760

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s general interest in moral panics and racialized political scapegoating; the Welfare Queen is a canonical case of the fear-driven public discourse studied in earlier moral-panic work.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ in that the Welfare Queen is another cross-era case of a demonized figure carrying class/identity/political signaling beyond the actual behavior described.