Black women, cultural images, and social policy

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Author: Julia Sheron Jordan-Zachery

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Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy

Routledge Studies in North American Politics

1. Political Institutions and Lesbian and Gay Rights in the United States and Canada Miriam Smith 2. Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Julia S. Jordan-Zachery


Julia S. Jordan-Zachery

New York

London

First published 2009 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jordan-Zachery, Julia. Black women, cultural images and social policy / by Julia Jordan-Zachery. p. cm. — (Routledge studies in North American politics ; 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. African American women—Social conditions. 2. African American women in popular culture. 3. African American women—Government policy. I. Title. E185.86.J673 2009 305.48'896073—dc22 2008032570 ISBN 0-203-88316-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-99678-3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-88316-0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-99678-5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-88316-7 (ebk)

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments 1

Perceptions, Culture and Policy: A Racing– Gendering Perspective

vii ix

1

2 Mythical Illusions: Cultural Images and Black Womanhood

26

3

49

Mammy Is a Maniac: Black Women, Images and Crime

4 You Better Work: “Rehabilitation” and Welfare Policy

80

5 The Government’s “Make a Man Kit”: Family Policies

111

6

144

For Us By Us: Redefining Black Womanhood

Appendix A Appendix B Notes Bibliography Index

167 175 183 189 211

Preface

Black women fi nd themselves caught in the policy process that relies on reified images that are used to construct stories of what is “reality.” Stories are constructed to depict black women, often in a rather negative light. If one is not careful, it is easy to accept these policy stories as truths. This work is not centered on questioning the origination of the images used to tell the policy tales of black women, it is more about centering the policy stories, by asking what tales are being told. In many of the tales of black womanhood they are depicted as strong and masculinized. On the other hand, they are also depicted as lazy and promiscuous. She is a woman, albeit a “bad” woman and she is masculinized. The result is that policy attempts to alter her behavior as opposed to addressing factors—structural and institutional—that tend to encourage and promote black women’s inequitable position. In the analysis, I concentrate on a very limited time period. As such some readers might be inclined to conclude that the treatment of black women is static. I encourage all readers to view this work as one that historically isolates and analyzes recurring stereotypical images of black womanhood. What the reader needs to remember is that stereotypes and social icons, while the underlying rationale might remain stable over time, are indeed dynamic. This simply means that some images can remain dormant over a period of time. In addition, images can be used to convey multiple stories. So, two different policy makers can tell two different stories while using one image. This becomes relevant since the use of images of black womanhood have not remained unchanged over time. Public policy, for example, developed during the Great Society era did not necessarily view black women as in need of punishment in comparison to policy developed at later dates. In addition, there has also been a shift in policy making that emphasizes the failure of individual effort and behavior. However, there has been a consistent element in the use of cultural images of black womanhood. The consistent factor, across the eras and policy domains, is the social construction of African American women as “Others.” As I developed this work, I have received some very thought-provoking feedback. Consistently, I have been asked, “Does the stigmatization of poor

viii Preface black women also occur among other African Americans?” The answer is yes. By no means do I try to suggest that the negative imagery of black womanhood is employed only among those outside of the black community. However, this is an analysis of how elite policy makers employ the images of black womanhood in their decision making. Thus the emphasis is on how Euro-Americans, as they are the majority of the policy makers under consideration, employ these images. The second question that tends to follow is: “Are you saying that these individuals are racist?” To this I simply respond, no. The argument being made here is that race and gender hierarchies influence the structures, institutions and practices of society either knowingly or unknowingly. The primary goal of this work is to bring to the forefront of policy discussions how the intersection of race, gender, and class influence the policy decision-making process. I seek to understand how the policy elite’s use of images of black women, Mammy and Jezebel among others, are used in the discourses to frame policy choices. Second, I attempt to show how the use of negative images often impede black women’s quest for social justice. It is not simply enough to analyze the use of images, etc., in the policy making process, as this does not adequately satisfy the purpose of black feminist and womanist thought. Thus, I also engage in offering a series of suggestions on how black women can begin to challenge their treatment in the public policy-making process. Prior research has done a wonderful job of showing us how black women are socially constructed and have explored the implications of such constructions. This might leave some to wonder why we need additional work. Thus far, the trend has been to treat public policy areas as discrete. Efforts at the integration of different policy areas tend to be rather uncommon. Analysts are inclined to explain the impact of the social construction of black women in the area of welfare or crime, thereby, creating a series of specialized literature. By offering a theoretical mechanism for the racinggendering process of policy making, I strive to bridge these literatures.

Acknowledgments

Many black women have helped me to write this work, some of them I know and others I do not. Some of these women walk with me and others have walked this earth before I arrived. To them, all my heartfelt thanks. To my Creator, thanks for making me a black woman and for your loving grace. My journey that culminated in this work was not always easy. There were many sleepless nights when I was consumed by fear. However, my friends and colleagues got me thorough. To those of you who took the time to read my many drafts, including Anthony Rivera, Jane Junn, Gwendolyn Mink, Davora Yanow, Keesha Middlemass, D’Andra Orey, Beverly GuySheftall, Sandford Schram, all of my research assistants: Jessica Lussier, James Pope, and countless others, all I can say is that we did it. To those of you who mentored me along this journey, James Jennings, Andrea Simpson, Daryl Harris and Lewis Randolph thanks for taking the time. I hope that I can “pay” you all back by passing it on. Nikol Alexander-Floyd, all I can say is thank God for 8 a.m. APSA panels. Not only have you been a wonderful colleague, but you have truly been a dear friend. To those of you who just listened to me complain, Gran, Aunt Mar, Aunt Sil, and Shelley, thanks. In the event that I neglected to name anyone who has helped me, I offer my humble apologies and sincere thanks. This work would never have been possible had it not been for my parents Monica and Evan Jordan. Their love and commitment to me is more than I could ever ask for. They taught me about fi nding my voice, about being true to my community and ultimately myself. My heart is fi lled with so much pride knowing that this is their work. Dad, I am so sorry that you could not be here to enjoy and share my feelings of accomplishment. Through your own struggles with Lou Gerigh’s disease you taught me the true meaning of strength. To my mother who nursed my Dad through his illness and ultimately found her voice, you are my hero. I hope to one day grow up to be just like you. Makeen, this is for you. You are my strength. Thanks for offering me your little doses of love and for checking the bibliography. Last, but by no means least, I say thank you to “Big Daddy Original.” Zac, I thank you for your unselfish love and encouragement.

1

Perceptions, Culture and Policy A Racing–Gendering Perspective The real question in understanding the power of political symbols is not so much where symbols come from or what they initially mean. Rather, it is how they become the focal points of diverse meanings and commonly salient objects condensing and indexing different experiences, fears, apprehensions, hopes and interests. —Elder and Cobb (1983: 35)

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) that ended more than 60 years of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The PRWORA was the fi rst piece of radical social welfare legislation since the inception of the social welfare program. While the politicking of the process that ended welfare as we knew it intrigued me, I was more intrigued by the actual signing process that took place in the Rose Garden. What struck me was that two “Mammies”⎯(at least one of which was horizontally challenged (that is, plump), grinning black1 women⎯fl anked President Clinton. Additionally, these women were encircled by a group of (white) men. Why? Why was it necessary to use these stereotypical images of welfare recipients to justify PRWORA? What message was President Clinton sending to the American public? These were the types of questions that plagued my mind for days after Public Law 104–193 was signed into effect. President Clinton’s use of these women as signs of social welfare led me to question the use of cultural images and symbols in the policy-making process. My focus is not on the visual representation of black women. Instead, I concentrate on the textual representation of black women in the framing of social policy. My rationale for focusing on text is that language facilitates the expression of attitudes and values. This analysis looks at social relations that underpin the framing of social policy. Grounding this research in Black feminist politics, I explore how social policy, via the use of cultural images and symbols, maintain the often inequitable position of black women. Black feminists and womanists recognize the intersection of race, gender and class. Connected to the concept of intersectionality is the question of power—how it is constructed and used. Black feminists seek to engage in a politics that challenges multiple intersecting forms of oppression, “that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression” (Combahee River Collective). The goal of Black feminist

2


politics is to theorize about and strategize to address the various manifestations of intersecting oppressive structures and ideologies. Consequently, Black feminists have concentrated much of their efforts in exposing, challenging and dismantling dominant structures and ideologies that result in the marginalization of black women. In what follows, I critically analyze the use of cultural images and symbols of black womanhood across three policy domains: crime, welfare and family policies. This work evaluates the racing and gendering of policy making in the United States. By means of critical discourse analysis (CDA), which centers language and its relation to power, I study how key decision makers use race and gender cultural images and symbols to frame policy. Further, I discuss how these frames and the resulting policies impact the lives of African American women and their quest for social justice. I specifically focus on the role of language, as expressed through symbols, in creating and maintaining social inequality. I argue that the Mammy image, a slave era caricature, the 1960s Matriarch and the 1990s Welfare Queen, among other images, continue to be employed in the policy-making process. In this way, I account for how cultural images and symbols inject dominant social biases into social welfare policy discourse. The analysis, as a result, highlights how social welfare policy discourse operates as a form of power serving to perpetuate inequalities in the broader society. Central to my argument is the assumption that any policy justification depends, at least in part, upon imagery. While at some level this might seem intuitive, it is not a typical approach for the study of policy analysis (this is discussed later in the section Explaining Race, Gender and the Policy Making Process). It differs significantly from approaches that suggest that policy is the result of cost–benefit calculus (rational choice theory) or other approaches that focus on the logic of politic bargaining and interest group competition. These conventional approaches risk buttressing the status quo because they inadequately incorporate issues of how the power of discourse operates to frame political contestation to privilege certain understandings of issues over others (Schram 2006). The conventional approaches tend to ignore how policy decision making grows out of discourses that give rise to value-laden perspectives and preferences about desired sets of social arrangements. Given one of my goals of unmasking the often hidden power relations of the policy making process, these traditional approaches to the study of policy making were deemed inappropriate. As conceptualized by John Fiske, discourse, which can be viewed as either a language or “system of representation,” has developed socially in order to make and transmit a “coherent set of meanings.” These meanings then serve the interests of a particular group or section of society (1987: 14). Thus, discourse becomes crucial in the process of explaining how the social subject is positioned relative to another. The framing of public policy issues is a critical dimension for the operation of discourse. One source for creating frames is tapped when they adequately utilize “cultural resources” (Best

Perceptions, Culture and Policy

3

1991), “relate to deep mythic themes” (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988: 64) and have “cultural resonance” (Gamson and Modigliani 1989: 5−6). Further, policy frames detailing what the policy elite should do and how the public should respond depend, to a certain extent, on society’s images of “types” of people—that is, our perception of their value to society (Schneider and Ingram 1993). This helps to explain why and how President Clinton used two black women to justify his signing of PRWORA. The use of two black women provided a valence to President Clinton’s behavior because they resonated with the public’s view of the physiognomy of welfare recipients. Consequently, their presence legitimized the policy. 2 Stories of these women, which are used in policy discourse, serve a similar function. Several studies on the nexus of race and social policy focus primarily on the “white backlash” to race-conscious policies (Bobo 1983, 1988; Herring 1997; Peffley and Hurwitz 1998; Scott 1997; Steinberg 1995) or on the impact of said policies on the black male population (Tonry 1995) or on blacks in general (Walters 2003). Critical race theorists and feminist scholars challenge these approaches to policy analysis because they fail to adequately address multiple forms of oppression. Specifically, researchers such as Roberts (1997, 2002), Johnson (1995) and Thomas (1998) call attention to the processes of racing and gendering and their impact on political institutions, laws, public policies and institutional practices. Politics and the policy-making process produce and maintain race and gender categories and hierarchies in multiple ways. For one, the practices and processes of politics and policy making create and maintain race, gender and other divisions in society. This occurs at multiple levels but is particularly prevalent during what is referred to as the problem defi nition stage of policy making. In framing social issues, policy makers often rely on existing gendered and raced symbols to suggest that their particular defi nition of an issue is accurate. Therein lies the relationship between language and power (see Fairclough 2000). Through language, which is used to frame a social issue, race and gender divisions are reinforced. Second, race and gender categories are produced and maintained by defi ning race and gender characteristics and then employing the characteristics to bestow differential rights (Yanow 2003). The policy-making process is both raced and gendered because (a) genders are raced, (b) institutional norms and practices are both raced and gendered, and (c) political institutions are a critical component in producing, maintaining and reproducing raced and gendered cultural images and symbols through their organizational practices and routines (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995). Racing–gendering occurs through the actions of individuals, as well as through laws, policies and organizational norms and practices (Haney Lopez 1996). Gendered and raced cultural images and symbols are integral to this process. These types of symbols and images are used to convey social meanings of the policy issue, the policy targeted population and possible solutions. Some scholars have recognized the use of cultural symbols and icons in the policy-making process (Edelman 1977; Schneider

4


and Ingram 1993; Stone 1989; among others). However, there has been minimal attention paid to how these images and symbols are employed by those engaged in the policymaking process and the impact of the use of these images. This brings me to my purpose for conducting this analysis. My purpose for engaging in this research is two pronged. For one, I strive to analyze how symbols and images of black womanhood play a significant role in the policy-making process. I take a critical look at the discursive construction of policy frames with the goal of showing how power relations are maintained and perpetuated. To do such, I use a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach. A central goal of CDA is to link the relationship between the text (micro level) with underlying societal power structures and hierarchies through discursive practices upon which the text was drawn (meso level; see Thompson 2002). In this analysis, I challenge the social construction of reality by bringing to the forefront the impact of racing–gendering on the policy-making process. This brings me to my second reason for engaging in this research project. In the spirit of Black feminism and womanism, I illustrate how it is possible and necessary to challenge and debunk the negative construction of black womanhood that is employed to justify her inequitable position in society as well as her punishment via public policies. One could argue that prior research, such as that conducted by AngeMarie Hancock (2004), Gwendolyn Mink (1995, 1998), Dorothy Roberts (1997, 2002) and Rickie Solinger (2000) already analyze how the codification and promulgation of African American women as the “other” create a fertile breeding ground for a seemingly “logical” and “rational” policies. Furthermore, Neubeck and Cazenave (2001) and Hancock (2004) review the functioning of images of black women in the policy making process. Both Neubeck and Cazenave, via their use of welfare racism, and Hancock’s employment of the concept of the public identity of the welfare queen and the politics of disgust, conclude that the degenerate construction of black women have resulted in her negative treatment, vis-à-vis public policy. These researchers show how the negation of black womanhood is expressed through a logic of imagery, metaphor and complex symbolism. So, why do we need additional research in this area? Because despite the importance of this body of work, the concept of using negative construction of black womanhood in policy making, especially in discourse, has been loosely specified and undertheorized and has not been the subject of systematic research. For example, Gwendolyn Mink (1995) in The Wages of Motherhood says that traditional feminists have analyzed welfare policy through a gender analysis; her work extends this by adding a cultural and racial dynamic to the analysis (viii). However, Mink does not explicitly address or analyze how the cultural symbolic and social constructions of black womanhood influence the policy-making process. For example, one does not see a reference to the image of Mammy or other stereotypical images of black women. There is a reference, in an abstract manner, to


5

how race influences policy but this is not explicitly addressed. I strive to start a dialogue on this issue by addressing the racing–gendering process of policy making. As such, I concentrate on enhancing this prior theorizing by offering a systematic analysis of the use of symbols and myths on the policy-making process. Additionally, I contribute to this existing body of literature by performing a systematic analysis on a number of different policy domains: crime, welfare and family policies. What I hope readers will gather from this research, among other pockets of knowledge, is that although the three policy domains are treated as separate entities, they are intertwined and thus form an interwoven policy blanket that tends to subjugate black women. In this chapter, my focus is on the theorizing element of Black feminism and womanism. I provide a theoretical understanding and justification for why traditional methods of policy analysis are insufficient for an analysis of how race, gender and class influence policy. Chapter 6 satisfies the second tenet of Black feminism and womanism in that it considers strategizing elements that might prove useful in challenging and debunking the racing– gendering process of policy making. The theoretical foundation of Black feminism and womanism allows me to evaluate how the interaction of gender, race and class is experienced in social and political spaces. It is within this context that I must point out that the primary focus of the analysis is race and gender. Accordingly, the systems of race and gender are explicitly addressed while the system of class is treated in a more implicit manner. This is not to suggest that class is not an important variable in the framing of policy discourse. However, for this analysis, class is recognized within the context that many of the women targeted by policy issues are often considered economically disadvantaged. Black feminist and womanist theories “treats racial inequality as a vital shaper of women’s and men’s lives and advances a coherent and powerful premise—that racial ancestry, ethnic heritage, and economic status are as important as gender for analyzing the social construction of women and men” (Zinn and Dill 1994: 11). The intersection of gender and race has led to some interesting experiences. For example, black women and other women of color tend to occupy political and economic spaces that are characterized by low wages, menial dead-end jobs and high unemployment. Additionally, they often reside in social spaces where there are both higher rates of poverty and solo-mothering in comparison to their white counterparts. In contrast to a more traditional feminist approach, which tends to use a hegemonic model of womanhood, a Black feminist and womanist approach allows me to situate black women in the multiple systems of domination that place them in a subordinate social and/or political space. As an analytical tool, Black feminism and womanism allow me to answer the questions that plagued me after President Clinton signed the PRWORA. By centering the intersection of race, class and gender, I am able to explore how social understanding and representation of groups, specifically black

6


women, are employed in the policy making process. Black feminism and womanism provide (a) the general categories of black womanhood and the images employed in this study; (b) the methodological and method approach for this study, CDA; and (c) guidelines and suggestions for debunking, and therefore, limiting the impact of the use of what are often negative images of black womanhood. Black feminist and womanist scholars such as Collins (1991), Jewell (1993), King (1973), Millet (1970), Mullings (1992) and Palmer (1983) have and continue to explore the social construction, that is, the social meaning attached to these real life women, of black women and the various images and symbols used to transmit a white supremacist ideology of black womanhood. Out of these multiple works, analyses and theories a number of images of black women have been offered. These images carry stories that are grounded in history and hierarchal relations of power. Using these existing theoretical understandings, I developed a typology of black womanhood as a means of linking the text of policy frames with particular understandings and representations of black womanhood—the images of black womanhood (these images are explored in more depth in Chapter 2). This typology captures the characteristics of five dominant images, which include: Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother.3 While these images were developed to be distinct—for example, Mammy is constructed as asexual and Jezebel is constructed as being ruled by her libido—they are bound by two common characteristics, black female sexuality and morality. This typology of black womanhood is valuable to this study as it allows me to analyze the discourse of the policy elite in relation to the wider system of race, class and gender ideologies. It is these ideologies that inform text and its production process. By production process, I am referring to not only the framing of the social issue, but to the social knowledge needed to understand and decipher the frame and the feedback loop between these two processes. By analyzing discourses across three policy domains, crime, welfare and family, I show how the use of these images allow policy to serve as a medium for limiting African American women and their communities’ quest for social justice. These policies were chosen because of the overwhelming representation, real and perceived, of African American women among the policy recipients. For example, African American women are among the fastest growing prison populations in the United States (Mauer and Huling 1995). According to The Sentencing Project (2007), “Black women represent 30 percent of all females incarcerated under state or federal jurisdiction, and Hispanic women 16 percent. In 2005, black women were more than three times as likely as white women to be incarcerated in prison or jail, and Hispanic women 69% more likely.” Additionally, I selected these policy areas because while on the surface they are discrete, there are interesting connections among and between the policies. Moreover, the impacts of these policies are intertwined in the lives of African American women and their communities. An example of this notion is illustrated in Section 115


7

of PRWORA. Section 115 represents the intersection of welfare policy and crime policy as it specifically addresses welfare accessibility to drug-convicted felons. The interconnectedness of these policies at times makes it difficult to delineate and employ the often-required linear approach commonly employed in policy analyses. Trying to separate policies for the purpose of this study was a challenge since the policy-making process is often convoluted and many policies are subsumed and included in larger bills—such as Omnibus Bills. However, it is possible and necessary to separate the policies. I do so by asking: What is the primary purpose of the policy as stated in (a) the actual legislation and (b) as framed, using the words of key policy decision makers. Finally, the policies share a common policy targeted group— low-income individuals—and they are often constructed in a patriarchal manner. The value of not limiting this study to one policy domain is that it allows me to analyze and illustrate the multi-layered impact of policies that stifle African American women’s quest for social justice and equality.

EXPLORING INTERSECTIONALITY AND POLICY FORMATION As previously mentioned, traditional policy analysis techniques are limiting in their ability to simultaneously analyze the impact of structures and ideologies on policy making. There is a growing body of literature that focus on intersectionality and modeling individual responsiveness to policy (see Manuel 2006). Borrowing from this emerging research and in an effort to find an approach that would facilitate a critical analysis of policy, I turned to Mary Hawkesworth’s (2003) conceptualization of raced–gender institutions. I first present some policy analysis alternatives that were available to me and explain why their use was limited for this analysis. Policy analysts have at their disposal a number of approaches, many of which make it possible for the centrality of variables and factors used to explain policy decision making. For example, these approaches permit analysts to centralize institutions, class systems and patriarchy. Needless to say, analysts can combine these various approaches. Below, I offer a brief review of the three approaches, institutionalism, class structure and systems and a racing–gendering perspective, and how they address issues of race and gender in the policy-making process.

Institutionalism Traditional approaches to institutionalism focus on describing the formal and legal aspects of governmental institutions. Hall (1986: 19) defines institutions as “the formal rules, compliance procedures, and standard operating practices that structure the relationship between individuals in various units of the polity and the economy.” Political and policy actors’ preferences, expectations, experiences and interpretations of actions are shaped by formal structures,

8


legal powers, procedural rules and functions or activities. Race and gender, as factors that influence policy decision making, are often marginalized within studies that employ an institutionalist approach. The work of Theda Skocpol illuminates this deficiency. Theda Skocpol has contributed to this field interesting and thought-provoking work. However, she does little to include racial and gender hierarchies as variables that can influence policy making in her state-centered analysis of the welfare state. Skocpol (1992) explores the origins of maternalist welfare programs of the early 20th century. However, she pays minimal attention to race. According to Neubeck and Cazenave (2001: 19) “other than a passing allusion to ‘cultural discrimination’ against ‘subordinate racial and ethnic groups’ that kept members of these groups from receiving welfare aid, she ignores the topic” of race.

Class Structures and Systems Class interests influence policy making in a number of different ways. Theorists, such as Dye and Zeigler (1990), argue that public policy reflect the values and preferences of a governing elite. For theorists who subscribe to the pluralist model, policy is the result of group struggle and this struggle is a central fact of political life. According to Latham (1965: 36): “What may be called public policy is the equilibrium reached in this struggle at any given moment, and it represents a balance which the contending factions constantly strive to weigh in their favor.” Others conceptualize the policy process as a series of state responses to the economic system (Esping-Anderson 1990; O’Connor 1973). Racism and sexism are often not centralized in studies that follow the class structure/system approach to the study of policy analysis. Racism, for example, is often treated as a component of working-class exploitation, or as a factor that prevents unity between various classes. In Regulating the Poor, Fox Piven and Cloward (1993) argue that the state expands or contracts accessibility to social welfare programs to serve the dominant class’s interests by providing them control over labor. According to Fox Piven and Cloward, welfare policy is used to advance the interests of the dominant class as it acts as a means of creating a cheap labor pool by ensuring the submissiveness of workers and also by stifling protest. It is argued that during times of political and/or economic crisis, the state expands welfare programs in efforts to pacify the poor. This body of work does much to aid our understanding of the functioning of the welfare state. However, because of their emphasis on class Fox Piven and Cloward tend to treat race and gender as secondary factors. These approaches fail to allow me to simultaneously analyze gendered and raced structures and ideologies and their use in the policy-making process.

A Racing–Gendering Perspective Black feminists and womanists argue that analyses that fail to account for the impact of the interconnectedness of class, race and gender in the


9

policy-making process fail to adequately address and understand the impact of public policies on the lives of black women. This critical body of work conducted by Johnson (1995), Mullings (1992) and Roberts (1997, 2002), among others, led me in search of another perspective that might provide a better means of capturing the role of race and gender in the policy-making process. Furthermore, I needed an approach that also recognized that institutions and structures, among other variables, influence this process. This is where Hawkesworth’s analysis becomes useful. Hawkesworth’s (2003: 530) analysis shows how institutional practices of Congress reinforce gender and raced norms and practices by structuring “interactions among members as well as institutional practices, while also shaping public policies.” Using the term racing–gendering, Hawkesworth (2003: 531) attempts “to foreground the intricate interactions of racialization and gendering in the political production of distinctive groups of men and women.” The research is grounded in two concepts—intersectionality and gendered institutions. Below, I present how this model was adapted to fit a policy analysis study. Using welfare reform, Hawkesworth suggests that Congresswomen of color often registered their disagreement to the use of negative images in the policy discourse. Such a suggestion fits with the claim that as part of the policy-making process, decision makers “may play upon real or imagined threats of an external enemy, or exploit stereotypic images which they may or may not share with the public” (Elder and Cobb 1983: 24). Karenga (1982) argues that those individuals who possess social power shape the world in their own image and interest at the expense of those without power. Images, once constructed and systematically purveyed by social scientists and the media, become reinforced as part of American culture. The continued and perpetual propagation of images that characterize groups of individuals as either positive or negative helps to embed these images into culture. Symbols and myths serve a political purpose because they create a sense of reality by providing an index that is used to judge or defi ne a group’s societal worth—that is, their ability to contribute and participate in societal institutions. The binary system of social construction, common in Western philosophic thought, necessitates that there are groups of individuals who are constructed as negative and others as positive. Groups constructed as positive—real or perceived—are projected as being worthy of receiving a greater share of society’s resources. The policy tools used to target a negatively constructed group (portrayed as stupid, dishonest or otherwise unworthy) will more often than not be coercive and punitive (Schneider and Ingram 1993). In the formation of public policy, American culture’s ideological thrust is indisputable. Ideology, as used in this analysis, refers to the “general process of the production of meanings and ideas” (Williams 1977: 55).4 Culture, according to Wade Nobels (1985: 103), is “a process which gives people a general design for living and patterns for interpreting their reality.”

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Nobels further argues that there are multiple aspects, factors and manifestations of culture that when employed together help a society interpret its “reality.” The aspects of culture include ideology, ethos and worldview. Cultural factors include ontology, cosmology and axiology. Behaviors, attitudes and values represent the “manifestation” of culture. Culture becomes political since it acts as a vehicle for defi ning group interest and, ultimately, society’s interests. Political behavior then becomes a “manifestation” of culture because at its root is the defi nition of group interest. Society’s culture and norms are built into its language and rhetoric. A Foucauldian approach views discourses as systems of power/knowledge which are socially and culturally located and which construct subjects and their worlds (Foucault 1972; 1980). In the American context, there is a pervasive use of language to transmit the hegemonic ideology of what it means to be American—and particularly what it means to be a good American. This ideology also specifies what it means to be a “good” woman. Hegemonic ideology—as transmitted through language—justifies, supports and rationalizes the interest of those who control the resources to shape reality. Consequently, images are employed to reinforce class, sexual, gender and racial distinctions. Hawkesworth shows how such distinctions are reinforced in the functioning of Congress, thereby rendering women of color “invisible” in its processes and functions. Congressional women of color, like the wider society⎯men and women, black and white⎯ are thus informed of their behaviors, values and beliefs. Framing of a policy issue and the policy-targeted population is fundamentally a political act. Central to CDA is the principle that discourse is not arbitrary. Indeed the selection and combination of words, images, etc., are purposeful whether or not the choices are conscious or unconscious (Sheyholislami 2001). Words, indeed, are never neutral (Fiske 1994). By determining who is worthy for positive distribution of societal resources (that is, who will benefit from public policy) government promulgates statements of the societal worth of these individuals. Previously existing symbols, tied to the targeted group, allow policy makers to frame the issue in such a way as to encourage the public to accept a particular problem defi nition as reality. Policy makers are not simply recycling already-existing symbols. While I do not analyze the intent of policy decision makers—how they selected particular symbols—I do believe that they are picking and choosing from an array of available symbols. Policy decision makers highlight, reject, combine and emphasize some symbols to achieve just the right discourse mix. Even though they do not start from scratch policy makers are active as symbol makers. According to Talja (n.d: 10), “discourses are not individuals’ creations: they have taken their shape with the passage of time, they reflect the whole history of the societal form, and they have effects which no one has consciously meant.” By employing CDA, I pay attention to the way in which discourses produce and transform social reality. This allows me to evaluate the impact and to challenge the dominant


11

construction of social phenomenon (see Frohmann 1992). In the spirit of Black feminism and womanism I challenge the stories by asking what other story could have been offered. Public problems are the result of complex cultural, political and social processes. These processes involve multiple entities such as policy decision makers, the media, interest groups and various experts. The process has been extensively studied by sociologists who refer to it as “the social construction of reality” (Berger and Luckman 1967; Northcott 1992) and the “typification” or “construction” of social problems (Best 1989; Gusfield 1981; Spector and Kitsuse 1977). According to Northcott (1992) “social construction of reality” results because: Individuals, groups and societies tend to place interpretations upon reality⎯interpretations, which may or may not be true in an absolute sense. These defi nitions, explanations, and assertions are constructed to help us make sense of those things and events that we experience and to help us decide how to respond to those experiences. In the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, these social constructions themselves are frequently based on “fashionable” and therefore, changeable assumptions and value judgments. (1–2) Central to the concept of social construction is the notion that social reality is the product, rather complicated in nature, of structural, political, cultural and social interaction. Debates over public policies unavoidably use narrative, rhetoric, metaphor or other discursive practices to suggest an implied mastery of the problem they purport to attack. Framing of a social issue, via the use of symbols, myths and images, achieves many purposes. For example, it functions to describe the problem, to recommend policies and, most importantly, to persuade individuals to support a particular defi nition. Symbols, metaphors and other rhetorical practices narrate a particular understanding of a problem and reinforce the idea that it is an accurate depiction. According to Murray Edelman (1977), Perhaps the archetypal device for influencing political opinion is the evocation of beliefs about the problems, the intentions, or the moral condition of people whose very existence is problematic, but who become the benchmarks by which real people shape their political beliefs and perceptions . . . politicians’ statements about unobservable people are often either impossible to verify or quite clearly invalid. (30) As Edelman implies, regardless of whether or not cultural images and their underlying assumptions are correct, they tend to have a great impact on policy. This is the case because “if men defi ne situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas 1931: 189). The policy process,

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as described by Maynard-Moody and Kelly (1993), is a struggle over the symbols used to frame the issue and the categorization of social problems because the symbols and categorizations determine what course of action is followed. This type of theorizing, one that looks at the use of the social construction of policy-targeted groups, follows the works of scholars such as Rochefort and Cobb (1994) and Schneider and Ingram (1993). Political scientists have increasingly adopted this mode of analysis, the role of symbolic construction in influencing the policy-process, in their studies of the problem-definition process (Bardach 1989; Edelman 1971; Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; Ingram and Schneider 1991, 1994; Kinder and Sanders 1990; Linder and Peters 1985; Rochefort and Cobb 1994, Schneider and Ingram 1993, 1997; Zaller 1992). Scholars have varied in their uses and interpretations of the social construction of reality, sometimes called construction theory. Schneider and Ingram (1990a, 1990b), Elmore (1987) and Elmore and McDonnell (1987), among others, argue that to fully understand the underlying assumptions of the choice of policy tools and instruments, an analysis of the characteristics of target populations is necessary. Schneider and Ingram challenge the traditionally offered explanations of policy decision making⎯social and political power. Instead, they argue that there is a third variable—the social construction of target groups—that is important in analyzing the process. It is worth mentioning that in this research, it is not necessarily the individual who is socially constructed. What is socially constructed is the representation and meanings given to the individual (this is explored in Chapter 2). Policy actors use frames to describe what Ingram and Schneider (1991) refer to as “target populations.” Initially Ingram and Schneider defi ned a target population as: “The persons, groups, or fi rms selected for behavior change by public policy initiatives such as statutes, agency guidelines, or operational programs. These are the people who are expected to comply with policy directives or who are offered policy opportunities” (1991: 334). Schneider and Ingram (1993: 334) later expanded this defi nition by stating that “target populations refers to . . . the persons or groups whose behavior and well being are affected by public policy.” In this analysis I employ both defi nitions offered by Schneider and Ingram. In defi ning situations, lawmakers and others involved in the process are forced to provide the public with simple stories where causation is easily identified. Deborah Stone (1989: 289) observes: “Complex causal explanations are not very useful in politics, precisely because they do not offer a single locus of control, a plausible candidate to take responsibility for a problem, or a point of leverage to fi x a problem.” A simple symbolic construction of an issue and the targeted group serves as the backbone of policy rationalization. Policy rationales are offered to the public through very simple stories that, according to Stone (1989: 282), “describe harms and difficulties, attribute them to actions of other individuals or organizations,


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and thereby claim the right to invoke government power to stop them.” To simplify complex proposals lawmakers and other shapers of policy select and combine images of the policy-targeted group that resonates with longstanding “knowledge.” Again, my focus is not necessarily on how the policy makers made the choice to invoke particular images—for indeed this is a completely different project. Instead, my concern is to unmask the often hidden power structures, which I argue use existing cultural images and symbols, in policy frames. As such, I focus on which stories are told and which ones are ignored—this is the central concern of CDA. As I argue, the policy making process is both raced and gendered. The process of racing–gendering is indeed dynamic; it is complex and multilayered and serves multiple functions in the sustenance of a highly racialized and gendered society. Involved in the process of racing–gendering is the production of differences, dichotomies, racial and gender orders and hierarchies that often categorize men and women differently. Furthermore, the process of racing–gendering acts as a form of social control by crafting distinctions within groups. For example, women, while sharing gender categorization, are made distinct along racial and class lines. Thus, white women are socially constructed as different from and superior to black women. Class can also fracture our gender categorization (this is discussed in Chapter 2). The process also creates distinctions among racial groups, which promotes differentials in experiences of oppression. A black woman does not experience racial oppression in the same manner as a black man. Additionally, black men and women encounter patriarchy differently, thus influencing their experiences with multiple systems of oppression. Black women, to borrow from the work of Cathy Cohen (1999), are marginalized within an already marginalized group. Analyses of public policy need to focus on the intricacies of the role of race, class and gender, otherwise, the issues confronted by black women will continually be treated as secondary or antithetical to those of the overarching black freedom struggle and women’s liberation (see Alexander-Floyd 2007; Crenshaw 1991, 2000). Within the context of political output, images function within a particular historical framework and are connected with other images, texts and language. Via this relationship, symbols and images facilitate the perpetuation of racial and gender hierarchies. Social icons and stereotypes are used to create, maintain and promulgate the subordinate group as “other,” “outsiders,” or “enemies” (Becker 1963; Edelman 1977; Gilkes 1983). In the words of Patricia Hill Collins (1991), the various images of black womanhood serve as controlling images. The mobilization of these controlling images, to maintain gender and racial hegemonies, is an element in the system of social control. Policy and political actors in their discourse employ these controlling images, which are overwhelmingly negative, to suggest that black women are inept mothers, reckless, morally corrupt and oversexed. It is only when we analyze and describe the relationship between

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words and power that we can challenge the racing–gendering process of policy making.

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONS: LINKING SYMBOLS, DISCOURSES AND POWER RELATIONS My goal is to unmask the often hidden power structures in the (written) words of policy decision makers with the hope of bringing about a different perspective on and deeper understanding of power relations. My attempt to produce and advance a Black feminist politics necessitated that I move beyond standard approaches to assessing racial and gender codes, which typically focus on inductively identifying existing racial and gender themes. The subtle, but important vantage point I adopt emanates from a central question that looks at the use of racial and gender codes and ask the following: what story/construction of black womanhood is employed in the coded language of policy discourse? I argue that we have to unpack these racial and gender codes to mount a different challenge to oppressive structures. When individuals receive these often implicit codes, they are not always aware of how they are relying on a particular racial and gender memory to decipher the message being conveyed. Additionally, the use of racial and gender codes is contextual. Take for example the use of the term “Canadian,” as in “they’re so Canadian.” The code “Canadian” is employed, primarily by Euro-Americans, to send messages about African Americans. It allows for the discussion, usually in a negative manner, of African Americans with little or no fear of repercussions. “Canadian” can be used to transmit different stories, as such its use is rather contextual. For example, the code can be used to suggest that African Americans are cheap, lazy, nasty, or some combination of these “qualities” (Myers 2005). While the ideology remains static, the construction of African American as “other,” the story or message sent can and does vary. Similarly, the racial and gender codes used to talk about African American women and social policy behave and function in a similar manner as the code “Canadian.” So whereas racial and gender codes suggest that black women are “other” and transmit a dominant ideology of inferiority, the message conveyed in the codes can and do vary. In other words, there are different categorizations and representations of black women and they serve different functions in discourses. This is why racism, sexism and other oppressive structures have such a salient and long lasting life—it is such an evolutionary and maleficent thought–action process. As such, we must uncover the often hidden meanings embedded in racial and gender codes. The different categorizations and representations of black womanhood (discussed in Chapter 2) are important in the construction of policy frames and resulting discourses. These symbols are used to construct a particular lived reality (Hall 1992; Wetherell and Potter 1988). By varying


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categorizations and representations, policy makers, as needed, are able to tell different stories. Remember that policy decision making, according to Edelman (1977), is a battle over who gets to frame the issue. However, a frame can only be successful when it resonates, through myths and symbols, with the public. Policy decision makers use the various images of black womanhood to talk about and present knowledge (often constructed as factual and natural) about a particular view of a policy issue. Myths and symbols are used to give valence to the claims made by policy decision makers. In a post-civil rights and women’s movement era how do racial and gender categorizations work? As argued by Van Dijk (1991: 26), there has been a transformation of previously existing “raced differentiations of earlier Western ideologies” into an “emphasis on culture and cultural differences.” Additionally, these differences are not always explicitly expressed. Whether we call it “old” or “new,” racism is still prevalent (Collins 1991; Du Bois 1996). However, in a time of “color blindness” and “gender equity” the explicit reference to racial and gender stereotypes are often hidden in a language of culture and values. This sometimes makes it hard to “fi nd” the use of oppressive language. Codes by their very nature suggest that there is something hidden. Which leaves the question, how do we uncover hidden language? The theories of Black feminism and womanism guide me in the techniques employed in the study. Patricia Hill Collins (2001) suggests that there are four criteria that appear to characterize an alternative epistemology used by African American women in evaluating and validating their point of view/perspectives. They are (a) the use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims, (b) the centrality of personal expressiveness, (c) the ethic of personal accountability, and (d) concrete experience as a criterion of meaning. Similarly, womanist scholars, such as Du Cille (1994), Phillips and McCaskill (1995) and Townes (2006), argue that womanists are concerned with deconstructing and critiquing the forces that are designed to marginalize and oppress black women. Additionally, womanists also seek to reconstruct knowledge with the goal of empowering and asserting the black woman’s voice. Based on these epistemological tenets, I decided that the best way to achieve the goal of Black feminists and womanists in analyzing the framing of policy issues while simultaneously challenging the role of symbols in the policy-making process was to engage in a critical discourse analysis (CDA). Using Fairclough’s CDA (1989, 1995) model, I attempt to uncover and critique the racing–gendering process of policy making. I offer a general overview of how I go about doing such; however, for more details of this process see Appendix A. A central purpose of CDA is to systematically explicate hidden and often opaque relationships between discourse(s) and the wider society’s processes and structures. In the “un-veiling” of the meanings hidden within texts, CDA strives to explain and understand how these hidden

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relationships function to maintain and secure hegemony and power. CDA centers issues of inequalities and injustices, which tends to align it with Black feminism and womanism. Another element of CDA, which also aligns it with Black feminism and womanism, is the goal of promoting social change by informing individuals on the functioning of power and hegemony and their relation to language (Fairclough, 1993). Fairclough (2000) asserts that discourse is shaped and constrained by (a) social structures—class, status, gender, etc., and by (b) culture and (c) discourse—the words we use—which helps to shape and constrain our identities, relationships and systems of knowledge and beliefs. CDA provides a way of understanding what racial and gender codes mean. In this analysis my focus is not necessarily in the individual utterances merely as discrete units, but in how these utterances capture race and gender ideologies. Language is constructed by social relations, events, structures, action and agency. As Edelman asserts (1988), social problems come into discourse not simply because they are there or because they are important for well being, but to serve as fortification for already existing ideologies. The ideologies and values underlying policies are often reflected in symbols created through language and communicative interaction. “Although discourses are not ideologies, they do intersect with ideologies, which supply the words of a discourse with different meanings” (Fischer 2003: 77). Symbols, because they signify the meanings of particular events and offer standards for judging what is deemed good and bad, transmit a particular ideology or ideologies. Texts are not mere words as they embody a rather complex set of power relations and hierarchies. Texts are interpreted and acted upon via what Focault (1972) calls statements and what Gee (1999) refers to as discursive practices. Each discourse, according to Focault (1972), is based on statements—that is, background assumptions. As described, statements are usually unspoken theories about the nature of things and function as the necessary and implicit starting points for framing and constructing an issue. Statements are part of an established (often grounded in history) naturalized way of speaking. Gee (1999) asserts that the function of discursive practices is to offer us a way of being in the world that signify specific and recognizable social identities. Discourses, through the use of statements and discursive practices, construct lived realities as they provide the knowledge for talking about an issue, for presenting views and for interpreting the constructed meanings. This still begs the question, how do we know that an individual is using a particular code? In Chapters 3 through 5, I often highlight a particular statement and then make the claim that the speaker is relying on a particular image of black womanhood to organize the discourse. However, you might wonder how do I know that this is the case, that is, how can we be assured that particular symbolic images, such as Jezebel or Sapphire, are animating policy makers’ formulations and statements? After all, policy makers do not explicitly use the term Jezebel or Sapphire in their discourse. Indeed some individuals do not even know of these symbols (by name) of black


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womanhood. For example, in my classes (usually undergraduate) when I ask my students if they know about the Sapphire image the usual response is no. However, when I describe the characteristics of Sapphire they usually start nodding and adding to the description. Although they do not know the image by name, they have knowledge of this type of woman. Students know that Sapphire is a “bad” and “dangerous” woman. When I ask how they got this information, students often tell me that it is part of “social” knowledge usually passed on orally and through stereotypes. This illustrates the central function of codes, where particular words or phrases implicitly invoke socially constructed, emotionally charged and politically salient images. The construction and representation of the “other” occurs across the communicative repertoire. Work on the politics of representation in the fields of cultural studies, film and media studies and anthropology show how race and gender are used to depict the other (see Hallam and Street 2000; Harris 2003; Lester and Ross 2003). Mendelberg (2001) shows that in the context of the norm of racial equality that racial dispositions, stereotypes and resentments can be primed and activated. Using political campaigns, specifically the Willie Horton advertisement, Mendelberg suggests that such racial feelings can be activated with the use of implicit messages. These implicit messages tend to rely on racially neutral words while relying on the use of racial images. Implicit messages work because voters “do not recognize these messages as racial and do not believe that their favorable response is motivated by racism” (Mendelberg 2001: 7). Gilliam (1999), in his welfare experiment, also shows the potency of racial and gender ideologies on individual’s response to welfare and its recipients. In “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment,” Gilliam hypothesized that over time the “welfare queen” took on a narrative script, which means the status of common knowledge. According to Gilliam, this script has two principal components: Welfare recipients are disproportionately women and African American. To evaluate the public’s attitudes to welfare, he exposed the participants of the study to one of four television news stories about welfare recipients while varying the image in terms of race and gender. For instance, some participants viewed the welfare recipient cast as a white woman; others saw the recipient cast as a black woman; while others did not see any visual cues of the recipient. The results showed that whites exposed to the narrative script reduced their support for welfare programs, reinforced stereotypes of African Americans and increased support for maintaining traditional gender roles. Additionally, Gilliam shows that when whites were exposed to the white welfare recipient they barely recalled seeing the white welfare recipient. However, when they were exposed to the black recipient, nearly 90 percent of the respondents were able to accurately recall the race of the African American recipient. As Gilliam expected, people were extremely accurate in their recall of the race and gender of the recipient. This study suggests that the “welfare queen” narrative script has imprinted racial and gender images in the heads of many Americans and the “image” of the

18 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy recipient resonates with the public. Both Mendelberg and Gilliam, among others, show that race and gender ideologies continue to play a prominent role in how we understand society and in our construction of “other.” My research project differs somewhat from the above referenced research on the use of racial and gender narratives. I do not analyze visual representations of race and gender; instead, I focus on written text. However, the above referenced research plays a fundamental role in shaping and informing this research project. This study draws several key assumptions from this body of research. First, I assume that there is a particularly social identity of black womanhood. This identity has been socially constructed and is often grounded in issues of morality and sexuality. Second, these identities are used in discursive practices, implicitly and explicitly, and are grounded in history and social knowledge. This is what Gilliam (1999) refers to as narrative scripts. As such, it is possible to uncover how these social identities are used in the development of policy frames. The approach taken in this study is depicted below in Figure 1.1, which shows how the various theories, methods, methodologies and epistemologies are related and used in the study.

Figure 1.1

The relationship between discourses and power structures.


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Tracing the use of Symbols: The Approach of the Study What does the performance of a critical discourse analysis entail? CDA is multifaceted, as it describes, interprets, analyses and critiques social life as reflected in text (Luke 1997). However, a challenge of doing CDA is that it does not have a unitary theoretical framework, method and methodology (Van Dijk 2000). CDA is a post-positivist, interdisciplinary research method that encompasses a range of approaches including for example ethnography. To get to the basic question of what is the meaning of a text, I take a multipronged and interdisciplinary approach. Generally, I utilize what Yanow (2003) refers to as a “constructivist-interpretive” approach. The constructive element comes from my focus on how language is instrumental in “constructing” or building reality. I consider how social meanings, via the use of myths and symbols, are produced and reproduced through discursive practices. Interpretive analysis is simultaneously an iterative and inductive process of decontextualization and recontextualization (Ayres, Kavanaugh and Knafl 2003; Morse and Field 1995). The process of decontextualization involves separating data from the original context of individual cases, which in this case consists of policy frames used by policy makers, and assigning codes to units of meaning in the texts. Recontextualization fi rst involves examining the codes for patterns and then organizing and reducing the data around central themes and relationships drawn across all texts. The interpretive aspect used to analyze the data is borrowed from the interpretive philosophies of phenomenology, hermeneutics and critical theory. To further facilitate the analysis of the data I also borrow from the following approaches: category analysis and constant comparative analysis of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1990, 1998). Some might wonder, Why not use a more traditional approach such as content analysis as this would allow the reader to “see” the data? The identification of empirical data can and should be approached differently based on epistemological and methodological assumptions. Coding, used in content analysis for example, has a particular view and uses particular methodological assumptions. I determined that this manner of viewing data was not aligned with the epistemological tenets of Black feminism. This interdisciplinary and multi method approach allowed me to categorize and interpret the patterns of the discourse on social policy targeting African American women in a manner that is not available to me with more traditional approaches to the study of policy analysis. As such, the approach taken in this analysis provides us with an alternative and complimentary view of the policy making process. To better understand the impact of the policy discourses, I pose a number of questions. Basically I ask: (a) what claim is being made; (b) what image of the public is being used and how do the images correspond with the various cultural symbols of black womanhood; and (c) how is policy, current and future, described. I rely on examinations of the text of public laws and the Congressional floor debates, hearings and legislative histories as printed

20 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy in the Congressional Record. For presidential discourses, the primary data source is the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, to establish and analyze the symbols used in the rhetoric and discussions. After identifying and securing the various pieces of legislation and other relevant documents, they were carefully read to determine if in fact they were relevant to the population, black women, being studied. Grounded theory, specifically the method of constant comparison of coding and analyzing data via the following three stages: open coding (examining, comparing, conceptualizing and categorizing data); axial coding (reassembling data into groupings based on relationships and patterns within and among the categories identified in the data); and selective coding (identifying and describing the central phenomenon, or “core category,” in the data) (Dey 1999; Strauss and Corbin 1998), proved particularly useful in organizing the data. A total of 867 documents were analyzed. Of these, 469 documents, including debates, hearings and reports identified via the Congressional Information Service Index, were studied to determine Congressional framing of policy issues. At the presidential level, I identified and analyzed 398 documents (see Appendix A). I consider specific legislation and major laws that were passed in each policy domain; again identified via the Congressional Information Service Index (see Appendix A). In the crime policy domain, I analyzed the following: the Anti-Drug Abuse Act 1986 (U. S. Public Law 99–570), enacted on October 27, 1986; the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (U. S. Public Law 100–690), enacted November 18, 1988; what is commonly referred to as the Sentencing Guidelines Disapproval Act of 1995 (U. S. Public Law 104–38), enacted October 30, 1995. For welfare policy, the Welfare Reform Act, passed in 1996 (U. S. Public Law 104–193), serves as the central piece of legislation. As a basis for comparison, I also analyzed President Clinton’s 1994 welfare reform legislation. The Family Support Act of 1988 (U. S. Public Law 100– 485) is employed in the analysis that focuses on family policy. I also introduce recent legislation that focuses on strengthening families. The research indicates that the similarity in types of frames and images employed in both the rhetorical and policy elements binds the policy domains used in this study. Thus, the three policy areas (crime, welfare and family)—although treated separately—should be viewed as deeply interwoven, constituting a constellation of policies that impact black women. The benefit of examining the interconnections among policy areas is that it allows me to illustrate the continuity and fluidity of racing–gendering process of policy making. In addition to coding the discourse, I employ what Yanow (2000) terms category analysis. I use categories to help determine what claim is being made about (a) the social problem, (b) policy—existing and future policy, and (c) the policy targeted group. The categories were useful for the reconceptualization phase of the analysis in that they allowed me to see the commonly used themes. The speeches, and other forms of discourse, are categorized based on a modification of Linder’s (1995) framework of categories. Linder employs a series of categories to identify discursive elements—


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both the rhetorical (which deals primarily with the problem defi nition) and policy elements—involved in the social construction of a policy problem. Linder’s categorization results from his analysis of the public controversies in the United States over the health risks posed by living in proximity to the electric and magnetic fields created by power lines. Using the discourse generated by this controversy, he shows how it is possible to identify the rhetorical and policy elements of the construction of a social problem.5 There are four analytical categories employed in Linder’s study. These categories have been slightly modified so as to better fit this research project. The rhetorical analytic categories include: 1. The nature of the argumentative appeals and warrants (such as moralist or paternalistic premises); 2. The image of the public underlying the rhetoric (such as victims or as potential threats to society); and 3. The image of the existing or lack of social programs (such as promoting a social and moral risk or as necessary for the public good). These three categories help to identify the frame of the issue. They also allow me to explicate how the issue was organized and interpreted and fi nally presented to the public. In addition to the aforementioned rhetorical elements, Linder also delineates four policy analytic elements embedded in each of the rhetorical constructions. 6 Three of these elements are relevant to this study and they include: 1. The policy objectives (to encourage self-sufficiency and responsibility or marriage); 2. The type of policy intervention (to maintain regulatory control or social assistance); and 3. The policy instrument (to offer increased opportunities for services to address drug addition or increased sentencing). These categories allow us to see how raced and gendered images are used in policy decision making. Policy analytical elements are intimately connected with rhetorical analytic elements since the latter is used to justify the use of specific policy approaches. In addition to categorizing the policy discourses, I also needed to categorize the various constructions and representations of black womanhood. This is discussed below. My understanding of the construction of black womanhood involved analyzing groups, power relations and conflicts for the policy domains in question, identifying positive and negative opinions about “Us versus Them” and making explicit the presupposed and the implied (Van Dijk 1988). When an individual uses a particular statement or discursive practice, he or she hopes that the recipient has the decoder—that is, the requisite knowledge to

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understand the code. This is what Van Dijk (1985, 1991) refers to as the social memory—the collective shared beliefs of society. This knowledge is historically, socially and institutionally generated. It is this knowledge that allows recipients of implicit racial messages, as discussed by Mendelberg (2001), to understand and interpret the information in political advertisements. This social knowledge is also used by participants in Gilliam’s (1999) study in their interpretation and understanding of the Welfare Queen image. The images of black womanhood, described in Chapter 2, hold the social knowledge necessary to understand the often hidden race and gender power structures that are embedded in discourses. These images allow us to decipher the ideology and meanings conveyed through the policy frames and stories. The specific name given to the image, such as Sapphire, need not be employed in the frame. However, I use these “names” because Black feminists and womanists have consistently identified them as part of the tools used to marginalize black women. Additionally, it is important to give a name to these often used understandings of black womanhood. In this study, the categories are developed through an intense reading of the data and existing theory. The key was to determine and explicate common thematic properties (see Benoit, et al. 2002). Given my use of archival materials, I could not check with the users of the discourse to determine what they intended the discourse to mean. But, the question or the key issue, rather, does not turn on subjective intent. The function of this discourse is central. To be sure, there are some who specifically or consciously invoke these codes, but it also happens unconsciously, meaning it is part of their taken-for-granted knowledge of everyday life— their worldview. The use of these images of black womanhood operates both at the conscious and unconscious levels. By focusing on the written texts, absent a focus on “intentionality,” this approach has a distinct advantage in that it acknowledges not only the conscious but unconscious operation of raced and gendered codes and appropriately emphasizes the function and meaning of texts as self-contained political products. To help determine the latent and subtle patterns of social welfare policy discourses I also consider the context—political in this case—of the discourse to help formulate the categories of analysis. I focus on how ideas about race, gender and citizenship function in society. The “rise” of conservative ideology, is central to the context for the policies I analyze. Morality and talk of “equality” and “fairness” dominated and dominates much of the social policy discourse. Such rhetoric culminated in the use of statements and discursive elements focusing on deservedness, moral harm and dependency (see Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swilder and Tipton 1985; Fischer 2000). Another element of the context of the various policy making processes discussed here is the racialization of politics (see Carmines and Stinson 1989; Davis 1997). The policy domains singled out for analysis—crime, welfare and family—are fertile domains for studying the racing–gendering process. Technically, these policy domains fall under race-neutral policy. However, as demonstrated through CDA I show that policies in these areas are rarely race-neutral and


23

are very gender specific. Over the years, the three aforementioned policies have been identified as particularly race conscious. Placing the rhetoric of social policy, specifically crime, welfare and family policy, into context helps me to understand what quality or behavior pattern is subscribed to the policy targeted group and the policy itself. This information is conveyed through my adaptation of Linder’s typology which delineates the rhetorical and policy analytic categories used to frame policy discourse. Notably, CDA deviates from other methodological approaches that fall under the general category of positivist science. Those engaged in positivism extend the methodological rigor of the scientific method to the study of social problems. Often this approach fails to capture the “inculcation of values and the validation of status” as these variables “cannot be measured according to rational techniques, especially since the latter require that everything be made explicit and unambiguous” (Yanow 1996: 6). Using CDA allows me to capture the values and ideologies ensconced in the various images of black womanhood. The purpose of engaging in this activity is to show the constructions of relations of power, and forms of inequality and the impact of said constructions on the lives of African American women and their communities. The markers of one’s positionality—from this vantage point, race, class, gender, experiences and values—affects data collection and analysis. My research, as that of all researchers, is informed by my positionality which influences the questions I ask and the theories I employ. Another researcher employing an interpretive approach as I do could conceivably assess this data differently, determining, for instance, that there are other tales being told. This, of course, is true of methods associated with any methodological approach, including those associated with quantitative methodology. To enhance the trustworthiness of the study, I use CDA, its analytic component, with other methodological and data analytical techniques. This is where grounded theory, as described by Straus and Corbin (1990, 1998), becomes useful. I strive to enhance the conceptual/theoretical coherence of the study by using a process of constant analytical comparisons. This process allows one to see and understand patterns of discourse via a multiple analysis (see Appendix A). Finally, whereas some centered in other methodological traditions and their methods focus on generalizability, the interpretive approach that I adopt eschews this particular aim, focusing instead on how phenomena can be seen or interpreted and not necessarily making broad claims about phenomena based on a specific case. This allows for a more historically grounded and theoretically nuanced assessment of social policy.

OVERVIEW OF WHAT FOLLOWS: THE LAYOUT OF THE BOOK Recognizing that the content of this work becomes dense at times, I attempt to write this work in as accessible a manner as possible. At times, I will

24


violate the conventions of scientific research—for example in my use of the fi rst person. I also recognize the impact of my social identity—a black woman—and its impact on the analysis. However, it is important for me to stray from the norms in order to tell this story of black women and public policy. For those who read this section fi rst, I offer a brief summary of what is covered in the fi rst chapter. This chapter comprises my initial conceptualization of cultural symbols and icons and how they are used in the racing– gendering process of public policy making. Chapter 2 sets the stage for the remainder of the work by providing a brief historical overview of the symbolic construction of African American women. I start with the slavery era and trace many of these images, including Mammy, Sapphire, Matriarch, Jezebel, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother, to the present time. Here I lay out the typology of the symbolic construction of black womanhood. The typology shows the various meanings and representations attached to black women. The goal of the chapter is to codify the constituent elements that make up the social and political reality that undergird the lives of not only black women but also the black community in general Chapters 3 through 5 contain the core of the analysis. In these chapters, I use Linder’s typology, coupled with the five images of black womanhood, to determine how race and gender influence the policy process. Starting in Chapter 3, which focuses on crime policy, I analyze how the black woman is criminalized if she is poor, a single mother, an abuser of drugs, or some combination thereof. Black women now represent the fastest-growing prison population (Mauer and Huling 1995). It is estimated that the incarceration rate for black women, resulting from the war on drugs from 1991 to 1996, increased by 82 percent (The Drug Reform Coordination Network 2002). According to a 2006 report, black women account for 30 percent of all incarcerated females under state or federal jurisdiction (Harrison and Beck 2006, Table 10: 8). In this chapter, I place black women at the center of the analysis to illustrate how the inequalities between genders can differentially affect criminalization’s impact on the black community. Chapter 4 addresses the ramifications of using certain types of images, such as the Welfare Queen, in the policy discussion of welfare reform. In this chapter, I analyze how the reliance on negative, degenerate constructions of black women allows policy makers to equate poverty within the black community with “immoral” black women. I offer my analysis of the final policy area, family policy, in Chapter 5. In this chapter, I investigate how defi ning black motherhood as “other” allows the government to step in and control the fertility rights of African American women. These women have been stripped of their reproductive rights through the practice of sterilization, and in recent years, through incarceration. Government regulation is deemed “necessary” to regulate African American reproductive activity because it is argued that black women lack the proclivity to control their own fertility. I try to resolve the paradox that black women, while capable of caring for other people’s children, are perceived as being incapable of caring for their


25

own. This chapter uses FSA of 1988 as a springboard for the analysis of the more recent fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives. On the surface, it seems that I break “logical” chronological time order by analyzing FSA of 1988 in Chapter 5. While both the FSA and the PRWORA are welfare policies, I separate the analysis based on the discursive elements. I pause here for a brief note on the presentation of the data. While Chapter 4 focuses primarily on work-related issues, Chapter 5 concentrates on issues of familial and domestic relations such as fatherhood initiatives. Chapter 6 begins to move the analysis in a different direction by asking what can black women do to challenge and counter many of the negative myths of black womanhood that permeate the policy-making process—this is the strategizing element of Black feminism and womanism. Some might argue that this chapter does not seem to “fit” with the research. If one remembers that one of the basic tenets of both Black feminist and womanist thought and CDA is to challenge power structures then this chapter indeed fits into this analysis. In my attempt to challenge racial and gender hierarchies, Chapter 6 examines the consequences of the disjuncture of images and policy formation. Additionally, I attempt to empower the black community by showing black women, and others sympathetic to their quest for equality, how they can influence the policy-making process. This process involves the following four separate but related approaches/strategies: (a) reconceptualizing the policy-making process; (b) recognizing the connectedness of gender, class, and race; (c) harnessing the power of the “outsider within” location; and (d) social transformation.

2

Mythical Illusions Cultural Images and Black Womanhood 1

The Negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder. The animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the Negro from birth, and foreshadows his destiny. His [her] intellect will always move within a very narrow circle. If his [her] mental faculties are dull or even non-existent, he [she] often has an intensity of desire, and so of will, which may be called terrible. Many of his [her] senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknown to the other two races. —Gobineau (as quoted in Ani 1994: 282).

The social construction of race is dependent on gender categorization and the social construction of gender is dependent on racial categorizations. The process of using race to defi ne gender and vice versa has a long-standing history. White (2001: 20) argues that “nineteenth-century scientists often used race to explain gender and gender to explain race.” The result is the segregation of groups of individuals based on their race and gender; where some groups are portrayed as dominant and “normal” and others as subordinate and “other.” Although the conceptualizations of dominant and subordinate are based on social constructions, the consequences are real and determine the power relations both between and within groups. In an effort to maintain these power relations and structures, cultural myths and symbols⎯which are often based on stereotypes⎯are employed. The objective of employing cultural symbols in policy discourse is “not to reflect or represent a reality but to function as a disguise, or mystification, of objective social relations” (Carby 1987: 22). As such, cultural symbols of black womanhood serve to mask and normalize the inequitable position of black women. As a result of racing–gendering, black women fi nd themselves marginalized on two fronts—race and gender. They are fi rst marginalized because they are non-white. This marginalization and categorization occurs on two levels. First, there is the construction of black women in relation to white men. Second, there is the construction of black women in relation to white women. Finally, black women, as a result of gender hierarchies, are also marginalized in their relationships with black men. Over time, these multiple marginalizations resulted in the development and redevelopment of a

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number of cultural symbols and icons used to represent black womanhood. In the post-Antebellum period, the controlling image of the Mammy was employed to reinforce African American female sexuality and obedience. In the post-civil rights period, she has been constructed as the Welfare Queen and more recently as the Urban Teen Mother. The construction of black womanhood should be viewed as a continuum connected by issues of black female sexuality and morality. Debates regarding black women in the public sphere encompass a number of issues ranging from their role in the labor force as well as their role in the domestic sphere. Race and gender often temper these discussions that take place in the context of the widespread opinion, which holds as its premise that a woman’s natural sphere of activity is the home and her primary role is to serve as wife and mother. The moral character of black women is a central part of these discussions. Black women’s morality is often juxtaposed against that of white (elite) women. The construction of the “proper” lady often did not encompass non-elite white women, such as the “farm wife.” In this instance, more emphasis was placed on notions of work ethic (Hagler 1980). Focusing on the notion of work ethic, and who has it and who does not, allows for a distinction to be made between working women. Thus, white working class women are elevated above black working class women. Although the standard of the good woman was not similarly experienced along class lines, Palmer (1983) asserts that white women in general benefited from such distinctions between women. Palmer argues that Euro-American women benefited either materially or “symbolically” as the distinction between good women and bad women was racialized. As part of a hegemonic ideology these distinctions work to blur class lines, even if symbolically (see Mullings 1994). Byerly’s (1986) analysis of women mill workers further shows how gender is racialized. In her analysis of black and white female mill workers, of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, Byerly argues that these women had drastically different experiences. The different experiences, according to her, resulted from racial hierarchies. The discourse, prevalent in the late-nineteenth-century (and continuing into modern times) overwhelmingly constructed and presented black women as immoral and promiscuous. Constructions were created to justify and reinforce the inequitable political, economic and social position of African Americans relative to whites; not to mention the growing perception of the link between criminality and race. As a consequence, black women were constructed as binary opposites to the ideal concept of womanhood. Because black women were “judged by the evolving nineteenthcentury ideology of femininity” as argued by Angela Davis (1983: 5), they “were practically anomalies.” In analyzing the political usage of cultural images and symbols, one must consider the context of the political frames. To do so, helps to uncover the statements (Focault 1972) and discursive practices (Gee 1999). These

28 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy statements and discursive practices are rooted in the social memory (Van Dijk 1985) of society. The institution of slavery fermented the negative construction of black womanhood. As a result of the legacy of slavery, black women have been constructed in the archetypal images of Mammy, Matriarch, Sapphire, Jezebel, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother. These various images position black women as antithetical to the “good” (read: white) woman. Social construction is a two-sided coin, particularly as it relates to slavery. While slavery necessitated the construction of black women as the polar opposite of the “good” woman, it required the construction of the embodiment of this “good” woman against which the constructions of black womanhood became meaningful. Thus, to fully explore and analyze the social construction of black womanhood, it must be examined against the dominant image of “good” womanhood, which is often projected via Euro-American women. Race, class and gender are utilized in the creation of models of womanhood, which are dichotomous in nature—male/female, good woman/bad woman, normal/other. I do not want to pretend that all women are subjected to, and in the same manner, this construction of womanhood. All white women are not necessarily constructed as “good.” And all black women are not viewed as “bad.” Additionally, these images are often used across ideological beliefs and individuals of various races/ethnicities and gender. Angela Dillard (2001), in her analysis of ideology and identity, shows how and why individuals, such as African Americans, feminists, homosexuals and Latinos, coalesce around a conservative ideology. She argues that identity—race and class— coalesce around ideologies of individualism and “family values” via a shared reliance on cultural images and symbols. This appears, according to Dillard, to be a contradiction because these images were born out of a racial, sexual and patriarchal ideology that tended to exclude these “strange bedfellows.” The end result is that these varied individuals support conservative policies that can prove detrimental to others in their racial/ethnic, gender and or sexually oriented group. What this suggests is that there is a dominant discourse that can be subscribed to by various individuals— including individuals of the dominant and subordinate groups. So then, why use the binary system that suggests the duality between white and black women? Again, I turn to Dillard in an attempt to answer this question. Dillard (2001: 12–13) says that, yes, there is multiculturalism among conservatives, however, “the conservative movement, overall, is predominately white and Christian.” Additionally, Dillard (2001: 182) asserts that although there exists a conservative convergence that “the major loser in this shifting discourse about race and identity in America, then, may prove to be poor blacks, who, pathologized and silenced, will continue to be everybody’s convenient and favorite scapegoat.” Consequently, the status quo, in terms of race, and I include gender, ideologies and practices persist. In the post-slavery era these models of womanhood, which are influenced by race and class hierarchies, continue to affect the life choices of

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black women because they are a part of a longstanding hegemonic power structure (see Du Bois 1996). These models of womanhood influence how society views black women’s contributions to its institutions as well as how black women should be rewarded for said contributions. In this chapter, I provide the contextual basis for understanding how images of the “crack mother” and “welfare cheat,” for example, can be used by policy decision makers. My primary goal is to codify the constituent elements that make up the social and political reality that underlie the lives of black women and their communities. Relying on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the work of critical gender and race theorists, I offer a typology of black womanhood that shows the categorization of black womanhood. This typology is useful in the application of Linder’s categories of rhetorical and policy elements as it allows me to explicate the values and ideologies conveyed in the various policy frames. In subsequent chapters, I use this typology of black womanhood to show how politics and the public policy process “take shape through socially interpreted understandings” (Fischer 2003: 13).

DEFINING IMAGES, SYMBOLS AND MYTHS Part of developing a systematic approach for the analysis of the use of cultural symbols and myths involves identifying such symbols and myths. This was one of my many challenges, since a symbol “stands for something other than itself” to which it corresponds (Edelman 1964: 6). Welfare use, because of the Welfare Queen symbol, for example, no longer represents a state of poverty, but rather, a life of luxury. The pervasiveness of the Welfare Queen symbol has caused the term “welfare” to lose its meaning as a policy designed to help poor women, usually those abandoned by their husbands, or widowed. This was often the primary meaning of welfare in the earlier stages of the development of the social-welfare state. In modern times, its meaning has been co-opted by a symbol used to tell stories of women who refuse to work, but who dine on steak and stay home watching television all day long (see Fraser and Gordon 1994; Gilliam 1999). The utilization of the symbolic construction of black womanhood is not a simple process. Utilizing De Lauretis’s review of sign theories we can see that encapsulated in the Mammy image, for example, are two objects⎯referent, the thing to which the symbol refers⎯a direct object and an indirect object (1987). The indirect object is still the black woman—real, live, historical women. However, the direct object is an idea, a mental representation—a story, symbol or myth. It is only by denying the existence of the direct object (the story), and mistaking the indirect object as the direct object, that the stories can create a sense of reality. However, symbols do not have real impacts in the world unless they are funneled through real, live bodies (De Lauretis 1987).

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Symbols, often expressed through ideology, determine the specifics of the response to particular needs and the choices among different alternatives proposed to deal with a problem (Majone 1989). As they are employed in policy discourse, symbols suggest the origin of a problem and also assign blame and praise. The symbolic representation and the language used act to defi ne the issue and draw out what particular aspect of the issue is examined. Consequently, symbols both narrate a particular understanding and reinforce the idea that it is an accurate depiction. Such symbols work to make a particular version of an issue become “reality.” The creation of a reality is vital because it works to expand or limit the scope of the issue (Schattschneider 1960). Myth, according to Roland Barthes, is a metalanguage (a sort of sign or symbol of signs or symbols) that speaks about language. Barthes claims that myth distorts by inflecting available meanings, and that its purpose is to naturalize culturally constructed meanings, transforming cultural and political history into nature or truth (1957). In essence, myths allow politically-motivated stories to be rendered effective, to be seen as truth. From this defi nition, one can see how myths serve various roles in society. They are often used as a means of justifying fears and anxieties while at the same time promoting supremacist beliefs. For example, the increasing use of the term “illegitimate births” as a signal of the decaying moral fabric of society illustrates this notion. Crime, unemployment and low educational attainment are now attributed to and captured in the term “illegitimate birth.” It is argued that children raised in the absence of a father tend to subscribe to cultures of poverty and violence (this is discussed in Chapter 5). In addition, it has been argued that “Negro parents” tend to ignore and resent their children (Glazer and Moynihan 1963: 50). It is further argued that the failure of African American parents to care for their charges results in communities that are plagued by broken families, illegitimacy, matriarchy, economic dependency, delinquency and crime (Glazer and Moynihan 1963). Moynihan places the blame for many of these ills on the inability of African Americans to follow the traditional models of marital and familial relations (see Murray 1984 and PRWORA for more recent examples of how this correlation is made). Using such frames of reference has led to the development of policy that circumvents privacy by blurring the distinction between the public and private domain. For example, single-parenting women on welfare are asked to disclose their sexual partners. My analysis is not centered on determining either the truth or falsity of the myths and symbols used in a particular discourse. Instead, I concentrate on the composite beliefs that are transmitted, usually through language, when these myths and symbols are employed. Symbols, myths and images, to be rendered potent, must be constructed and used in such a manner that makes them identifiable. A potent symbol is one that is strategically employed to make it and the meaning it conveys readily identifiable. The terms “urban” and “inner city,” for example, are

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now analogous to blackness. Politicians no longer have to use “black” or “African American”; instead they rely on the terms “urban” or “inner city” to identify the policy-targeted group. In addition, symbols transmit diverse, and often confl icting, messages. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ward Connerly2 used “civil rights” to transmit two different messages. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used the term civil rights (in general terms) to call for an end to discriminatory practices aimed at African Americans. Ward Connerly uses the term to refer to reverse discrimination. Racially coded language allows for the use of racist appeals without being explicit. The messages conveyed by specific symbolic usage are the product of specific historical, cultural, social and economic situations⎯that is, words and symbols are born out of ideology and culture. Because symbols are often a complex association of sometimes-opposite meanings, they can be “inflected” (highlighting certain components of the symbol while downplaying others), or they can be explicitly employed, for use in various contexts. This is what allows Connerly to manipulate the term civil rights for his own benefit. This very strategy can be used for positive political battles by or on behalf of black women as well. Myths and stereotypes work hand in hand. Myths work to mystify reality and stereotypes work to simplify reality. The “reality” myths and stereotypes are supposed to represent is constantly changing; however, this does not signify that the underlying ideology or culture has changed. Often, the symbolic construction of the targeted group does not conform to the way that members of the groups perceive themselves. However, according to Hebdige (1979: 57–58) “these images [can] gain acceptance by the wider society and, in some cases, by members of the culture to which they are ascribed.” Rather than trying to assess the manifest and technical objectives of social policy, I ask how policy elites—those involved in framing the problem at various stages—depict various problems such as welfare reliance, crime and motherhood through the use of images, myths and stereotypes. This analysis concentrates on the discourse used to frame the policy issue. I analyze what story is being told and what alternate story might exist. I focus on the symbolic construction of black women because I believe that it allows us to see how society’s perceptions of this group are fi ltered through public policies that tend to continually oppress this group. All problems are defi ned in some historical or experiential context. Consequently, one must turn to the specific context of usage to understand the defi nitions. The context of symbolic usage is invaluable for understanding not only the content of defi nitions, but also the public’s responses. The various chapters of this book will provide the historical background on the stereotypic construction of black womanhood and its current usage in the political arena. The key elements of the symbolic construction of black womanhood (the construction as Mammy, Matriarch, Jezebel and Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother) are

32


compared and reexamined in an attempt to identify patterns and trends, thus allowing for generalizations regarding the role of symbols in policy formation and the impact on the black community.

“NAMING” BLACK WOMEN Gender relations⎯both intergroup and intragroup⎯are rationalized via a hegemonic construction of the “good” woman. The social iconography of true womanhood is used to rationalize the structuring of gender relations. Barbara Welter (1966) argues that the concept of “True Womanhood” originated during the 19th century where it was prescribed not only to the role of the female (domesticity, a good wife and mother) but also to her behavior (dependent on men, pure and chaste) and her physical appearance (frail and small). Race and class influenced the cult of True Womanhood and allowed for the placement of women into different domains. Following Western philosophic thought, the domains tended to be dichotomous and were offered to the public in very simplistic terms. Race was instrumental in determining the classification of women—that is, the official “title” bestowed upon various women. John R. Lynch, in support of the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, argues: Under our present system of race distinctions, a white woman of questionable social standing, yea, I may say, of an admitted immoral character, can go to any public place or upon any public conveyance and be the recipient of the same treatment, the same courtesy, and the same respect that is usually accorded to the most refi ned and virtuous; but let an intelligent, modest, refi ned colored lady present herself and ask that the same privileges be accorded to her that have just been accorded to her social inferior of the white race, and in nine cases out of ten, except in certain portions of the country, she will not only be refused, but insulted for making the request. (quoted in Higginbotham 1996: 13) Lynch captures the social value of the title “lady.” But perhaps more importantly, Lynch reveals that “lady” is more closely tied to race than to essential character traits or behavior. The distinction between a “lady” and a “woman,” coupled with issues of race, is important in the structuring of society. It defines the societal value of the woman in practice; a “colored lady” would never be valued as a lady solely because of her race. The tentacles of this categorization have historically influenced perceptions of sexuality and motherhood between racial groups. White women were encouraged to aspire to the virtues of true womanhood and were often portrayed as embodying its qualities—if only symbolically. African American women were perceived as independent and thus, a

Mythical Illusions

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threat to the status quo of patriarchy. Consequently, they were not afforded the same virtuous classification as their white counterparts. Categorizing these women as “non-woman” and as “non-human” allowed for the use of degenerate symbols regarding sexuality and morality of black women. These representations were then used to justify slaveholders’ corrupt behavior. One of the most enduring notions in this regard was the claim that black women are sexually promiscuous. Such a claim was needed to maintain the institution of slavery. Thus, black women were portrayed as sexually loose (a) because they were participating in a historically designated male domain (work outside the home), (b) because they were not protected by men, and (c) because it allowed slaveholders to sexually exploit them without consequence. The black woman’s role in the labor force, because of slavery and later, economic necessity, goes against the dominant ideology that holds that a woman’s place is solely in the domestic sphere. White (1985) informs us that this symbolic portrayal of black women helps to explain why there was a period of time when white men were never convicted of raping African American women. It should be noted that white women’s sexuality has undergone some shifts while black women’s sexuality has remained relatively static. In Western culture, for example, between the Renaissance and Victorian eras, a diametrical shift in women’s sexuality occurred. Specifically, white women’s sexuality was reconstructed from lascivious to morally pure. However, such a change did not occur for black women; they continued to be constructed as lustful and wanton. The cult of true womanhood was also used to categorize women in terms of motherhood. Society defined women as mothers; a woman’s worth was measured in terms of her ability to reproduce. However, as Davis (1983: 7) argues, during the period of slavery, black women “were not mothers at all.” Instead, black women were simply a source used to facilitate and further the economic aims of white slaveholders, while diminishing perhaps the most valued aspect of womanhood—motherhood. During the debates on the Thirteenth Amendment, Senator Justice Harlan made the following argument, “Another incident [of slavery] is the abolition practically of the parental relation. . . . This guardianship of the parent over his own children must be abrogated to secure the perpetuity of slavery” (quoted in Schwartz 1970: 72). Refusing to honor black women with the badge of motherhood is a telling indication of their perceived social value as women. As a result of this devaluation black women were not offered protection, such as protection from rape and the ability to keep and mother their offspring, by the state apparatus. Black women’s societal worth was further devalued in the eyes of EuroAmericans because they were prohibited from participating in state-sanctioned unions. Such unions encouraged and often required white women to act “ladylike” and remain confi ned to the domestic sphere while being fi nancially supported by their husbands. Simultaneously, society felt that such behavior was inappropriate and indeed, impossible, for black women.

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Therefore, the institution of marriage was not sanctioned for blacks. The issue of state-sanctioned marriages had particular consequences for the offspring resulting from the union of blacks. Marriage, according to dominant societal norms should result in the siring of offspring. Because African Americans were denied access to formal marriage, their children were classified as “illegitimate,” thus allowing state-sponsored removal of these children from their parents. In this way, the cult of true womanhood has influenced policy discussions on parental rights in terms of the qualifications of an “appropriate” mother. The meaning of womanhood is determined by a combination of economic, cultural and historical factors. Womanhood, like its opposite— manhood—is culturally defi ned. As Toril Moi notes, “it has long been established usage to make ‘feminine’ (and ‘masculine’) represent social constructs (patterns of sexuality and behavior imposed by cultural and social norms), and to reserve ‘female’ and ‘male’ for the purely biological aspects of sexual difference” (1997: 247). Consequently, womanhood should be viewed as a dynamic phenomenon because it “is never simply an arrangement in which the roles of men and women are decided in a contingent and haphazard way. At any given moment, gender will reflect the material interests of those who have power and those who do not” (Brittan 1997: 113–114). Integrating race and class into the analysis of womanhood further highlights how society’s conception of womanhood is socially constructed and how this construction serves as an instrument of control.

SYMBOLIZATION OF BLACK WOMANHOOD Relations of power and forms of inequality are created and maintained via the use of cultural images and are often expressed through language. Ideology, race and gender are embedded in texts. As argued by Halliday (1973), language serves the following three functions: (a) ideational—to represent people, objects, events and states of affairs in the world, (b) interpersonal—to express the speaker’s attitude to these representations and (c) textual—to array (a) and (b) in a cohesive and appropriate manner. Myths and symbols, as expressed via language, allow for the representation of social issues. They also allow individuals to present racial and gender hierarchies often in a hidden manner. I present a series of Eurocentric constructions of black womanhood with the goal of showing how these raced and gendered images facilitate the continuing subordination of black women. 3 I focus on Euro-American constructions not because the view of others are inconsequential, but because those in power—real or perceived—create a “reality” that allows them to maintain their power. One means deployed by Euro-Americans to maintain their position of power is the concoction of stories regarding the groups they subordinate. Over time, these stories

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become part of the cultural iconography and are reflected, for example, in public opinion data (Gilens 1999; Schram and Neisser 1997; Stone 1989). Social meanings, conveyed through cultural myths and symbols, are central to society’s understanding and conceptualization of the public policy-making process. Various images of black womanhood, both raced and gendered, are used to frame contexts that connect social meanings to social problems. Often images serve to provide a causal linkage between a problem and a proposed solution. This means that one story will dominate the policy discourse (see Edelman 1977; Stone 1989). In this analysis of the racing–gendering process of policy making, the use of language is particularly relevant as it serves to bring to the forefront various contentious elements, which inherently hold different views of the policy issue. Policy makers engage in narrative story telling, in which language choice is integral, to synthesize and make cohesive commonly shared beliefs and to convey basic values (Stone 1989). “It is through the act of storytelling that individuals assess their social positions in their respective communities, grasp the goals and values of their social groups and communities, internalize their social conventions and understand who they are vis-à-vis one another” (Fischer 2003: 162). Stories are linked to familiar cultural symbols and myths. They are used to present and elevate some elements of a problem over others while hiding other aspects. As such public policies rest on a series of frames that, when combined, supply the fundamental organization of belief systems, perceptions of the policy-targeted group and the policy issue as well as appreciation for the policy proposals and tools (Schoen and Rein 1994). A policy frame, according to Rein and Laws, (1999: 3) is “a normative-prescriptive story that sets out a problematic policy problem and a course of action to be taken to address the problematic situation.” As argued by Stone, (1989: 122–3) symbolic devices can be “especially persuasive and emotionally compelling” as the “story line is hidden and their sheer poetry is often stunning.” Often “a metaphor is so much a part of our cultural way of saying things that it slips right by us.” At times, it is relatively easy to recognize how policy makers use the construction of the black woman as “other” in the framing of various policies. However, given the nature of race and gender coding it can often prove difficult to decipher what is being said. It is important however, to look behind the code to determine what is being said. In Chapter 1, I mentioned how the term “Canadian” can be inflected differently. Thus, to simply say that the code “Canadian” was used, with no more attention given to the context and meaning conveyed by the term, is to miss the ideology embedded in the discourse. The same is true of the policy stories used to discuss black women. Several researchers have chronicled the symbolic construction of black women in America (Carby 1987; Christian 1980, 1985; Davis 1981; Gilkes 1983; Lorde 1984; Roberts 1997). The outgrowth of this research suggests that modern manifestations of black women are rooted in images born and

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developed during the slavery era. The social construction of black womanhood is intimately linked to the hegemonic model of the “good” woman. Although this image is often traced to the Victorian era, its pervasiveness in modern society is often taken as “truth” and can sometimes slip by us (see Stone 1997). The belief in black “inferiority,” an outgrowth of the institution of slavery, has continually informed the construction of blacks in general and of policy concerning this segment of the American population (see Armour 1997; Bonilla-Silva and Forman 2000; Feagin 1991; Feagin and Sikes 1994). However, it must be noted that a dual set of myths distinguishes the construction of black women from other groups. One set of myths, which informs the construction of black womanhood, stems from the fact that she is a woman—that is, the various myths used to defi ne womanhood in general. The other emanates from her being of the Negroid persuasion. Consequently, black women have been socially constructed as different from white women and from black men. This process is what Kimberle Crenshaw (1997, 2000) refers to as intersectionality. Intersectionality suggests that the process of racialization and gendering are specific yet interrelated. This racing–gendering process is evident in the policy-making process, as race and gender categories are used to determine the distribution of power and resources. Assuming this approach, policy analyst should consider the discursive struggle that ensues over the definition and categorization of the policy problem and the policy targeted population, including the criteria employed to make these categorizations. Black feminist and womanist scholars have identified a number of images and symbols prevalent in literature, film and the media that serve as “models” of black womanhood (see Collins 1991; Jewell 1993; King 1973; Millet 1970; Mullings 1992; Palmer 1983). The black woman is now a composite of Mammy, Aunt Jemima, Sapphire, Matriarch, Superwoman, Mean and Evil Bitch and Castrator (Walker 1983: 237). These images, working both independently and simultaneously, inform the construction of the black woman. The negative social construction of black women appears ingrained in the social fabric of society. Thus, claims of excessively large families among welfare recipients, as argued by President Ronald Reagan, are rarely questioned. As part of the strategy of employing social constructions of black womanhood, Reagan often claimed that welfare recipients had numerous children (often times 14-plus children). Over time, this gendered and raced image of welfare recipients has been, explicitly and implicitly, employed in welfare reform discourse. However, data gathered by the U. S. Bureau of the Census (1994) shows that welfare recipients had on average 2.2 children. According to the Administration for Children and Families (1997), “The number of children per case fell by over 40 percent from its peak in 1967 of 3.28 children per case to the 1996 average of 1.91 children per case. Most of that decline occurred during the 1970s” (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services). This trend seems to have continued in the post AFDC world (see U. S. Department of

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Health and Human Services, which has data for various years). Although welfare recipients average about two children, it has somehow become a social “truth” that these women have excessively large families. This story becomes believable and “factual” as a result of the perception that African American women are sexually loose and are willing to have numerous children with little thought of the consequences of their actions (see Gilliam 1999). The convergence of this socially-constructed image of black womanhood into fact is seen in the “fi ndings” on which the PRWORA of 1996 is based and the various fatherhood initiatives that address the impact of matriarchal family formation and functioning and poverty. It should be mentioned that I did not invent these images used in the typology of black womanhood—the typology was generated via a grounded theory approach using Black feminist and womanist literature. The CDA, in conjunction with grounded theory, reveals that black women were discreetly and simultaneously identified as Mammy, Matriarch, Sapphire, Jezebel, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother. Although presented in a discrete linear fashion, it should be noted that the images and symbols are in fact fluid and indeed intersect in different ways to serve the needs of the dominant group. Additionally, these images should be viewed on a continuum. While the images used to portray African American women can change at different historical periods, there has been some consistency in terms of their general inferences and the stories that they are used to tell. For example, two elements run throughout the various symbolic depictions of black womanhood—these are morality and sexuality. It is these two elements that allow much of the discourse to be raced and gendered, often in “hidden” sight. What follows are the general characteristics of each of the public images of black womanhood.

Mammy The Mammy icon is both rich and complex. It is an image fi lled with paradox—she is both servile and independent as well as aggressive. Mammy’s paradoxical construction is designed to perform certain cultural or symbolic strategies. The paradox of Mammy is elided through the separation of spheres (both in reference to her relations to whites and her relations to blacks). Mammy was constructed as servile because of her domestic role as caretaker of white families—in essence, she needed to be non-threatening. Simultaneously, Mammy needed to be aggressive in order to maintain the status quo, in her relations to other slaves to prevent their co-optation of her. Her perceived aggression was also needed to provide her with the “resources” to protect the white family from other blacks. Furthermore, the paradoxical construction of Mammy provided those in power with a justification of their control of women within this classification. This paradox is useful in maintaining social order as long as the two components of Mammy remain symbolically separate.

38 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy The cultural image of Mammy, which was a prevalent image in 19th-century literature (see Sundquist 1987) and other popular forms (Sims-Wood 1988), is constructed as a servile, loyal, obedient woman⎯a nurturer of the Euro-American family. This is because whites viewed her as a “passive nurturer, a mother figure who gave all without expectation of return, who not only acknowledged her inferiority to whites but who loved them” (hooks 1981: 85). In addition, she is constructed as fiercely independent, aggressive and powerful, all within limits. Some theorists, such as Christian (1985), have argued that the servile component of the Mammy image was necessary to rationalize the institution of slavery because it gave the slaveocracy a basis on which to defend its practices. The independent and aggressive component of the Mammy image signifies what are often categorized as masculine qualities and serves to differentiate black women from other women. This aggressive quality of the Mammy manifests itself in her relations to other African Americans, particularly African American males. As the previous discussion suggests, the Mammy is a multidimensional, intricate character. The Mammy’s good disposition (this seems to only be the case in her relations to whites in power) was demonstrated through her infamous grin that shows off her shiny white teeth. In terms of her physical characteristics, the Mammy was depicted as obese, dark complexioned, with extremely large breasts and buttocks. Christian offers the following commentary on Mammy’s gender significance: All the functions of mammy are magnificently physical. They involve the body as sensuous, as funky, the part of woman that white Southern America was profoundly afraid of. Mammy, harmless in her position as a slave and unable because of her all-giving nature to do harm, is needed as an image, a surrogate to contain all those fears of the physical female (1985: 2). During slavery, size was the measure of well being for slave women, most likely because she was seen as a worker. Unlike Euro-American women, African American women were considered more valuable if they were of substantial girth. Well-rounded hips, for example, were considered a sign of prosperous childbearing and a signal of a hard worker. Mammy’s ever-present grin and her size suggested her contentment with her situation as a slave and that she was well cared for and a good nurturer; in essence, it served to justify slavery—that is, the control of black women (White 1985). The ideology behind the Mammy image placed no value on black women as mothers of their own children. Mammy’s value was in the role she played as the nurturer of white children, primarily as a domestic in their home. She was permitted to love and care for white children because her behavior was constantly monitored and controlled by her mistress, who was perceived to be living by the standards of the cult of true womanhood. However, outside the supervision of white women, Mammy’s

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mothering abilities disintegrated primarily because she was not viewed as a woman and was not supervised by the white mistress (see Ferguson 1983; Fox-Genovese 1988; Roberts 1997). Women did not participate in the labor force because this was perceived to be in the domain of men (Roberts 1997). According to the tenets of the cult of true womanhood, the virtuous mother depends on her husband for support. In addition, in her own home, Mammy could not benefit from the supervision of white women. Thus, with regards to her mothering abilities of black children, Mammy was characterized as inept and incompetent because she had to leave her children in order to care for her white charges. This behavior was used as a signal of Mammy’s “essential ineptitude.” In short, the Mammy’s competence was predicated on white supervision. As a result of this notion, supervision seemed key to Mammy’s functioning as a good woman and mother. This ideology continues today with the state stepping in and assuming the role of the “mistress” in the monitoring and control of black women’s mothering via public policies such as crime, welfare and family.

Jezebel In the post-slavery era other images and symbols were employed to further the domination and oppression of the black community. Jezebel is one such image employed to achieve this goal. Black women, according to Jewell Gomez, were portrayed as “sexually aggressive wet nurses” (quoted in Clarke, Gomez, Hammonds, Johnson and Powell 1983: 99). Jezebel, named after the Biblical wife of King Ahab, is known for her sexual aggression. She is defi ned as a provocative woman whose actions are dictated by her libido, the counter image of Mammy. In addition, Jezebel is often constructed as a seductress (White 1985). This image accentuates cultural stereotypes of hypersexual black women and their inability to exercise sexual control. According to Collins (1991: 77) this image “is central in this nexus of elite white male images of Black womanhood because efforts to control Black women’s sexuality lie at the heart of Black women’s oppression.” Bruce (1889) links black women’s sexuality to their dangerous mothering, that is, their inability to raise “upstanding” citizens. He further argues that black women’s promiscuity not only provokes black men to rape them, but also causes depravity within the black family. Blacks were defi ned as “meek and submissive, but violent and lacking self-control when the passions were aroused” (Bean 1906: 784). Employing the image of sexually loose and aggressive blacks was important during the days of slavery and even more so in the immediate post-slavery era (Giddings 1984; Guy-Sheftall 1990; hooks 1981; Lerner 1973). The dichotomy of categorization placed black women in the category of “slut” (Lerner 1973: 163–164) while placing white women on a moral

40 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy pedestal. This conceptualization was necessary in the construction of black sexuality as dangerous because it became “intimately connected [with] issues of power and dominance” (Kovel 1970: 68). During the 1800s, whites believed that the black man’s so-called bestial and fi endish nature was a menace to white women; consequently, he had to be controlled. The primary mechanism of control was lynching. The early 19th century saw the consolidation of the woman as a pure, unsexualized being. Before this time, women were seen as inherently sexual beings (according to Renaissance understanding of conception as related to heat and friction, she had to be or there would be no reproduction). However, through an intersection of economic, spiritual, religious and medical ideology, the biological makeup of the female body was reinterpreted in a way that removed all sexual desire from women, particularly white women; to have sexual desire signaled an inherently debased nature. Black women (as well as other women of color and lower-class women) were excluded from this understanding of woman. Black women, with the help of Jezebel, could be constructed as non-woman, and therefore, not entitled to the same protections as “real” women. This was important for the slave era as it was for the post-slave era because it justified the rape and sexual violence committed routinely against female slaves—she “wants” (sexual abuse) it and thus, the white perpetrator is not guilty of any wrongdoing (Davis 1981; hooks 1981; White 1985). Furthermore, the Jezebel construction allows for the control of African American women’s fertility. Linking African American women to the belief of excessive sexuality is connected to the image of them as breeder women. This image “provides an ideological justification for efforts to harness Black women’s fertility to the needs of a changing political economy” (Collins 1991: 76). The component of seduction points to a further danger of Jezebel. During slavery, this seduction aspect of Jezebel was a positive element, as it allowed for the domination of black women. If her sexual aggression was directed primarily at black men, then it would not be perceived as a problem. However, in the post-slavery era, when the white slave owner no longer had the absolute legal control over all black bodies, the seduction aspect of Jezebel became more of a problem. Now, Jezebel seduces in order to get something beyond mere sex—such as money or protection from the atrocities suffered by her sister. In the post-slavery era, Jezebel is the image of the “bad black woman” (inherently debased, sex-crazed, greedy, tricky, threatening, out to seek revenge against white society), while Mammy is the image of the “good” black woman (good worker, passive, non-threatening, loyal to white culture). Collins (1991: 78) argues that it is this image of the sexually denigrate woman that serves as the “foundation underlying elite white male conceptualizations of the mammy, matriarch, and welfare mother. Connecting all three is the common theme of Black women’s sexuality.” In essence, the image of Jezebel

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allows for Mammy to be “sexualized” and her negative qualities transformed into other images.

Sapphire Sapphire, originating from the radio and television show “Amos and Andy,” is symbolically constructed as sassy, loquacious and omniscient, among other things. “Amos and Andy” was featured as a popular radio show on NBC in 1929 and later premiered on television in 1951. It ran until the mid-1960s. According to Cole and Guy-Sheftall (2003: xxxv) the show “reinforced many of the most prevalent stereotypes of Black women” and their socially-constructed counter image—Kingfi sh—the black man. Sapphire’s symbolic construction is predicated on a particular symbolic construction of the African American male, depicted as lacking integrity, corrupt, devious and cunning. As such, Sapphire is drawn in response to conniving men and is placed in the position of mother/teacher/supervisor/ moral guide. This role had to be skewed because it was too closely connected the role of white women. So, Sapphire is given a sharp tongue to control the men around her in too “direct” a way (the Victorians dealt with this issue by insisting that a good woman lead by “influence” as opposed to aggression). Sapphire’s “problem,” is that she is not passive or indirect enough according to American standards (Christian 1985). She is a nag—the woman who cannot or will stop talking. Interestingly, the white counterpart to Sapphire, the shrew, is “tamed” by a strong man who teaches her her “position.” A black man, on the other hand, cannot control Sapphire because the dominant culture cannot safely construct the black man as embodying power. Sapphire “picks up” distinct elements of the Mammy—she is the “police” of black men. But, unlike Mammy, Sapphire cannot do her job of “taming” the black man successfully. If the black man is “tamed,” if he truly becomes a “good” man, he would be too threatening to white culture that would never include him in their fold. Sapphire thrives on these qualities (or lack thereof) of the black man because they allow her to emasculate him. This component of Sapphire is often relied upon to explain why African American males cannot assume their “rightful” place as heads of the household and why black mothers tend to engage in solo-mothering. As mentioned previously, a symbol sends various messages and is used to transmit a particular ideology. Sapphire serves in this role as she is also used frequently as an explanatory variable for black poverty and, through reverse modeling, to send a message to others in society about what a “good” woman is and does. For example, Sapphire is employed to tell the public that African Americans are disproportionately poor because (a) African American women do not have the necessary qualities to secure and hold a job; (b) African American women have emasculated the black man, and therefore,

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cannot reap the benefits (usually fi nancial) of marriage; and (c) African American women expose their offspring to these negative qualities, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty (Christian 1985; Collins 1991; Cole and Guy-Sheftall 2003).

Matriarch Closely related to the image of Mammy is that of the Matriarch. According to Barbara Christian, the insidious black matriarchy mythology appeared to be but “another variation of the image of the mammy” (1980: 78). The construction and reconstruction of the Matriarch does not represent a radical departure in terms of the construction of black womanhood. Consequently, she should be viewed as more of a shift in emphasis (Christian 1980). While the image of Mammy signifies black motherhood in the white household, the image of the Matriarch symbolizes black motherhood in the black household. Additionally, the image of the Matriarch also holds elements of Sapphire, particularly her debased sexual nature. The Moynihan Report (Moynihan 1965) contributed the mother aspect to the image of Sapphire. At her core, the Matriarch is very similar to the image of Sapphire—the controlling nag. But the Matriarch goes beyond being responsible for the failure of the man in her life to being responsible for the failure of her entire family. Why? Because she is both Sapphire and a mother, but a mother along the lines of Mammy. As such, she is a mother who cannot care for her own children successfully because she is inept without the guiding hand of white supervision. The “good” aspects of Mammy are omitted. The Matriarch is not a protector of white society—rather, she is the purveyor of all that is threatening to white society for she creates a flawed family and then sends her emasculated man and her immoral and inherently flawed children out into the world. Mammy, now reincarnated in the image of the Matriarch, is still round and buxom, but her grin is gone. She may have lost her grin because she is no longer represented in a direct relation with a white figure who can control her. Additionally, the Matriarch is no longer living in the slave quarters—she has a home of her own in the projects/ghetto. The “myth of the black matriarchy” is usually attributable to the work of Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1965), detailed in The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (commonly called “The Moynihan Report”), and black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier’s (1939) The Negro Family in the United States. The Moynihan Report lays out much of what we know of the black matriarchy and the consequences of this type of family formation. As argued in this work, the black “matriarchal” family structure is deviant and causes many of the problems associated with the black community. Moynihan argues that the African American family is “the principal source of most of the aberrant, inadequate, or

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antisocial behavior they did not establish, but now serve to perpetuate the cycle of poverty and deprivation” (1965: 76). Using the image of a masculinized, domineering “woman,” black Matriarchs are depicted as being unable to care for and nurture their children (Mullings 1997). Collins (1991: 73) argues “prior to the 1960s, female-headed households were certainly higher in African American communities, but an ideology racializing female-headedness as a causal feature of Black poverty had not emerged.” As a consequence, of the racialization of female-headed households, the Matriarch is constructed as a bad mother who is responsible for low educational attainment, crime, delinquency of her charges, and for ostracizing black men. The emergence of the Matriarch occurred around the same time as the emergence of the modern civil rights movement and the feminist movement that challenged American patriarchy. The black matriarchal image, according to Cheryl Gilkes (1983), emerged as a counter-ideology to the efforts of African Americans and women who were challenging and fighting against the systems (race, class and gender) of oppression. Consequently, “the image of dangerous Black women who were also deviant, castrating mothers divided the Black community at a critical period in the Black liberation struggle and created a wider gap between the worlds of Black and white women at a critical period in women’s history” (Gilkes 1983: 297). This already marginalized group—black women—was placed in a peculiar and often harmful position not only in relation to society as a whole, but also within their group (see Cohen 1999 for an exploration of the concept of secondary marginalization). “The image of the Black matriarch emerged at the time as a powerful symbol for both black and white women of what can go wrong if white patriarchal power is challenged” (Gilkes 1983: 296). “Aggressive, assertive women are penalized—they are abandoned by their men, end up impoverished, and are stigmatized as being unfeminine” (Collins 1991: 75).

Welfare Queen The conception of the 1980s Welfare Queen is one of the reconstructed images of black womanhood; the other is the 1990s Urban Teen Mother (see below). Collins (1991: 76) says that she is an “updated version of the breeder woman image created during slavery.” The Welfare Queen, heavily employed by President Reagan in the 1970s and 1980s (see Cocca 2002; Zucchino 1997),4 poses characteristics similar to the slave images of the black woman. But she also picks up on other images of blackness in her fundamental laziness, greed and inherent immorality. The Welfare Queen is a figure of selfi shness, greed and immorality. Her selfi shness comes from Jezebel, but also perhaps the self-centeredness or controlling nature of Sapphire and the Matriarch. From Jezebel she gets her recklessness, trickiness, wiliness and seductiveness (although

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not necessarily sexual seduction). She gets her size and her grin from Mammy. As a result of the civil rights movement, this grin is now transformed into a false grin—a mask designed to trick white culture. By depicting the Welfare Queen as obese, the same message is being sent as Mammy’s obesity. Both images suggest that these women are well cared for. In Robert Rector’s (Heritage Foundation) criticism of the poor and the welfare state, he argues that “the biggest dietary problem of people living in poverty is obesity, not hunger” (quoted in Saltus 1995: A5). However, there has been an update to the Mammy image. While her size had been initially a signal of a hard worker, it is now constructed as a sign of laziness. From Sapphire and the Matriarch, the Welfare Queen learned an attitude of control, queen-ness, entitlement, and a refusal to take the back seat to anyone. If she is a mother, she is a mother much like the Matriarch in that she spawns the culture of poverty, but added to this image is the wily trickster, producing more children to get a larger paycheck (Roberts 1997). The Welfare Queen represents the cheater, the manipulator, the person who feels absolutely no qualms about receiving aid—indeed, she feels somehow supremely entitled to more aid than she is currently receiving. So, why is she referred to as a “queen”? The queen reference is in part the result of the backlash to the civil rights gains of African Americans and their efforts of self-defi nition—that is, the “I’m Black and I’m Proud Movement.” The co-optation of this self-defi nition process, by the likes of President Ronald Reagan, was an attempt to thwart this process of self-defi nition by suggesting that this “queen” was a deviant or debased individual. Utilizing this term serves to further racialize welfare policy because it makes the Welfare Queen distinctly black, as opposed to Hispanic, Asian, or poor white. The problem with the Matriarch was that she spent too much time away from her children; therefore, she lacked the ability to offer adequate supervision. However, the problem with the Welfare Queen is that she, unlike the Matriarch, spends too much time with her children, as she does not participate in the formal labor market. “The large numbers of undereducated unemployed African-Americans, most of whom are women and children, who inhabit inner cities cannot be forced to work,” thus, according to Collins (1991: 76) “from the standpoint of the dominant group, they no longer represent cheap labor but instead, signify a costly threat to political and economic stability.” In addition, the Welfare Queen contaminates her children because she is a stay-athome mother who is operating without a husband/man in the home. The Welfare Queen is portrayed as “the agenda of destruction, the creator of the pathological, black, urban, poor family from which all ills flow; a monster creating crack dealers, addicts, muggers, and rapists—men who become those things because of being immersed in her culture of poverty” (Lubiano 1992: 323, 339). Consequently, it is suggested by the

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likes of Murray (1984) that black women are in need of moral supervision and harsh discipline.

Urban Teen Mother The Urban Teen Mother, an image popularized in the 1990s, is also an outgrowth of prior depictions of black womanhood, particularly the Welfare Queen. The image of the Urban Teen Mother communicates the intergenerational transmission of welfare dependency. However, this image, unlike the Welfare Queen, is now reliant upon a specific age group. Additionally, Jezebel has turned into a young black woman, specifically, a teenager. This teenage child/woman is characterized as driven by her libido and is either unwilling or unable to care for her children. Furthermore, these child/women are depicted as seducing white society into taking care of their families while shirking their own responsibilities. The Urban Teen Mother may have the mouth of Sapphire, but she lacks the earnestness of Sapphire’s attempts to “tame” black men or the mature seductive capabilities of Jezebel that would allow her to consciously and deviously plot a plan to gain protection. The only thing that the Urban Teen Mother gets from Mammy is her implicit simplicity. The Urban Teen Mother is the image of selfi sh desire and bodily urges run amok, coupled with an unquestionable attitude of entitlement associated with the Welfare Queen. This image is portrayed as indignant and incapable of understanding the needs or desires of others. The Urban Teen Mother appears to be more connected to the issue of large families, excessive sexuality and reproduction (Alan Guttmacher Institute 2003). The critical addition to the Urban Teen Mother image is her age. She is self-centered and unable to care for herself and others, not only because she is a black woman, but also because she is still a child herself. The image of “children having children” assumed a central role in the welfare reform discourse of the 1990s (Jordan-Zachery 1997; Sparks 2003). This image has been racialized “because the average citizen wrongly assumed most teen welfare mothers were African American. In addition, legislators often closely juxtaposed statistics regarding teen pregnancy with statistics on illegitimacy in the African American community” (Sparks 2003: 180). The various images of black womanhood present and represent poor solo-parenting black women as unfit mothers, breeders of lustful sons and unchaste daughters and perpetrators of poverty in black communities. In addition, these images are used to support the claim that black women lack a “work ethic,” as suggested by their apparent willingness to collect welfare, thus justifying policies that deny them government assistance. These stories suggest that these women avoid work by choice, and thus, they must be forced to assume their responsibilities through governmental discipline. Furthermore, the various images combine to suggest that black women

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Table 2.1

Typology of Symbolic Construction of Black Womanhood

Images of Black Womanhood

Dominant Characteristics

Mammy

• Image constructed during slavery • Faithful, obedient, servile, domestic servant • Aggressive towards other blacks • Incapable of caring for her own offspring due to lack of white supervision • Asexual, a required trait to allow for black women to care for the white family • Accepting of her subordination

Jezebel

• Image constructed during slavery • Sexually aggressive and a seductress • Counter image of Mammy (in terms of sexuality) • Expected to have increased fertility to further enhance economic gain of slave and plantation owners • Offered rationale for sexual assault of black women

Sapphire

• Image constructed primarily during the 1950s • Sassy, loquacious and omniscient • A nag towards black men • The unsuccessful “police” of black men which lends to their emasculation

Matriarch1

• Image made prominent in the 1960s • The “bad” black mother; fails to properly supervise her offspring • Captures the racialization of female-headed households • Emasculator of black men in part because they work outside of the home

Welfare Queen

• Popularized in the 1980s • Update of the breeder women image created during slavery • A bad mother because of her accessibility to her children • No longer “forced” into the labor force and therefore viewed as a threat to both political and economic stability • Lazy and overweight

Urban Teen Mother

• Increasingly used in the 1990s • Image reliant upon a specific age group • Childlike and simple minded

are inherently criminally minded, giving birth to the “crack mother” for example (see Chapter 3). Over the years, the negative construction of black women has been employed to support the thesis that equates inequality in the black community with (female) “Negro pathology.” Whites tended to associate color and morality; consequently, darker skin signified a potential and possibly actual lack of sexual restraint (Kirby

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1972). This image of the sex-crazed black woman grows out of the slave image of blacks as inferior in comparison to whites. As a result, because of their skin color, black women were labeled promiscuous seducers, who sought to entrap white men by offering them their bodies. The standard that “a race never raises in integrity above the morality and virtue of the mothers of the race” (Olds 1989: 186) was applicable to women regardless of race. However, the ideological view of blacks as morally inferior to whites placed (and continues to place) more of the burden and blame on black women for fostering the immorality of their race. Such an image enables the belief that lustful sons and unchaste daughters are the products of black mothers, thus causing an overwhelming concern over black women’s sexuality. This argument is used to explain the perpetuation of a “degenerate” class of people (see Roberts 1997). In the following chapters, I show that there is a reactive interplay between the use of raced and gendered symbols and the policy making process. This becomes evident once we consider the rhetorical and policy elements common across the three policy domains (see Chapter 1). The rhetorical elements show the very moralistic tone used to frame the policy issues. Also common among the policy elements are the tones of paternalism and punishment. Combined these rhetorical and policy elements exacerbate the inequitable position faced by many black women.

CONCLUSION Images and stereotypes of black women serve a cultural-political role because they “function constructively for the European by projecting and reinforcing his own positive self-image, and [to establish] a functional cultural norm which has wide political/social/economic benefits” (Amini 1972: 10). Black women’s existence must be analyzed via a lens that incorporates class, race and gender because they simultaneously and individually influence their lives. The influence of these factors on the lives of black women flow from and into each other and are further conditioned by culture, political institutions, laws, economics, education and religion. Analyzing the social location of black women in this manner allows me to uncover the ideology and power differentials congealed in these simultaneous factors of oppression. This negative racist and sexist mythology, which is often used under a veil of innuendo and code words, informs social policy making in the United States. The stereotypic images, myths and stories associated with African American women, particularly poor African American women, fuse together to spawn the belief that African American women are the primary recipients of welfare. These beliefs are used to create stories that suggest that black women commit brutal crimes with excessive frequency (such as exposing their children to the world of drugs), and that they are

48 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy “bad” mothers. This analysis examines how social-welfare policy can be viewed as a racing–gendering process. I make the argument that this process is dependent, in part, on the use of images, myths and stories that create identities and realities. Embedded in the images are racial and gender ideologies that are used to categorize individuals and ultimately determine public policy. However, these stories are often hidden behind language of “equality.” Consequently, power relations are also hidden. In the spirit of Black feminism and womanism, I seek to uncover these often hidden meanings of black womanhood that are used in the frames and discourses of public policies. Over the next three chapters, using crime, welfare and family policies as cases, I show how policy decision makers employ the various images of black womanhood in the framing of the policy issues. While the policies differ, the social construction of the policy issue and the targeted population share many similarities. These similarities are the result of the reliance of raced and gendered images—many of which have become institutionalized over time and as a result can easily slip by us. This is what allows policy makers not to explicitly use the term Sapphire. Instead, they rely on an existing social memory, one that holds a particular understanding of black womanhood.

3

Mammy Is a Maniac Black Women, Images and Crime

1

The signifying power of the black single mother… as poor, drug addicted, and natally absent… is integral to the public articulation of fetal harm and abuse. —Patricia Williams (quoted in Bower 1995: 144)

The “War on Drugs” discourse resulted in the placement of a new group on the social landscape: the crack addict. According to Hurwitz and Peffley (1997: 395): “Recent studies of the ‘War on Drugs’ of the 1980s provide an excellent example of how zealous anti-crime policies and sympathetic media coverage can conspire to create violent images of a black underclass.” Illicit drug use is a phenomenon that cuts across racial and socioeconomic categories (see 2005 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, U. S. Health and Human Services; National Institute on Drug Abuse 2007). However, this is not always the story that is offered to the public. As argued by Reinarman and Levine “the period from 1986 to 1992 was in many ways the most intense drug scare of the twentieth century” (1997a: 1). The intensification of this drug scare was due, in part, to the emergence of the maternal drug user and the drug of choice—crack cocaine. The media, according to the U. S. Sentencing Commission’s Special Report to Congress, “played a large role in creating the national sense of urgency surrounding drugs, generally, and crack cocaine specifically” (1995: 28). The use of crack cocaine “attracted the attention of politicians and the media,” this was the case, as asserted by Reinarman and Levine, “because of its downward mobility to and increased visibility in ghettos and barrios. The new users were a different social class, race and status” (1997b: 19). Consequently, the War on Drugs was defined as a war on the “crack” house in the “ghetto” and “inner-city” neighborhoods (see Wacquant 2000, 2001). The use of the illegal substance crack cocaine was not only racialized, it was also gendered. Images such as the “crack mother” and the “crack baby” embody the racing–gendering process of crime policy decision making. Preexisting images and symbols give meaning and credence to the “crack mother” and the “crack baby.” They allow society to connect “new” knowledge with preexisting knowledge of the targeted group. Ensink and Sauer (2003: 12) say that discourse(s) “functions on the basis of both explicitly provided information and presupposed information.” This is the case with the discourse on the War on Drugs. Employed in the construction of crime policy is preexisting binary system of “us” versus “them.”

50 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Not only did this system help to organize the understanding of this new drug—crack cocaine—but it also offered a means of addressing the use of the drug. For example, the “crack” mother is viewed as the antithesis of the good mother. In the earlier exploration of the symbolization of black womanhood (Chapter 2) I asserted that models of womanhood are used to determine which groups of women are considered worthy and which are not. Black women, as the result of the Mammy, Jezebel and other images, have been constructed not only as generally bad, but also as dangerous to society. The War on Drugs agenda employs this ideology in the formation of much of its policy making. Reliance on the image of hyperviolent women—primarily substance abusing parenting women—allowed the legal system to extend its reach into the monitoring of the moral as well as the criminal behavior of black women in a manner that was not comparable across all women regardless of race. This chapter explores the policy implications of crime on black women by asking the question: What happens when Mammy is “cracked?” To help answer this question, I fi rst consider the racing–gendering process of crime policy. Central to this process have been concerns over the sexuality and maternal functioning of black women. I explore how various images, Mammy, Jezebel, Matriarch and Welfare Queen, are employed in discourses on crime. From there, I move into decision makers’ discourses to uncover the often non-transparent power relations embedded in their talk. This allows us to better understand the approaches to crime policy—this is explored under the section “The New Plantation.” The impact of various crime approaches are then offered in the following section. Finally, I answer what happens when Mammy becomes a maniac—that is, what is the impact of crime policy on black women. Here, I attempt to move us beyond the numbers of incarcerated women into what happens to their communities as a result of incarceration.

CRIME: THE RACING–GENDERING PROCESS To understand the criminalization of African American women and how gender and race relate to crime, it is fi rst necessary to comprehend the historical evolution of the “crack” baby. It is the discovery of the “crack” baby that catalyzed the gendering of crime policy, thereby allowing Mammy to become “cracked.” Scientific research in the early stages of the evolution of the “crack” baby suggest that children born to crack-addicted mothers would suffer from medical complications as well as irreversible neurological damage that would warp their characters (Chasnoff, Griffith, MacGregor, Kirkes and Burns 1989). In 1991, John Silber, the president of Boston University, claims that this neurological damage would make these children incapable of “ever [achieving] the intellectual development to have consciousness of God” (quoted in Greider 1995: 53). The public was

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inundated with newspaper articles and “in-depth” reporting on the societal and fi nancial costs of these children. It was projected that “crack” babies would require more services in school and extensive reliance on the foster care system. Joseph Califano, Jr., former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, estimated that “crack” babies cost approximately $1 million apiece from birth to adulthood (quoted in Greider 1995: 55). According to media reports and the policy elite’s stories, “crack” babies were destined for welfare dependency and criminality. Much of the mythos and negative construction of the “crack” baby was based on research that has drawn criticism from the scientific community (see Chasnoff, et al. 1989; Neerhof, MacGregor, Retsky and Sullivan 1989; Petitti and Coleman 1990). Recent research has isolated the methodological flaws of earlier studies, including: the lack of control groups; the failure to distinguish crack cocaine use from the use of other drugs; the failure to study the ensuing health of the newborn; and the superficial use of case reports alone without substantial supporting evidence (see Mathias 1992; Mayes, et al. 1992; Zuckerman and Frank 1992). The zeal in which the media and the policy-making community used the initial discovery of the “crack” baby was emphatically absent in the reporting of research that challenged the social construction of these children as the new predators of American society. This knowledge was presented as factual. Such a presentation was made possible, in part, because policy makers and news makers combine and emphasize certain elements to construct a story that suggest that a particular view of maternal substance abuse was true for some populations but different for others. Central to the “crack” mother composite is the issue of sexuality, particularly the link between sexuality and fertility. Because African American women inhabit a sex/gender hierarchy, the inequalities they confront have been sexualized. Those in the dominant group, through hegemonic practices and ideology, often defi ne their sexual behavior as the norm while categorizing the sexual behavior of oppressed groups as both deviant and threatening (Lorde 1984; Vance 1984). African Americans’ sexuality (it is often argued that African American women are incapable of making moral decisions concerning their sexuality) coupled with motherhood has always been a source of concern in the United States (see Roberts 1997). Consequently, race, gender and class stereotypes and myths coupled with drug addiction are linked to sexuality and motherhood. The result is the creation and maintenance of the image of the “crack” mother. The “crack” mother is then used to justify efforts to regulate black female sexuality and procreation (Maher 1991; Maher and Curtis 1992). The hegemonic construction of womanhood has given society a socially sanctioned image of motherhood. A “good” mother is defined as self-sacrificing and protective of her fetus, and later, her child. Women perceived as falling outside of this ideal are portrayed as deviant. Drug-abusing pregnant or parenting mothers are one such group of women categorized

52 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy as deviant. These women are further categorized based on their drug of choice, which tends to be influenced by race and socioeconomic factors. Humphries (1999) highlights how race influenced the perception of crackabusing pregnant or parenting mother. According to Humphries, the association between maternal drug use and pregnancy resulted primarily from the media’s depiction of the individuals in question as well as their personal appearance. Overwhelmingly, the media used black women, almost exclusively, in their storytelling of this public problem (similar pictorials were used in the welfare discourse). The use of crack—associated with the poor and with people of color—allowed for these women to be constructed as the antithesis of the model mother, thereby validating their criminalization, incarceration and exploitation by policy makers. Much has been written about drug-abusing, poor, African American women. The research is heavily concentrated in legal theory and criminal justice studies. Researchers such as Paula Johnson and Dorothy Roberts have done a wonderful job at analyzing the constitutional implications of the criminal prosecution of drug-addicted mothers. They have encouraged many, including myself, to engage in a feminist critique of criminalization policies and to center the analysis on issues of race and class. Researchers, especially Roberts (1991a, 1997) and Johnson (1995), illustrate that the iconography of black womanhood as expressed via the image of the Mammy, Welfare Queen, Jezebel and Matriarch play a role in the social construction of substance-abusing black pregnant or parenting women. It is further argued that such constructions and presentations of black womanhood influence judicial decision making primarily as it relates to issues of personal autonomy. Dorothy Roberts’s (1997) analysis of reproductive politics focuses on government’s control of black women and explicates the various myths of black womanhood. She contends that the history of the government’s control of black women’s reproductive choices is inextricably linked to the history of racism inherent in American society which worked to construct the black woman as “other” and therefore unworthy of the same types of reproductive rights afforded to white women. Evidence gathered in a 1992 National Institute on Drug Abuse survey revealed that: “While African Americans had higher rates of drug use, in terms of actual numbers of users; most women who took drugs while they were pregnant were white.” According to the results of the survey approximately “113,000 white women, 75,000 African American women, and 28,000 Hispanic women used illicit drugs during pregnancy” (Mathias 1995). Furthermore, there was a difference in the types of drugs used during pregnancy. Black women were more likely to use crack cocaine in comparison to white women, who tended to use alcohol and cigarettes. According to Paltrow Cohen and Carey: about 4.5 percent of African-American women used cocaine compared with 0.4 percent of white women. . . . Nearly 23 percent of white women

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drank alcohol and 24.4 percent smoked cigarettes. By comparison, 15.8 percent of African-American women . . . drank alcohol and 19.8 percent . . . smoked cigarettes (2001). Paltrow explains: Epidemiological studies fi nd that statistically speaking many more children are at risk of harm from prenatal exposure to cigarettes and alcohol. In fact, one recent publication on women and substance abuse has created the label “Fetal Tobacco Syndrome” to draw attention to the extraordinarily high miscarriage and morbidity rates associated with prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke. (1999: 2) Between 1979 and 1993, there was a six-fold increase in the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome as reported by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1995). It appears that African American pregnant substance abusers were also singled out for punishment in comparison to white substance abusing pregnant women. In 1989, Chasnoff, Landress and Barrett conducted a study in Pinellas County, Florida, that showed that 380 pregnant women in public clinics and 335 in private care were tested for drug use. Among white women, there was a 15.4 percent rate of positive test results and a 14.1 percent rate among black women. However, black women, in comparison to white women, were nearly 10 times more likely to be reported for substance abuse. Similar results appeared in other states such as South Carolina. 2 The result of the racing–gendering of crime policy and its implementation serves as the foundation of the increased police and state monitoring of African American women. The “crack” mother allowed those in power to reposition the black female criminal, further moving her out of the category of the female criminal and more in line with the black male criminal (see Messerschmidt 1997 for an exploration of how crime operates through a complex series of class, gender and race practices). This masculization process has been used to justify (a) the incarceration of African American women for extensive periods of time, (b) an excessive amount of state monitoring—including police monitoring, and disparate treatment with regard to drug charges and sentencing, and (c) the severing of parental ties. The heightened surveillance of black women has resulted in them constituting “a higher percentage of the incarcerated female population than black males do of the incarcerated male population” (Bush-Baskette 1998: 113; see Mauer and Huling 1995). I explore this trend in more detail later in this chapter. However, few theoretical or research efforts have offered a systematic analysis of black females, the criminal justice system and the political ramifications of crime policy on the black community as a whole. Research in this area, which is heavily concentrated in the disciplines of sociology and

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criminology, tends to focus on black men, while research on female crime tends to concentrate on white women. When analysis does concentrate on black female criminality, it is placed somewhere between the criminality of black men and white women. Tonry’s study on the impact of the War on Drugs is one such example of the omission of black women in the analysis of the impact of crime policy. According to Tonry: Racial disproportions are about as bad in women’s prisons as in men’s. Like men, about half of female prisoners are Black. However, women make up only 6 to 7 percent of the total number of prisoners. Because one of my central arguments is that by removing so many young Black men from their families and communities, crime control policies are undermining efforts to ameliorate the conditions of life of the Black urban underclass, the focus on Black men is necessary. The story of Black women as offenders and as prisoners is important, but it is a different story. (1995: ix) By focusing on the marginalized group of black women, I hope to tell the “different” story of black women, criminality and the justice system. I center race and gender in the analysis and consider the implications of the racing–gendering process of crime policy making on African American women’s quest for social justice. An analysis of the racing–gendering process of crime policy illustrates that it can differentially affect cirminalization’s impact on the black community. As a result of the binary system of social construction which posit black women as negative and indeed dangerous, African American women are punished not only through their removal from society (via incarceration), but also by increasing poverty and through the silencing of the political voice of this community.

THE OVERSEERS: THE DISCOURSE OF POLICY DECISION MAKERS When confronted with a “new” problem, those in power often revert to prior knowledge to help frame the issue. Preexisting knowledge, conveyed through language, serves as an instrument of power since it often does not allow for a different representation of the policy targeted group. Additionally, language can be made to appear neutral although it is reliant on biased understandings of particular groups. As I argue, it is through language, which uses commonly held cultural beliefs, that the public identifies and categorizes the new issue. Those in power, through the use of language, are then able to maintain power structures by providing the “knowledge” for how to view a particular issue (see Reid and Ng 1999). Negative images of black womanhood have become institutionalized (one of the elements of the racing–gendering process). Due to the institutionalization of negative

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images of black womanhood, we must view the “crack” mother symbol as simultaneously complex and rich and as representative of a number of discursive practices and statements. This image brings together a number of images and stereotypes regarding the character and worth of black women (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). The “crack” mother image is used to tell the following types of stories: (a) the “crack” mother is a part of the urban underclass, perpetuates an underclass ideology via her off spring, and thus constitutes a threat to society; and (b) this individual is not like others in society as she lacks a particular moral fortitude, including individual responsibility. The condensing of this social issue, substance abuse by pregnant or parenting women, into a symbol not only tells us what drug use is being targeted⎯crack⎯but it also sends a literal message about the individual, suggesting that the mother is cracked or broken. The critical discourse analysis (CDA) reveals how policy makers combine and emphasize some elements of existing images of black womanhood to tell a story of the substance abusing parenting black woman. I performed CDA on 323 documents, which covers a wide time span (1985 through 1995), a number of presidents: Reagan, Bush and Clinton, and several Congressional sessions. Using CDA in combination with other methods (see Figure 1.1) allows me to focus on the ideological standpoint(s) and values transmitted in the crime policy discourse. A number of rhetorical elements and claims, through which the issue was framed, were discovered (see Appendix B, Table B.1). It is via these rhetorical elements that racial and gender power structures are maintained. In determining the rhetorical elements, I asked: (a) what was said about crack cocaine abusers, and (b) how are racial and gender ideologies embedded in what is said about these individuals. Relying on grounded theory, specifically the coding aspect, and category analysis, I was able to identify and categorize the rhetorical elements along the following thematic lines: 1. The nature of the argumentative appeals and warrants: The language tended to be moralistic and paternalistic in nature. It was often posited that substance abusers lost their moral compass. Therefore, discourse was frequently framed in terms of normalizing the behavior—requiring personal responsibility—of the substance abuser; 2. Image of the public underlying the rhetoric: Substance abusers were regularly portrayed as prone to violence, members of the underclass and as threats to the “good” members of society. Discourse often relied on the construction of the substance abuser as “other” and used an “us v. them” approach to solving the use of illegal drugs; and 3. Image of existing/lack of social programs (policy): “Soft” and ineffective as it tends to encourage substance abuse. There are two dominant rhetorical elements that I discuss in this analysis: fearing the underclass and endangering the family. 3 The purpose is to

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determine how the various utterances, and the symbols contained within, function in the wider society. The analysis shows the continuity in the use of the negative aspects of the social construction of black womanhood. For example, the language of the “urban underclass” and “responsibility” were employed to describe the group that was in need of fi xing. As shown below, such language constructs this group as “other” and “dangerous,” which then lends itself to a particular type of policy formulation. This is explored in more detail under the “The New Plantation” section below.

“. . . Fearing the Underclass” The discourse of the War on Drugs occurred in the context of multiple discourses including those focusing on family values, welfare reform, crime (in general) and safety (in terms of domestic and foreign threats). In constructing these multiple discourses, President Ronald Reagan and his successors relied on already existing images and myths. As suggested by Collins (1991), Fairclough (2000), Foucault (1980), hooks (1994), among others, those in power tend to employ reified myths and symbols because they act as a form of (discursive) capital. It is the reliance on existing symbols that allows a “new” issue to be contextualized and understood. Two elements connecting these multiple discourses are the use of the “other” and the categorization of “us” versus “them.” In constructing the story of the War on Drugs, President Reagan would invoke the image of the “good” American society. President Reagan (1988a) declares “We will no longer tolerate those who sell drugs and those who buy drugs. All Americans of good will are determined to stamp out those parasites who survive and even prosper by feeding off the energy and vitality and humanity of others.” Individuals falling outside of the upstanding citizen of this good society were constructed as “other.” By using the construction of “other” it was then possible to use the categorization of “us” versus “them,” thereby creating a perfect scenario to declare war. The War on Drugs discourse often linked the use of crack cocaine to urban communities. Residents of urban America were then signaled out as the enemy and war was declared. It was not necessarily the use of crack by some residents that made them the enemy. Their status as enemy previously existed. What made them enemies was their prior categorization as the “underclass”—a previously existing racialized image of the poor. Although not always explicit, the underclass hypothesis was used to support many of the crime policy’s rhetorical elements. There is no one defi nition of the underclass (see Jencks and Peterson 1991). However, there are a few characteristics of the underclass that seem to appear across discourses. Included in the discourses are these general constructions: 1. In terms if gender, the underclass is usually constructed as a mother headed household who is permanently unemployed and welfare dependent;

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2. This group is also defi ned as chronically poor, challenged by intergenerational poverty and plagued by a series of social problems such as out-of-wedlock births, crime, poor education and drug abuse; 3. Many whites believe that the black underclass pose a threat to their way of life. Whites operate from the belief that the black underclass consume their taxes and rely of government programs, such as affi rmative action, to secure jobs usually available to whites (Edsall and Edsall 1991); and 4. The underclass is usually geographically linked to urban communities. In framing the discourse on the War on Drugs, President Reagan often claim that drug abuse was growing as a result of a “new privileged class” of “repeat offenders” and a criminal subculture spawned by expensive social programs founded on “utopian assumptions about man as primarily a creature of his material environment” (Reagan 1982: A20). Why exactly is this group privileged? To help answer this question I consider the context in which this claim was made. President Reagan came to office with the promise of restoring values and correcting the social problems resulting from the actions of liberal policy makers. He promoted a limited role for the federal government—especially in the areas of social welfare and economic policies, individualism and family values. The (urban) underclass was and is a direct contrast to the ideology and policy goals of President Reagan and his supporters. This group of individuals came to represent not only the failures of government but a moral threat to society. The “new privileged class” of drug abusers was geographically confi ned to urban communities (see Wacquant 2000). Much of the storytelling used in the War on Drugs rely on the relationship that linked drug use to urban residents. Consider George H. W. Bush’s call to support his war on drugs agenda. According to President Bush, “we ought to begin by passing the crime bill that nearly passed last year, which does two things: It gives urban areas of this country more police officers for the streets. I have been in areas that were dominated by drugs, weapons, and by murders” (1993: 174, emphasis added). For President George H. W. Bush crack became an all-inclusive symbol of what was wrong with America, specifically, urban America. Not only was the use of crack cocaine geographically linked to urban communities, it was also causally linked to a previously unheard of violent class. According to President George H. W. Bush and authors of many published articles, crack was the most addictive drug in America. First, let me say it is a real war. This isn’t a headline writer’s hype of some sort. The poison of drug abuse and the violence it breeds have left a trail of death and destruction in our cities. And anyone who lives in a big city knows of places close to home that look like war zones, with the neighborhoods burned and scarred, tyrannized by gangs, by drug

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Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy gangs. Gang violence is claiming the lives of kids who get caught up in drugs, and the drug gangs’ gun battles are even stealing the lives of innocent bystanders. (Bush 1992b: 154)

In an attempt to rid society of this internal enemy, President Reagan subscribed to a zero-tolerance approach that extended the reach of the War on Drugs to drug consumers and potential new drug users (Inciardi 1986). This was a war designed to teach values by promoting individual behavior to a population that was constructed as lacking a sense of morality and in the case of substance abusing women, sexual constraint. I now turn my attention to understanding and decoding the policy frames referenced above. A central assumption is that frames use images to transmit a particular ideology. The recipient, using social memory, is then able to decode the message and understand who is being talked about. There are multiple interpretations; what I offer is just one that can be applied to understanding the underlying ideology embedded in the codes used to frame the abuse of crack cocaine. I rely on secondary data to compare and contrast my interpretation of the data. Based on the literature on the War on Drugs and the criminal justice system we are told that stories have been (a) racialized, (b) gendered, and (c) classed. When we put these together we have to ask how the dominant culture constructs those who live from this point of intersectionality. In other words: What is the construction of poor black drug-dependent women? To understand the discursive practices and statements on which the texts are drawn, I want to start first by separating the various elements of the discourse. These elements and their referential strategies and statements include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Privileged class and a false sense of entitlement; Notion of violence—tied to the culture of single (black) motherhood; Repeat offenders—no sense of right and wrong; Upstanding citizens and their need for protection; and Failure of current policy—lack of supervision.

The particular context in which the War on Drugs discourse was taking place, and its connection to other social ills such as poverty, allowed the story of substance abusing pregnant/parenting women to be weaved. In this study I am not particularly concerned with how and why policy makers decided which images to use. My primary concern is to determine how language reflects power structures and the impact of social constructions on black women and their communities. The discourse on this new privileged and dangerous group of individuals, coupled with the evolution of the “crack” baby, speaks to the institutionalization of symbols of black womanhood. The image of the “crack” mother, according to Reeves and Campbell (1994), is a racially defined composite. Crime policy is a response to the Mammy image because it is predicated on the same white supervision that allowed the Mammy to effectively care

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for white children while being incapable of caring for her own. However, in this use of the Mammy, she is no longer protecting the white family from other blacks. Instead, she is imposing her own abandoned and drugaddicted children upon the white community primarily, through economic dependence. The one positive aspect of Mammy, her ability to protect white society, has been turned into a negative. This, in my estimation, is one element that “cracked” the image of the Mammy—her failure to protect white interests. A second element is the sexualization of Mammy. Remember that Mammy was often portrayed as asexual (this was necessary for her to work in white homes). However, the “crack” mother was often portrayed as willing to perform sex acts in exchange for money to buy drugs. As such, the composite also draws on characteristics of Jezebel, the sexually aggressive stereotype of black women and its link to motherhood. Additionally, it draws on the image of the Matriarch, her inability to care for her children and her central role in maintaining and promoting a culture of poverty and violence within the black community. The Matriarch has been transformed from the image of a domineering woman into a drug-addict who is both present in her transmission of addiction and the culture of drug use and absent in her solipsistic behavior and physical absence as a result of her incarceration. Interestingly, the “crack” mother was on the public policy radar screen at about the same time as the Welfare Queen image. Like the Welfare Queen, the “crack” mother symbol represents a cheater, a manipulator, an individual who feels absolutely no trepidations about receiving aid (it was often suggested that crack addicted women used their public assistance to purchase drugs while their children remained hungry). Indeed, the crack mother feels entitled to assistance. Consider the following story told by President Bush. President Bush warned of the coming doom of society while holding a vial of crack for all America to see. This vial of crack, he explained, had been purchased in a drug deal (we later learned that the deal was engineered by the Secret Service) just across the street from the White House. The visual representation of the vial of crack in such close proximity to the most important residence in the free world was used to emphasize the President’s point⎯a powerful fear of crack invading white (houses) neighborhoods, preying on (white) children. Metaphorically, the black community was creeping into white, upper-class homes. This helps to explain the need for boundaries between white/black and ghetto/suburb. Prison bars represent the ultimate barrier to alleviate (white) individuals’ fears that crack was invading their most precious possession: the home. President George H. W. Bush’s brandishing up of the crack vial is a particularly important image of crack (and black, deviancy, violence and the hazards of that accompany the symbolism of “crack” and “black”) “creeping” into white America. In essence, this particular construction of the War on Drugs provides the policy-making elite with justification to maintain the boundaries between black and white Americans. In essence, the state can now function in the role of Mammy.

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Remember that one role played by Mammy involved protecting whites from other blacks. (See Chapter 2, Table 2.1). The other frame used in the War on Drugs discourse centered the danger posed to the family. Below, I discuss this frame.

“ . . . Endangering the Family” Not only was the public presented with stories of violent, drug addicted urban residents, they were told that society as a whole was in danger. Individual responsibility or lack thereof threatened the basic foundation of America, the family. In defi ning the problem of drug use, President Bush (1992d: 1157) claims that the mayors from the National League of Cities “talked about the decline of the American family as the major source of urban decay.” He further stated that “they went on to emphasize the need to win this battle against drugs as the way not just to whip the drug problem but to reunite and strengthen the American family.” Representative Young (R-FL) states: Crack is extremely dangerous because it is immediately addictive. Local authorities say that this drug causes such a high in fi rst-time users, that the body keeps demanding more in an effort to repeat that same effect. However, that fi rst-time high is impossible to achieve again, even when the quantity and repetition of its use is increased. . . . The health and safety of nonusers in our communities is also jeopardized. Addictive drugs such as crack, forces users to feed their habit regardless of the cost. Theft, robbery, and other crimes become the only alternative to provide their drug money. Police reports document this threat to our families and neighbors. (1986: H. R. 6679) Furthermore it was argued that the offspring of drug addicts would be the source of future economic and moral breakdown of society—specifically because they represented a threat to the basic unit of American society, the family. During the 1992 Presidential debate, candidate Perot argued: “… crack babies are being born. Baby is in the hospital 42 days; typically the cost to you and me is $125,000. Again and again and again, the mother disappears in 3 days, and the child becomes a ward of the state because he’s permanently and genetically damaged” (1801). Senator Mitchell (D-ME) further argues that “every pregnant woman who jeopardizes the health of her unborn child because of drug abuse robs the child of a fair chance of living a healthy, productive life—and increases the likelihood that society will need to provide special support for that child” (1986: S12169). There are a number of stories conveyed in the rhetorical elements used in the frame of responsibility. The rhetorical elements of crime discourse and responsibility (for the family/children) highlight the following:

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1. The impact of the culture of violence on the (urban: read black) community and its relation to; 2. The decline of the family which results from a lack of parental responsibility; and 3. The justification of government’s efforts to protect the children of decaying (urban) America. Identification of the race and gender ideologies used in these rhetorical elements (which images are being used) requires me to consider the discursive practices and statements used to frame the issue of maternal drug use. Zinn (1994: 303) informs us that “the family is socially constructed. This means that it is not merely a biological arrangement but is a product of specific historical, social and material conditions. In other words, it is shaped by the social structures.” Family, particularly our representation of what they look like—father, mother and offspring—and how they behave, is a social construction that is influenced by ideologies of gender, race and class. Furthermore, our notions of family specify particular gender roles. However, as discussed in Chapter 2, not all women are constructed in the same manner and consequently not all families are constructed in the same manner. The intersectionality of race, class and gender has resulted in a negative construction of black womanhood and motherhood. In terms of the black women’s role and family, she is constructed as a flawed mother, promiscuous and the source of poverty (see Collins 1991 and Morton 1991). The 1980s concerns over the black family, resulting from the War on Drugs, were not new. Indeed, black sexuality and fecundity have been a long standing source of concern. Thus, there were a number of discursive scripts on the intersection of race, class and gender and family available to policy makers. When this image of the “crack” baby is linked to urban America (read black America) and placed in the context of gender norms and beliefs of who is responsible for children, then one can see how black women would be targeted by the policies of the War on Drugs. A key component on the discourse of maternal crack use focused on the damage of the family unit. Employing the image of “cracked” black mothers suggests that these women show a disregard for the future of their children and a blatant disregard for their parental responsibilities. Thereby, the images of Mammy and the Welfare Queen can be implicitly drawn on to suggest that these women are inherently bad mothers and the consequence of their inherent inabilities is reflected in their substance abuse. Consequently, it was believed that children raised in such an environment would also be “cracked.” Furthermore, by connecting the decay of the family to mothers allows for the image of the Matriarch to be, implicitly, called upon. The use of the Matriarch image allows decision makers to further claim that this woman is responsible for the failure of her entire family (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). Elements of the Jezebel image also factor into the rhetorical

62 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy elements. Jezebel is often thought of as being unable to control her sexual desires. The “crack” mother, who fails to consider the consequences of her sexual behavior and thus gives birth to the “crack” baby, embodies Jezebel. Through the use of these images, policy decision makers were able to argue that the proper role of the state is to step in and monitor the family formation and behaviors of African Americans. Below I consider the tools and techniques employed to do such.

THE NEW PLANTATION: A LOOK AT CRIME POLICY OF THE 1980S AND 1990S The referential strategies, discursive practices and statements that embody racial and gender power relations suggest that substance abusing pregnant and parenting women must be “normalized.” The manner by which they are to be normalized tends to involve punishment and increased supervision—incarceration tends to be the mode used to accomplish such. President Reagan regularly argued that it was the permissive nature of liberal policy that fostered and encouraged the use of illegal drugs. According to President Reagan (1988b): “Some liberal politicians decried our prohibitions on drugs as conservative, moralistic, reactionary, and old-fashioned.” The image of liberal policy run amok and the image of the resulting “crack” mother and baby served as the foundation of the get tough approach to policy. I refer to this get-tough policy as the “new plantation” because of the constant monitoring, policing and restricting of the movement of black women it entails (see Roberts 1991a, 1991b, 1997; Wacquant 2000). While relying on race and gender to form crime related policies, decision makers do not account for gender and its influence on criminal behavior. Also ignored is how race influences the functioning of individuals within gender prescribed cultural roles and norms. This creates a situation where black female substance abusers are rendered simultaneously hypervisible and invisible in the policy making process. Black women who are caught in the War on Drugs fi nd that their inequitable position is simultaneously masked and normalized. Employing the image of the “crack” mother promotes a type of policy intervention designed to punish women through its use of policy instruments such as mandatory minimum sentencing. Furthermore, as a result of this policy making process, race and gender categories and hierarchies are maintained. A review of the various policy elements and the resulting policies shows how crime policy perpetuates race and gender hierarchies. Using Black feminist and womanist thought and grounded theory, I identified the following policy elements: 1. Policy objective: Save the children—this concerns the general wellbeing of children; self-help/individual responsibility—desire to

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enforce the values of individual responsibility for one’s behavior upon drug user; saving society—primarily in terms of economic costs associated with the use of drugs, particularly crack cocaine; and fairness⎯concerning sentencing disparities between crack- versus cocaine-related crimes; 2. Type of policy intervention: Control—via the criminal justice system; state monitoring, the denial of welfare benefits; and 3. Policy instrument: Severance of parental rights; increased and longer sentences; mandatory minimum sentences. It is a rather difficult task to present an analysis of these policy elements in a linear manner. Often it is the case that one might see elements of the policy intervention mixed with policy objective elements. I start by presenting the dominant themes of policy interventions and instruments followed by policy objectives.

“ . . . Hang um High, Hang um Low” Two major theories inform sentencing policy in the United States. One is the “just desserts” theory, which suggests that punishment should be individualized and based on the character and personality of the offender. The second major theory argues that offenders should be sentenced to identical terms for the same offense (the determinate sentencing theory). The theory that similar crimes should carry similar sentences stems from a desire to ensure equality and fairness. However, while ensuring equality in punishment, it limits the discretion of trial judges (Dershowitz 1974; Spader 1986). The determinate sentencing theory has been heavily employed in the formation of drug-related policy. This approach has led Meda Chesney-Lind (2002: 79–80) to assert that “rather than any substantial increase in women’s involvement in serious crime, the growth of women’s incarceration has been a reflection of public policy decisions that have often ignored any consideration of women’s needs and behaviors.” My review focuses on many of the drug policies developed in the 1980s and 1990s. It should be noted that these policies tended to follow the determinate sentencing model. At the heart of the analysis of this chapter are three specific pieces of legislation: The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (U. S. Public Law 99–570), The Anti−Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (U. S. Public Law 100–690), and The Sentencing Guidelines Meaningful Penalties Act of 1995 (U. S. Public Law 104–38). 4 These acts represent the weapons of the drug war and have been shown to have a negative impact, in terms of increasing incarceration, on all women, especially African American women (Alexander 1997; Johnson 1995; Roberts 1991b). The annual federal budget for anti-drug efforts surged from less than $2 billion in 1981 to more than $12 billion in 1993.5 The budget for the Drug

64 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Enforcement Administration (DEA) quadrupled between 1981 and 1992 (Massing 1993). The George H. W. Bush Administration alone spent $45 billion—more than all other presidents combined since Nixon—mostly for law enforcement (Horgan 1993; Office of National Drug Control Policy 1992). The increase in the expenditure on the War on Drugs and the resulting boom in the numbers of incarcerated individuals can only be understood by reviewing the legislation that was passed during these periods. The “get tough” policy associated with the War on Drugs ushered in changes in the processing of drug offenders. “Get tough” polices emphasized crimes involving drugs and violence and employed mandatory sentencing as a major tool for dealing with the problems associated with these acts. Crime legislation, which targeted drug use and possession, concentrated on enforcing mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (U. S. Public Law 99–570) and the AntiDrug Abuse Act of 1988 (U. S. Public Law 100–690) legislated mandatory minimum sentences, sentencing guidelines and the distinction between crack and powder cocaine (McDonald and Carlson 1993). The Sentencing Guidelines Meaningful Penalties Act of 1995 (U. S. Public Law 104–38) is concerned with two simultaneous and related forces: mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines. For offenses involving drug trafficking, the 1986 act established mandatory minimum penalties based on the quantity of drugs associated with the offense (U. S. Sentencing Commission 1991), in addition to increasing funding for domestic prison construction. This act also supported the “Just Say No” campaign and employee drug-testing programs in its call for a “drug-free” workplace. Under the leadership of President Reagan, Congress legislated the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. This act included the fi rst and only mandatory minimum sentences for simple possession (that is, possession without the intent to sell). Disparately, convictions for possessing powdered cocaine, or any other illicit drug, were treated as a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum penalty of 1 year’s imprisonment (U. S. Sentencing Commission 1995). Convictions for possessing five grams of crack cocaine (the approximate weight of two pennies) carried a mandatory minimum of 5 years in prison. An individual would have to traffic 500 grams of powder cocaine to receive an equivalent sentence.6 This piece of legislation concentrated the majority of resources on law enforcement as opposed to treatment and prevention of drug use. By 1993, as a result of this and similar types of legislation, drug offenses composed the single most common offense in federal trials (Miller 1995).7Also contained in the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act were proposals directly addressing the problem of illegal drugs in public housing. These proposals eventually evolved into the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program (PHDEP) and the “one strike and you’re out” policy. This policy is very far reaching. For example, under the “one strike and you’re out” drug rule policy, if a house guest uses drugs on public-housing property,

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the host can be evicted, despite his/her lack of knowledge or involvement (see Community Safety and Conservation Division 2001). This policy holds some serious ramifications for women engaging in solo-mothering, for example, as it can result in their expulsion from public housing even if their boyfriend or significant other is engaged in the drug world and they are not. The result of these policies is a severe imbalance among the incarcerated population along racial and gender lines. Policy decision makers, implicitly or explicitly, relied on images of the proper role of women in society, the good mother. At the same time, they willfully or unknowingly ignored how racial hierarchies deny black women access to function in this role. Also ignored was how racial and gender hierarchies influence black women’s over representation among the prison population. Eventually, the resulting racial and to some extent the gender imbalances among the incarcerated population led some politicians and other decision makers to ask for fairness. However, fairness seems to be constructed along racial lines, thereby ignoring gender and its intersection with race as a vital factor that encourages illegal behavior among many women of color.

“ . . . Looking to be Fair” Issues of fairness dominated much of the discussion on the War on Drugs during the mid-1990s. Lacing much of this discussion was America’s racial history. Much of the discourse focused on balancing fairness while being tough on drug related crimes. The Clinton administration and Congress serve as the primary sources for understanding the latter concerns over fairness as a crime policy objective. President Clinton’s discourse, mainly in the early years of his presidency, did little to challenge the frame of the discourse constructed by Presidents Reagan and Bush. It was primarily during his second term that President Clinton’s War on Drugs confronted the issue of fairness as it related to the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powered cocaine. On October 30, 1995, President Clinton signed legislation to block the implementation of the Sentencing Commission’s recommended changes designed to address the disparities in drug-related sentencing. According to Clinton, this block was necessary for the United States’ efforts to fight crime and violence. He argued: “We have to send a constant message to our children that drugs are illegal, drugs are dangerous, drugs may cost you your life—and the penalties for dealing drugs are severe.” He further stated: “I am not going to let anyone who peddles drugs get the idea that the cost of doing business is going down” (1995: 1700). During the debates on the Sentencing Commission’s recommendations, President Clinton tended to frame the issue more in terms of violence. Heavily emphasized was the “culture of violence.” While gender was not implicitly mentioned, there was an implicit reference to black women’s parenting abilities. As argued by supporters of the culture of violence theory, there is a direct relationship between violence and solo-mothering households—the Matriarchal image. It appears that President Clinton (1995: 1962) believed

66 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy that the (100: 1 ratio) sentencing disparity was warranted because “trafficking in crack, and the violence it fosters, has a devastating impact on communities across America, especially inner-city communities. Tough penalties for crack trafficking are required because of the effect on individuals and families, related gang activity, turf battles, and other violence.” In essence, President Clinton explicitly avoided the issue of racial and gender disparity in the criminal justice system, by focusing on issues of leniency and connecting the get-tough approach to efforts to “save the children” (see Appendix B, Table B.2). What President Clinton neglected to address was the fact that the primary caregivers of the children he was attempting to protect were not drug dealers. Instead, they were small-time users. Unfortunately, in his efforts to use the state in the form of the “slave mistress,” (his message suggested that the caregivers of these children were not responsible enough to transmit an anti-drug message), President Clinton willingly severed the relationship between child and caregiver. The government, as argued by President Clinton, was required to save these children from their irresponsible parents—who, for all intents and purposes, were within the vein of Mammy, Matriarch and the Welfare Queen. I make this claim because Clinton appeared to have subscribed to the symbolic equation that drugs equal crack, which is subsequently linked to communities of color (or “inner-city communities”). Overwhelmingly, the families in these urban communities tend to be constructed as mother-headed families and the men are depicted as “absent.” Based on the CDA, it appears that the President’s rhetoric changed in 1997. He shifted from a focus on the “culture of violence” to a focus on “fairness” in his attempt to reframe the discourse on the War on Drugs. In addition, President Clinton more blatantly addressed the issues of race and class and their relation to drug policy, thereby challenging the perceived notion that African Americans are inherently violent. However, he continued to ignore the impact of gender on the criminalization of this population. For example, in a conversation with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine (2000), President Clinton stated: I tried to change the disparities, and the Republican Congress was willing to narrow, but not eliminate, them on the theory that people who use crack are more violent than people who use cocaine. Well, what they really meant was that people who use crack are more likely to be poor and, coincidentally, black or brown and, therefore, not have money. Whereas, people who use cocaine were more likely to be rich, pay for it, and therefore be peaceable. President Clinton’s concerns over sentencing disparities were also addressed at the Congressional level. Congressional hearings on the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine capture much of the Congressional sentiment regarding the War on Drugs. Below, I offer

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a snapshot of the Congressional discourse by examining the August 10, 1995, Senate Hearings on Crack Cocaine Sentencing.8 During the 1995 Senate hearings, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) argued “Crack cocaine is a killer drug” because “it is more addictive than powder and is more often linked to inner-city violence than any other drug.” Consequently, Senator Hatch said that he was not persuaded that the proposed change to equalize the sentences should go into effect. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asserted that she had witnessed the devastation that crack has brought neighborhoods in California. Crack, she said, “is synonymous with guns, gangs, and violence.” When linked to specific geographical locations— urban communities—the story takes on a black face (very similar to the majority understanding of welfare use). In the context of an ideology that often constructs African Americans as violent, it is easier for some members of society to believe that they are involved with guns, gangs and violence, while not asking why or if this depiction is true. The comments made by Senator Hatch and Senator Feinstein demonstrate the bipartisan nature of the belief that crack is the problem to solve (the notion of “drug” has been reduced to “crack”), and that it is inextricably linked to “black,” “poor,” “ghetto,” “guns,” “gang” and “violence.” Previous existing symbols used by the dominant group to construct African Americans allow for such claimsmaking. The linking of violence and morality to race allows for the policy elite’s various claims to resonates with the public’s view of “reality” (see Chapter 2). Interestingly, by suggesting that the War on Drugs is geared only toward African Americans and their use and distribution of crack, policy makers can ignore the devastating impact of other types of drugs, such as cocaine, and other legal drugs (including alcohol), while at the same time justifying their increased monitoring of the black community. U. S. Sentencing Commission Chairman Richard P. Conaboy testified that the commission had studied the crack/powder cocaine issue at length and in depth and had concluded that the sentencing disparity was unjust. “The Commission was troubled by the sentencing rules that provide disproportionately severe penalties for those convicted of trafficking in crack cocaine—penalties that are significantly higher than those for similar trafficking in powder cocaine,” he testified. “We were equally troubled by the fact that these penalties have great disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities in our communities.” He further stated, “When there is any injustice, we must be vigilant in our efforts to remedy it. But when government policy is unfair, or even when government policy is perceived to be unfair, our vigilance must be even greater.” This sentiment was also expressed by President Clinton’s appointee Attorney General Janet Reno (see Gallman 1995). Senator Hatch challenged Commissioner Wayne Budd’s testimony in support of addressing the disproportionate sentencing between crack and powder cocaine by arguing that when each crack trafficker is arrested, the arrest disproportionately benefits poor, black communities. Commissioner

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Budd responded that the black community did want crack dealers treated harshly, but not unfairly. This exchange between Conaboy, Hatch and Budd further highlights the notion that crack is synonymous with blackness. It also demonstrates the bipartisan and ideological convergence on the issue of sentencing disparities as various camps used the symbolic equation of crack-equals-black to argue their point. It appears that the Sentencing Commission, among some others, was advocating a notion of racial equality in the criminal justice system. The promotion of racial equality in the criminal justice system would challenge the legacy of race and current notions of race neutrality, and how race is used to bestow differential rights. As a consequence, any attempt to implement a policy based on of racial equality was quickly rejected. Furthermore, the exchange illustrates the assumption of the parent/supervisor/monitor/savior-of-the-black community role (captured in the Conaboy/Budd exchange on sentencing disparities) and the goal to “clean up” the black community to make it safe for blacks (as captured in Hatch’s testimony). Using such an ideology does not foster and encourage racial equality in the face of blatant inequality. Senator John Breaux (D-LA) admitted that he was “honestly shocked” to learn of the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. After learning of the disparity, he asserted that, “The answer to the problem presented by this wide difference in penalties is not to lower penalties for selling crack cocaine but to increase the penalties for selling powder cocaine” (Breaux 1995: S16755). In a response to Representative Schiff (R-NM, 1995), who made a similar suggestion, Commissioner Wayne Budd argued, “While this may sound appealing at fi rst glance, there are several serious problems with such a proposal.” He further testified, “First, cocaine sentences are now quite severe, and at the current levels, we are incarcerating increasing numbers of defendants for increasingly long periods of time. We have received no serious complaints from Congress, law enforcement, or others that these levels are too soft.” Again, this exchange illustrates how the social construction of a group can influence the types of policy used to target that group. Why do individuals abusing powder cocaine receive less severe punishment? After all, crack is a derivative of powder cocaine. In an attempt to address the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing, among other issues, the Sentencing Commission submitted 27 proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines to Congress on May 1, 1995.9 They proposed equalizing the quantity ratio that would trigger mandatory sentencing and that other criteria, other than drug type, are used to determine sentencing lengths to ensure that violent, dangerous dealers receive longer sentences. On the issue of racial disparity, in drug-related sentencing, the Sentencing Commission states, “Clearly, the penalties apply equally to similar defendants, regardless of race. . . . [There] is no evidence that Congress or the Sentencing Commission acted with any discriminatory intent in setting different statutory guideline penalties for different

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forms of cocaine” (U. S. Sentencing Commission 1995). While there might not have been any discriminatory intent on the part of the Sentencing Commission, the discriminatory impact of the law resulted from the targeted enforcement of the law in African American communities. Evidence shows that although approximately two-thirds of crack users were white or Hispanic, the overwhelming majority of individuals convicted of possession in federal courts in 1994 were African American (U. S. Sentencing Commission 1995).10 Mauer and Huling’s 1995 analysis shows that African Americans accounted for 35 percent of drug possession arrest, 55 percent of drug-related conviction and 74 percent of drug-related prison sentences. The disparity evident in the implementation of the policy is a result of the intersection of discrimination in the various segments of the criminal justice system, including the racist profiling of African Americans by police officers, African Americans’ limited access to adequate legal representation and the disparate sentences between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The War on Drugs, especially in its attack on the crack-abusing mother, supply an important context for understanding the modern-day use of the criminal justice system as a means of controlling the black community. I now turn my attention to the impact of the racing–gendering process of crime policy. I start by looking at the characteristics of the female prisoners of the War on Drugs.

THE SPOILS OF WAR: A CLOSER LOOK AT FEMALE PRISONERS As a result of the racing–gendering process of crime policy, the War on Drugs has had a proportionally greater effect on women than men. This is especially evident in terms of increased arrests and incarcerations. The incarceration of women is the product of a number of factors, including class and race. Much of the increase in the rate of female incarceration is attributable to policies such as mandatory minimum sentencing for all drug offenses. Below is an historical portrait of the impact of these policies. In 1979, one in 10 women in U. S. prisons was serving time for a drug related offense. Among state prison inmates, drug offenses accounted for 1 of every 8 (12 percent) female prisoners in 1986, but rose to more than 1 in 3 (37 percent) by 1996. This is compared to a rise from 1 in 12 (8 percent) for men to 1 in 5 (12 percent) during the same period (Snell and Morton 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics 1997). Between 1985 (the federal mandatory sentencing was implemented) and 1996, female drug arrests increased by 95 percent, while male drug arrests increased by 55.1 percent (Federal Bureau of Investigation 1986, 1998). Prior to the 1980s, most female inmates were housed either in male facilities or transported across state lines to women-only facilities. Approximately half of all states had separate female facilities. During the 1980s,

70 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy there was a dramatic shift in this practice and a marked increase in female only prisons. This shift was a result of the dramatic increase of women in the penal system. Since 1980, the nation has seen a six-fold increase in the number of women in U. S. prisons and jails. In 1980, there were just over 12,000 women in U. S. state and federal prisons and by 1996, there were almost 75,000 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 1997). In comparison to the male prison population, from 1985 through 2005, the rate of growth of female prisoners averaged 404 percent in comparison to the men’s rate, which was 209 percent. (The Sentencing Project 2007). Between 1980 and 2002 there were eight times as many women incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails. In 1980 there were 12,300 women in comparison to the 182,271 in 2002 (civilrights.org 2005). This war was described as an attack on drug dealers and “kingpins.” However, a 1988 analysis of the prisoners showed that during the period of policy deliberations that over a third (35.9 percent) of the women serving sentences for drug offenses in the nation’s prisons were serving time solely for “possession” (Bureau of Justice Statistics 1989: 3). Greenfield and Snell (1999) inform us that between 1990 and 1996, the number of women convicted of drug felonies increased by 37 percent (from 43,000 in 1990 to 59,536 in 1996). The number of convictions for simple possession increased 41 percent over that period, from 18,438 in 1990 to 26,022 in 1996. It has been argued that minority women use drugs at equal to or lower rates in comparison to their white counterparts (civilrights.org 2005). However, minority women have been affected disproportionately by War on Drugs policies in comparison to women of other races. From 1986 to 1991, for example, the number of black female drug offenders in state prison increased by 828 percent, Hispanic women by 328 percent and white non-Hispanic women by 241 percent (Mauer and Huling 1995). Women of color also have higher rates of incarceration in state prison in comparison to white women. In 1997, women of color accounted for 83 percent (44 percent of Hispanic women and 39 percent of African American women) and white women accounted for 23 percent. In terms of gender Hispanic men, in 1997, accounted for 26 percent and African American men 24 percent of state incarcerated individuals (civilrights.org 2005). The data suggest that the so-called war has neither been race neutral nor gender neutral. Instead, it has been a war waged—silently—against women, especially black women. Typically, adult female offenders are young (usually under age 30), of color, undereducated, single mothers, poor and recipients of social welfare services (Sarri 1987; Wolfe, Cullen and Cullen 1984). Snell and Morton’s 1994 analysis of female offenders shows that prior to being arrested, 53.3 percent of incarcerated women were unemployed, 35.7 percent were engaged in full-time employment and almost 23 percent were high school graduates. Of this population 45 percent of these women were never married and 50 percent were between the ages of 25 and 34. More current data

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suggest that the characteristics of female offenders have not changed drastically over time (see Greenfield and Snell 1999). Most female offenders are incarcerated for economic crimes as opposed to murder and manslaughter. Research on female prisoners involved in prostitution and drug sales reveal that the catalyst for such crimes is economic (Silbert and Pines 1981; James 1976). As Jane Chapman’s (1980) work shows, drug abuse is associated directly with economic need and therefore relates directly to economic crime. Prevailing evidence supports this claim. For example, Mann’s 1984 analysis demonstrate that over 50 percent of the female jail population, in large cities, comprised of convicted prostitutes. Using the gender entrapment theory, Richie (1996) argues that the social construction of gender identity limits black women’s options for responding to violence in their intimate relationships, and thus, forces them to engage in illegal activities. These factors⎯economic necessity and domestic violence⎯have led feminist scholars who concentrate on issues of race, ethnicity and class to challenge the increasing incarceration of African American women and other women of color. Angela Davis is one such scholar. She argues: “Contrary to most available sources—including those inside prisons and jails—it is not just a series of bad choices that land black women in prison but a deadly combination of reduced possibilities and extensive police targeting or public monitoring” (Davis 2000: 150). It appears that when Mammy becomes cracked that is she is no longer a viable option for protecting white interests, and she is removed from society. Policy designed to address poor, drug-addicted pregnant/parenting women followed the “individual willpower” model that suggests that individuals could simply stop using illegal drugs if they so desired. Concurrently, minimal drug rehabilitation support is provided to these women; instead, they are sent to jail. The individual will power model is followed although The American Medical Association unequivocally states: “. . . it is clear that addiction is not simply the product of a failure of individual willpower. Instead, dependency is the product of complex hereditary and environmental factors. It is properly viewed as a disease, and one that physicians can help many individuals control and overcome” (quoted in Paltrow, Cohen and Carey 2001). Nevertheless, given the medical view that drug addiction is a disease, treatment for this population remains limited. There are only a limited number of drug treatment programs that accept pregnant addicts and provide child-care services (Galanter, Edwards and Marinelli 1996). The analysis of the rhetorical elements of crime helps us to understand the raced and gendered impact of crime policy. It shows us how the policy making elite skillfully connected drug use to urban communities—thereby racializing illegal drug use. Furthermore, the discourse on fairness shows how race dichotomizes the treatment of various groups—even though they are all engaged in the use of illegal drugs. The CDA also shows how culturally sanctioned norms of motherhood, working with racial hierarchies,

72 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy single out poor black women for differential treatment in comparison to white women. Using the image of a dysfunctional woman, dysfunctional in the sense that she fails to live up to the standards of the cult of true womanhood, leads to more arrests, guilty verdicts and incarceration. Consequently, already existing inequalities are exacerbated, which in turn leads to even more arrests, etc. This cycle, unlike the cycle of poverty, is very rarely explored in policy discourse. Policy decision makers’ reliance on negative cultural images of African American women is a central cause of these women’s circumscribed and limited access to resources. Use of negative images of black womanhood has had the combined impact on their overrepresentation among the poor and within the criminal justice system. At the foundation of this analysis is the premise that cultural images influence the decision-making process because they are used in the process of determining who should benefit from policy and who should be punished. Social-welfare policy decision making follows a dichotomy model where policy recipients are categorized as deserving and undeserving. The determination of the appropriate designated category is a process heavily determined by group’s social iconography. Although policy decision makers rely on the negative social iconography of black women in their response to maternal drug use, they fail to recognize how race and gender structures lead these women to a life of crime. The every increasing incarceration of black women is an example of how the failure to consider racial and gender hierarchies leads to policies that further exacerbates the inequitable position of black women.

SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MAMMY BECOMES A MANIAC? One reading of the crime discourse suggests that policy makers sought to ensure that children were protected. While, indeed, this was an admiral goal of policy makers, their ability to do such was constrained by their presentation and construction of the mothers of these children. As the review of female prisoners illustrates, African American women are disproportionately represented among the incarcerated population. The review also shows that these women are over-represented among the incarcerated poor. As a group, African American women offenders, in comparison to their white counterparts, are more often unemployed or working in low-paying jobs and living below the poverty line. What this suggests is that black women’s involvement in crime is often related to their responsibility for meeting the economic needs of their families. The total number of African American women and their children who are living in utter poverty has diminished since the late 19th century; however, their relative numbers remain high. The rate and incidences of poverty among this population cannot solely explain their over-representation in prison because white women

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comprise a higher proportion of all impoverished women. Additionally, white women are more likely to use drugs during pregnancy. However, with the race-inflected nature of crack use and its connection to a particular socioeconomic class, white women are not singled out for prosecution in the same manner as black women. The policy elite exploited and responded to the image of the “crack” mother symbol⎯an incapable and irresponsible decision maker, moral deviant and an unfit mother that became synonymous with “bad” black women⎯by implementing increasingly punitive policies. The crack scare itself was a big policy issue. However, it was the discovery of the “crack” baby and all of the doom and destruction this child would bestow on society that allowed the policy elite to resurrect and invoke negative images of black women into the discourse on crime. This construction allowed the policy elite to treat white pregnant or parenting substance-abusing women differently from their black counterparts. In much the same fashion that the Matriarch was used to further the agendas of the policy elite, the “crack” mother allowed those in power to argue that black women were incapable of caring for their children and therefore required severe regulation. I now turn my attention to the impact of the various rhetorical and policy elements discussed above. Again, relying on Black feminist and womanist literature and other critical analyses, what I show is that the all-out war on drugs forced the black community to restructure itself personally, economically and politically.

“ . . . Are We Really Strengthening and Building the Family?” I start with the issues of protecting children and promoting family stability. Fetal rights and child protection debates capture much of the rationale for punishing pregnant or parenting substance abusers. The desire to protect children has resulted in policies such as “Just Say No” and in judges’ decisions to incarcerate pregnant substance abusers even when they are not charged for drug use, solicitation or distribution (as was the case of Brenda Vaughn, in Washington, DC). In 1991, 67 percent of women and 56 percent of men in state prisons had children under the age of 18; most of these women (72 percent) and men (53 percent) lived with their children before entering prison (Maguire and Pastroe 1994: 616). According to Mumola (2000:1), “Parents held in U. S. prisons had an estimated 1,498,800 minor children in 1999, an increase of over 500,000 since 1991. Of the nation’s 72 million minor children, 2.1 percent had a parent in state or federal prison in 1999.” In very few cases, children are committed to foster homes or institutions during the parent’s incarceration (Maguire and Pastroe 1994). In most cases, a family member assumes the care for the children and any elderly or disabled individuals that were displaced by incarceration. Frequently, the family member who assumes such care is another woman—usually the maternal grandmother or great-grandmother.

74 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Because of the high incarceration rate of black mothers, the black community is forced to engage in “other-mothering.” There is strong evidence of the deep kinship ties within the black community. During the heightened period of drug policy formation, McGee (2000) shows that white female inmates were inclined to receive more phone calls (25 percent) and letters (37.5 percent) in comparison to their black counterparts (14.3 and 12.4 percent, respectively), while black women were likely to receive more visits (14.3 percent, compared to 0.79 percent for whites). In terms of the placement of children left behind, black children were far more likely to be placed with grandparents (43 percent) than white children (25 percent); (McGee 2000). Imprisoned adults cannot contribute to their families’ fi nancial well-being. Thus, those engaging in “other-mothering” must not only provide basic childcare, but also must provide fi nancial support. This is particularly difficult in homes that are already operating with limited fi nancial resources. Prior research reveals that in comparison to whites, blacks have fewer resources and that their available resources are often less effective because the “social networks of African American women are usually made up of others in similar structural positions” (Edin and Harris 1999). As a result, one outcome of incarcerating black women is the exacerbation of poverty within the community. In essence, drug war policies encourage and even promote intergenerational poverty within this population, thereby making it much more difficult for these women to meet the needs of their families. The alternative to other-mothering, as put forward by the Justice Department, is the severance of parental rights. In 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act gave courts permission to terminate parental rights if a child is a “client” of the foster care system for 15 months out of any 22-month period. It is not unusual for an incarcerated woman to spend 15 months or more awaiting trial. Consequently, if an incarcerated mother has no alternative to the foster care system, she is likely to lose her parental rights regardless of the severity of the crime she is charged with. This policy approach fits the rhetorical element that suggests that substance-abusing pregnant/ parenting women are irresponsible and must be removed from their children (a similar claim is made in the family policy discourse). This belief did not simply appear in 1997 as a response to crack cocaine, but instead represents a long history that views black women as incapable mothers (the image of Mammy, Welfare Queen and Matriarch) and as sexually loose (the image of Jezebel). Given this representation of black womanhood, it is not surprising that policy makers would give very little thought to the ramifications of using the criminal justice system to control black women’s sexual and procreation behavior. The fate of the children of incarcerated women has great consequences for society. This is especially true in the black community. Data show that in 1999 “10% of mothers and 2% of fathers in state prison reported a child now living in a foster home or agency” (Mumola 2000: 1). Additionally,

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Mumola (2000: 3) tells us: “Nearly half of all imprisoned parents were black; about a quarter were white.” Approximately 200,000 children a year are placed in child welfare services. Dorothy Roberts (1999) reports that African American children are disproportionately represented among those placed in foster care. According to Roberts, African American children are often placed in foster care at overwhelming rates because their parents are “the most likely to lose their [parental] rights” and their children are “the least likely to be adopted” (1999: 71). Children with incarcerated parents suffer from a number of psychological problems including, for example, trauma, anxiety, guilt and shame. There are also negative behavioral manifestations, including dropping out of school, decreased school performance and drug or alcohol abuse, expressed among children of incarcerated parents (see Johnston 1991). Furthermore, according to a Time (2000) analysis, it was estimated that “half of the 1.5 million children with an incarcerated parent will commit a crime before they turn 18.” In essence, the current crime policy perpetuates criminality, thus creating a ready-made clientele. A lifetime ban significantly affects the ability of women, the primary caregivers of these children, to prevent these negative trends common among children of incarcerated parents. This appears to undermine directly some of the claims made by policy makers to gain support for their policy proposals. Firstly, it undermines the claim that policy is directed at promoting healthy and intact families. Secondly, it also undermines their goals of fighting to end the culture of violence. When President Regan declared a war on drugs, he suggested that current policy made it possible for these individuals to engage in this behavior. Invoked in his story on substance abuse was the ideology of the urban underclass. The story of the urban underclass suggest that these individuals are poor, welfare dependent and lack the moral capabilities necessary for them to be productive members of society. Thus, it was suggested that future policy should correct this behavior. This involved punishing the underclass, in this case substance abusing individuals, to normalize their behavior. One area, although not explicitly expressed, concerns the economic behavior of these individuals. Policy was designed to get them to be responsible in terms of taking care of their children—fi nancially and morally. However, by ignoring how race and gender influence poverty, crime policy serves to worsen the economic inequalities experienced by substance abusing pregnant/parenting black women. Incarcerating black women also impacts their quests for economic freedom because it removes their opportunity of engaging in viable economic endeavors. Male-centered research reveals that young men’s prospects of engaging in law-abiding economic endeavors are thwarted by their involvement in the criminal justice system (see Holzer and Offner 2006; Holzer, Raphael and Stoll 2006). Tonry asks “could a community, black or white, survive or resist decay if a third to a half of its men were immersed in the justice system on any one day?” (1997: 34). We could

76 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy and should also ask what will happen to a community where women are being incarcerated at extraordinary rates and lengths of time. We can hypothesize that the incarceration of black women, similarly to that of black men, will have a negative impact on their job prospects and potential earning power. Crime policy purports to change the behavior of black women and “save” their children. However, in practice, this policy achieves much different effects, exacerbating the cycle of poverty and drug use. This CDA analysis shows how the discursive practices and statements used to frame the discourse renders crime policy ineffective in substantively changing the lives of the policy targeted group. Consequently, crime policy, by removing mothers from their children, works to guarantee a continuation of the behavior that leads to “illegal” behaviors. Interestingly, prior research suggests a mechanism for breaking this very cycle. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) research on women in drug treatment shows that “once women were successfully detoxified and enrolled in a treatment program, their motivator to stay drug free is their children” (2002). In theory, policy is designed to curb drug use, cure poverty and encourage two-parent households (when linked to welfare reform and family policies). However, by removing mothers from their children and their communities, it exacerbates poverty within the African American community and encourages “fragile families” (this is discussed in Chapter 5). Additionally, incarcerating African American women during their childbearing years has a detrimental impact on their communities. As prison sentences become longer (for example, a 21-year-old serving a 24-year sentence), the rights of these women to bear children are taken away. Crime policy, such as mandatory minimum sentencing, then appears to be another method of effective sterilization. In essence, criminalization is another means for controlling Jezebel—that is, black sexuality. Roberts argues “the value we place on individuals determines whether we see them as entitled to perpetuate themselves in their children” (1991a: 1472). Like sterilization practices of the past, the incarceration of black women and the severance of their parental rights imply that black women are undeserving of motherhood. Further, these laws deplete the African American community of natural resources, including human capital. Degrading black mothers devalues their children and ultimately, the African American community⎯thus rendering them ineligible to receive “positive” policies. The American society, including the policy elite, has a long history in blaming black women for the problems of the black community. The most notable example of this practice in recent years is the infamous Moynihan Report. In this 1965 report, sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that domineering, matriarchal black mothers created emasculated black men who were doomed to fail in school, abandon their families and fail economically. Patricia Hill Collins writes that the black matriarchy thesis:

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Allows the dominant group to blame Black women for the success or failure of Black children . . . diverts attention from the political and economic inequality affecting Black mothers and children, and suggests that anyone can rise from poverty if he or she only received good values at home. (1991: 74) Black women’s right to engage in the act of marriage and other types of long-term personal relationships are also negatively impacted by current crime policies. Much of the research in this area focuses on men; however, we can extrapolate the impact of this issue on women. Researchers argue that men with prison records do not make attractive marriage prospects. After all, they are often limited in their ability to fi nancially support a family or to be fathers to their children (Gibson, Edin and McLanahan 2002; McLanahan and Garfi nkel 2000). The same argument can be made for women. In these current economic times, both partners need to participate in the labor market to begin to overcome poverty. Women with prison records face the same hardships in securing job placements as men, thus diminishing them as marital prospects.

“ . . . Promoting Further Marginalization not Self Reliance” The analysis of specific policy elements shows that policy decision makers were concerned with issues of fairness. This was really about how to get Jezebel, the Matriarch and the Welfare Queen to assume their rightful place in society. Thus, it should be of no surprise that the discourse on policy tools was contained to the punishment of those involved with illegal drugs. However, this discourse implicitly addresses the issue of equity in a broader context—namely the rights of citizenship. Thus, with regard to the issue of fairness, I want to move beyond the debate about fairness in terms of sentencing disparities and concentrate on fairness as it relates to political participation⎯an aspect of fairness that was overlooked in the policy debates. In terms of the political consequences, the electoral power in the black community is reduced by denying felons and ex-felons (as is the case in many states) the right to vote. This creates not only an immediate impact on voting, it also creates a lagged impact. This lagged impact will be felt when the children of these incarcerated women become a part of the voting public and they are also disenfranchised. In addition, there is a political impact at the most rudimentary level—the absence of political socialization of the children of incarcerated women. One may argue that African Americans as a group tend not to participate fully in the political process through the act of voting. However, this is not the only mechanism through which political socialization occurs. The simple act of commenting on a presidential candidate, for example, exposes children to politics. Removal of the mother from the family eliminates the possibility of political socialization between mother and child. This, coupled with the fact that

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a substantial number of children will fi nd themselves incarcerated, paroled and otherwise involved in the corrections system, further disenfranchises the black community, thus creating a cycle of disenfranchisement. Additionally, black women are “spoken about” in policy rhetoric—they are often rendered hypervisible. However, their own voices are rarely heard— thereby rendering them invisible. This fundamental disregard for African American women further compounds the problem and disarms the black community politically.

CONCLUSION Whether real or imagined, an enemy is required for the engagement of a war. Is the enemy of the “War on Drugs” the availability of drugs or drug abusers? It appears that this war, which targets African Americans, is focused on the drug abusers. By constructing African Americans as the internal enemy, the War on Drugs has been deployed to continue the systematic construction of blacks as “other” and “deviant.” Employing terminology such as “war” also suggests that some level of control is warranted. To this end, the War on Drugs should be viewed as a means of controlling black women and “extending into women’s lives like tentacles that grasp prey and squeeze it into submission” (Miller 1998: 182). The “crack” mother became another enduring symbol of the deviant black female—the bogeyman of American society. However, her creation is dependent on an already existing script of black womanhood. The “crack” mother condenses elements of the older symbols of black womanhood— the Mammy’s need for white supervision, the sexuality of Jezebel and the Matriarch’s detrimental mothering abilities. Constructing the issue of pregnant, substance-abusing women as an issue of “individual responsibility” and “fetal rights” ignores issues such as malnutrition, male violence, lead paint poisoning, poverty and racism. These issues could have served as additional frames to the social inequality faced by black mothers and their children. These types of issues appear to be immaterial to fetal rights advocates. But research shows that poverty has a greater impact than cocaine on a child’s developing brain. Reporting on a study that compared the effects of poverty and cocaine on brain development, Mozes states: “[a] decade ago, the cocaine-exposed child was stereotyped as being neurologically crippled—trembling in a corner and irreparably damaged. But this is unequivocally not the case. And furthermore, the inner-city child who has had no drug exposure at all is doing no better than the child labeled a ‘crack-baby’” (1999). In addition, concentrating on crack use among minority women ignores the problems associated with other types of substance abuse such as alcohol and cigarette use. These are the substances that tend to be abused by pregnant white women. This research data leaves one to wonder if the fetuses of white women are

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not also in need of state protection. It appears that the purpose of crime policy, particularly drug policy, is to solidify the social construction of black women as “other.” As such, policy seems more about protecting the power of whites than altruistic concern. The criminalization of African Americans, African American women in particular, undermines and hinders any type of policy that might claim as its goal to “integrate” them into the society at large. Instead, it thwarts African Americans’ struggle for freedom and equality. Continuing to defi ne African Americans as “other” and “undeserving” discredits their calls for freedom and equality. It also suggests that they must be controlled at all times and denied their basic rights to citizenship. Programs and policies are instituted despite evidence that suggests that they fail to achieve the goals of promoting family stability or protecting children. Efficacy is obviously not the primary concern among policy makers. Using interpretive analysis that is grounded in theory, I try to uncover the hidden agendas of policy and show how policy can serve an alternate purpose. These policies seem driven by fear and a need to enforce the boundaries between white and black—a role played by Mammy during the slave era.

4

You Better Work “Rehabilitation” and Welfare Policy Social welfare policy cannot be fully understood without recognizing that it is fundamentally a set of symbols that try to differentiate between the deserving and undeserving poor in order to uphold such dominant values as work ethic and family, gender, race and ethnic relations. In this sense, welfare policy is targeted not only at the poor, but equally at the non-poor, through the symbols it conveys about what behaviors are deemed virtuous or deviant. —Handler and Hasenfeld (1991: 11)

The welfare debate of the 1960s, generated in part by the work of Daniel Moynihan, captures much of the racing–gendering process of welfare policy. It highlights how institutions, for example, can perpetuate and maintain race and gender categories and hierarchies. Daniel Moynihan is often cited as the researcher who asserted that there is a causal relationship between the behaviors of black women and the level of poverty experienced in their communities, in part, via the image of the black Matriarch (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). As suggested in the Moynihan Report (Moynihan 1965), black women’s role reversal, as measured by them working outside of the home, is the root cause of black poverty, crime, school dropout rates and other social ills. It is argued that when black women work outside the home they assume the role designated for men. These masculinised women tend to perpetuate a culture of single (black) motherhood. Inequality experienced by blacks was explained using a particular gender ideology while ignoring that the intersection of class, race and gender results in differential experiences. The use of the Matriarch image served not only to mask, but to normalize, the inequitable position of the black woman. Herbert Gans, in recognizing how the image of the Matriarch could possibly function in a society that is both raced and gendered, warned: The fi ndings on family instability and illegitimacy can be used by right wing and racist groups to support their claim that Negroes are inherently immoral and therefore unworthy of equality. Politicians responding to more respectable white backlash can argue that Negroes must improve themselves before they are entitled to further government aid. . . . Worse still, the report could be used to justify a reduction of efforts in the elimination of racial discrimination and the War on Poverty. (1967: 450)

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Gans focuses on how the image of the Matriarch can be employed by various ideological camps. He further highlights the malleability of symbols and how they can be inflected to support various claims. Claim-makers decide, consciously or unconsciously, on which elements of a symbol to employ and how to employ it. For example, the Matriarch can be used to suggest that African American women who receive welfare benefits are inherently immoral and that they fail to subscribe to the hegemonic ideology of womanhood and therefore are unworthy of receiving government assistance. It is also possible to use this image to suggest an approach that pushes for self-improvement in exchange for government assistance. However, both camps assume that African American women are flawed. Similar to the “crack mother” (see Chapter 3) welfare recipients are now a part of the “dangerous class.” Policy actors’ use of images to frame the discourse on welfare shows how various images of black womanhood are used to highlight and at the same time hide information about welfare and its use. For example, decision makers used the images of the Mammy and the Welfare Queen to “show” the dangers of what happens when black women are left unsupervised. They suggested that these women become like “alligators” and “wolves” ready to prey upon upstanding citizens (see Cubin 1995; Mica 1995). Consequently, policy was designed to “fi x,” via punishment, these women. Images of sexually loose and morally deficient women were used to justify policies that perpetuate the subjugation of this population. Using The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), this chapter considers the implications of the racing– gendering process of welfare policy. Similarly to the analysis on the racing–gendering process of crime, I consider the frames used in the rhetoric of welfare and welfare recipients with the goal of unmasking power relations. It is via the use of these particular frames that black women are rendered simultaneously hypervisible and invisible in the discourse and decision making of welfare reform. These women are talked about in a particular way that relies on historical referential strategies, discursive practices and statements and often do not receive the opportunity to speak for themselves. In an attempt to help debunk the use of the negative images of black womanhood, I consider data on welfare use that would have been available to policy decision makers. The point of doing this is to show the possibility of other existing frames, which might have proven beneficial in addressing the inequitable position of poor black women. What the analysis shows is that as a result of the negative images of black women, PRWORA continues to marginalize poor African American women. Race and gender hierarchies were used to categorize welfare recipients in terms of motherhood and their relations to their children and work. These hierarchies were also used to categorize recipients using some norm of sexuality and morality. As discussed in Chapter 2, the functioning of race and gender often results in black women being categorized as lacking in terms

82 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy of morality, as being overly sexualized and as lacking in their capacity to care for their offspring. This chapter concentrates on the issue of welfare use and work. However, before I present the analysis of how the policy frames relied on particular images of black womanhood, I fi rst want to explore the issue of the relationship between black womanhood and black poverty. It is in this relationship that we see how those in power use social images that, at a minimum, allow them to maintain their relative power.

BLACK WOMANHOOD AND BLACK POVERTY: EXPLORING THE CORRELATION As part of the racing–gendering process of welfare, black women’s sexuality and fecundity appear directly and indirectly in the criticisms of welfare. What I term a culture of single (black) motherhood permeates much of modern welfare reform efforts. For example, the House Republicans’ proposed Personal Responsibility Act of 1995 explicitly used statistics of black behavior (U. S. Congress 1995). The Act references the rising illegitimacy rate among African Americans. This concern is linked to the perception that African Americans are unable to control their sexual urges. Additionally, because of the patriarchal nature of society, this phenomenon is usually discussed in a gendered fashion. For example, we hear about the “feminization of poverty” that, in part, is attributed to non-marital births. Furthermore, the Act asserts that “the likelihood that a young black man will engage in criminal activities doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a concentration of single parent families” (U. S. Congress 1995). In a similar vein, the culture of single (black) motherhood was a central focus of the PRWORA. Single motherhood, is simultaneously raced and gendered. There are three major components to the theory of the culture of single (black) motherhood: 1. There is the belief that these women exhibit excessive and uncontrollable sexuality (which leads these women to procreate with little thought to the consequences of their actions); 2. There is the belief of excessive and intergenerational welfare dependence among this population (implying a lack of individual responsibility and work ethic); and 3. There is the belief that men are absent; they simply procreate and fail to care for their offspring. Combined, these three elements are used to explain poverty in the black community.

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This theory of single (black) womanhood assumes that the cause of poverty among this class of individuals results from their cultural deficiencies—that is, their failure to conform to the perceived norms of society, which in this case is the cult of true womanhood. A number of images of black womanhood such as the Welfare Queen and the Matriarch are used to frame the culture of single (black) womanhood. Additionally, the relatively new image of the Urban Teen Mother has played a role in current policy frames. This “newly” constructed image of “children having children” is used to transmit stories of the intergenerational transmission of welfare dependency. Stemming from this construction of poverty, images of sexually promiscuous women, irresponsible parents and women breeding children at the expense of taxpayers, dominate the debate on poverty and welfare use. Based on this frame, it is then suggested that these women be controlled—control is meted out by either requiring them to participate in the paid labor force or to get married. Throughout this chapter, I explore how the constructed relationship of black female poverty and reliance on welfare were deployed to tell the stories of welfare. To support my analysis, I employ the argument that policy is a fight over how to define issues and the policy-targeted population. Thus, I look at the multiple ways in which issues can be defi ned as well as the defi nition that ultimately prevailed and made its way into the 1996 welfare reform legislation. My intention is not to focus on analyzing the origin and/ or meaning of the symbols and myths used in the debate on welfare reform. Instead, my primary focus is on how race and gender symbols and images are used and manipulated to maintain hegemony. To this end, I analyze the role of symbols as a means of transcribing particular meaning(s) by merging the public’s fears, aspirations, and so on, in the fight over scarce public resources. However, before I can do this, I fi rst need to address the early conceptualization of welfare. This becomes important in order to understand how race and gender have combined to influence the 1996 welfare reform legislation.

ENDING WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT: A BRIEF HISTORY In the original conceptualizations of welfare, the culture of single (black) motherhood was not prevalent. What is now referred to as TANF is an outgrowth of (ADC) Aid to Dependent Children (renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children, AFDC, in 1962). Title IV of the Social Security Act of 1935 created ADC. The goal of this program was to lessen the fi nancial burden of many poverty-stricken families. ADC’s primary goal was to allow widows to care for their children (U. S. Congress, House 1962). In essence, the federal government provided federal funds to encourage mothers to remain at home and raise their children.

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Racial hierarchies have impacted the development of welfare. Originally, the federal government systematically denied blacks their right to participate in the welfare system (see Gordon 1994; Quadagno 1994). As the welfare rolls opened up to African Americans, Euro-Americans (in general) grew increasingly hostile toward the program (Neubeck and Cazenave 2001; Quadagno 1994). Consequently, as the program became more and more linked with blacks, the rhetoric associated with the program began to change. As discussions became more and more infused with images of irresponsible, lazy, excessively fertile, black mothers, the policy suggestions became more punitive. Policy initiatives increasingly called for behavior modifications, especially geared toward reducing births among this population and moving them into the paid labor force (Mink 1994). The backlash against the opening up of the welfare rolls to African Americans eventually culminated in the end of welfare “as we know it.” The PRWORA signed into law on August 22, 1996, ended the 1930s welfare system. Many of the welfare-reform efforts concentrated on the issue of who should be eligible to receive benefits. Gone are the days of an entitlement program. The new law imposes a 2-year limit on receiving federally funded welfare during any one eligibility period and a lifetime limit on benefits. Under the new law, states are relieved of the requirement to provide aid to any family that previously qualified for aid. Furthermore, TANF mandates that states cannot use federal money to provide aid to certain families. Aid is denied to families who have received assistance for 60 months (a state is allowed to exempt 20 percent of its caseload from this restriction). Families without children, pregnant individuals, felons and immigrants are also denied federal assistance. Section 115 of the PRWORA provides that persons convicted of a state or federal felony offense for using or selling drugs are subject to a lifetime ban on receiving cash assistance and food stamps. To date, 30 states, including New Mexico, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, have either implemented or chosen to modify the lifetime denial of assistance. Modifications of the ban include, for example, requiring rehabilitation to drug abusers. California is among the 19 states that implemented the ban without modification. Ten states, including the District of Columbia, have completely opted out of the ban. Patricia Allard (2002), of the Sentencing Project, informs us that approximately 92,000 women were affected by the ban. These included more than 44,000 white women, nearly 35,000 African American women and almost 10,000 Latinas. Minor parents who are not living at home or in a stateapproved location, and/or are not attending school, are also disallowed from receiving federal money. In addition, states can receive bonuses based on an “illegitimacy ratio” for decreasing out-of-wedlock births provided that there is no increase in the number of abortions.1 Another major change occurred in the area of funding. Instead of the federal government providing open-ended funding to states, it now funds welfare programs through block grants.2 An exploration of the rhetorical elements used in the welfare

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policy discourse begins to shed some light on why these policy approaches were selected.

THE MORAL CRUSADERS: CONGRESSIONAL AND PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE In the discourse that led to the end of welfare “as we know it,” there were multiple claims relating to the sexuality and morality of recipients. Additionally, many of the stories told and claims made about welfare are racially and gendered coded (see Appendix B, Table B.3). This is the result of how race and gender function in the policy making process. Policy decision makers in an attempt to help the public respond to an issue often rely on previously existing knowledge. Previous knowledge suggests that black women are morally inferior and sexually loose (see Chapter 2); thus, it is not difficult to believe that welfare recipients, who are often projected as black, would have these same characteristics. Overwhelmingly, Americans (particularly Euro-Americans) associate welfare with the stereotypical Welfare Queen, which is constructed as poor, urban, black and female (see Gilliam 1999; Hancock 2004). In 1996, the percentage of African American families receiving welfare was approximately identical to white families (37 percent and 36 percent respectively); however, many Euro-Americans still subscribed to the belief that AFDC was overwhelming a “black” program (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services 1997: 10). According to a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, three-fourths of white respondents stated that African Americans were less likely, in comparison to whites, to prefer to be self-supporting (Bobo and Kleugel 1991). Other bodies of research, as conducted by Martin Gilens, have corroborated white America’s response to welfare with their beliefs of the perceptions of the supposed majority beneficiaries of the program. Martin Gilens’s (1999) analysis of public opinion data shows that the primary source of Euro-Americans hostility toward social welfare recipients (specifically AFDC) lies in their stereotypical beliefs about African Americans, particularly the belief that they are lazy and immoral. Ange-Marie Hancock, in a similar vein as Gilens, shows how the public identity of the welfare queen and what she terms the politics of disgust shaped the PRWORA. In the analysis, Hancock presents four defi ning characteristics of the politics of disgust. These include: a “perversion of democratic attention” in which some subjects’ claims are not given adequate or full consideration in democratic processes; the domination of communication among citizens by elites, particularly via the media; the theory-driven or “representative thinking” of the American public; and a lack of solidarity between would-be allies within and outside of target populations for particular policies. It is this politics of disgust, which results in the “othering” of black women, thus resulting in their inequitable position.

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Viewing these women as immoral and sexually debased, PRWORA suggests that poor welfare-reliant women are in need of moral fi xing. Again, I remind you that this approach is a comodification of a number of images of black womanhood that historically has constructed these women as “other.” This comodification is important to the maintenance of the existing racial and gender order. The remainder of this chapter considers how and why the PRWORA is an exercise in maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. The PRWORA, as described by the Congressional Information Service Index (CIS), is designed to amend the Social Security Act and numerous other acts to provide for comprehensive reform of the welfare system. In addition to the PRWORA, I analyzed 171 Congressional documents, including debates, hearings and reports, and 149 presidential documents (documents for President Clinton only) on the issue of welfare reform. The Congressional documents reviewed were specifically on the issue of PRWORA (see Appendix A). The combination of these documents was used to identify the discursive elements—both rhetorical and policy (Linder 1995). The rhetorical and policy elements, as a result of racing–gendering, combine to suggest that poor welfare recipients are immoral and threatening to society (see Appendix B, Table B.3). Poor welfare recipients are constructed as lacking the proclivity to control their sexuality, keep a man and raise morally upstanding children. Consequently, they are in need of control, not only to protect them from themselves, but more importantly, to protect society from them. In terms of the rhetorical elements here is what I discovered: 1. The nature of the argumentative appeals and warrants: Moralistic and paternalistic in nature. The paternalistic appeals included claims of protecting the “normal,” “good” citizen from the culture of poverty spawned by the availability of welfare. Claims also were paternalistic in nature as it was argued that any changes to the program needed to teach recipients morals and align their behavior with “normal” and “acceptable” behaviors; 2. Image of the public underlying the rhetoric: The discourse included claims of lack of individual and parental responsibility. Recipients were characterized as dependent, lazy, lacking a work ethic and morals, as well as subscribing to the culture of poverty and violence; and 3. Image of existing/lack of social programs (policy): A failed policy as it promotes dependency and immoral behaviors. As a result of rare and gender categorizations, welfare recipients were constructed as “breeders,” thereby invoking the image of the Matriarch and the Welfare Queen. The frame of the breeder women is also connected to the frame that suggest that these women are loose and un-American—as exhibited in their perceived lack of a work ethic. These rhetorical frames are explored below.

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“ . . . The Breeder Woman” One story offered to the public by policy makers was that welfare recipients tended to have additional children in an attempt to increase their welfare check. Connected, implicitly, to this frame is the claim that welfare recipients have excessively large families. This was not a new frame as it was used by President Reagan during the 1980s. Connecting the image of the breeder women (used during slavery) with welfare allowed for the following types of claims, which suggest that welfare allows for the “perverse practice of increasing payments to welfare recipients who have additional children. This practice usurps the role of husbands and drives men away from their families” (Radanovich [R-CA] 1996: E337). Representative Smith (R-IL) and Senator Gramm (R-TX) also made similar claims. According to Representative Smith: The current welfare system pays unwed mothers to have babies. It tells women that if they bear an illegitimate child, the government will pay them a monthly allowance and give them a place to live. The resulting explosion in illegitimacy and the breakdown of the family shouldn’t surprise us. (1995: 2115) Senator Gramm (R-TX) also made a similar claim when he said, “There are some people who believe—I am one of those people—that we should have a family cap and that we ought not to give people more and more money in return for having more and more children while on welfare” (1996a: S8506). There are a number of referential strategies, discursive practices and statements used in the discourse of procreation, race, class and gender. The stories discussed issues of (ir)responsibility, conniving behavior and uncontrolled sexuality. To understand the story of the “breeder” woman, I turn to existing literature. Literature with a focus on the racialization of welfare suggests that African Americans tend to be over-represented in stories of poverty. A majority of Americans, as argued by Ladd (1993: 86), believe that “most people who receive welfare benefits are taking advantage of the system.” In an extensive review of a Washington Post’s series on poverty, Parisi (1998) shows that the media perpetuates stereotypes of the poor as lazy, sexually irresponsible and criminally deviant. These media depictions of welfare recipients also appear in the discourse of policy makers. A general purpose of stories in the public policy making process is to help the issue resonate with the public. To achieve this purpose, policy makers often rely on existing stories and myths as they help the public comprehend and associate with the issue. The story of the “breeder woman” is raced as a result of slavery and gendered as a result of how society views the role of women—her value is determined by her ability to bear children. Because of how race functions, black motherhood is not valued. Deborah Gray White writes:

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Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Major periodicals carried articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular “breeder” were often the topic of parlor or dinner table conversations. The fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that “women wasn’t nothing but cattle.” Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation so did the slave woman’s sexual activities. (1985: 31)

Eventually, black motherhood was often viewed as a liability. In giving welfare a black face, it becomes possible to suggest that recipients are deviant—the creation of the “other.” It is also possible to suggest that government policy must protect the good morally upstanding member of society from these individuals and their children—the “us versus them” belief. The scripts of the Matriarch, Jezebel and the Welfare Queen facilitate this process. By suggesting that women who receive welfare are breeders, the discourse relies, implicitly and explicitly, on the script of the Welfare Queen symbol. Additionally, in the story of irresponsibility, conniviness and hypersexuality we also see the scripts of the Matriarch and Jezebel. As suggested by this frame, the Matriarch, in her role as the emasculator of black men, is supported via public policy. During slavery, Jezebel was expected to reproduce in order to provide and enhance the economic gain of the slave owner. However, in the post-slavery era, these children and therefore, the fecundity of black women, are no longer needed. Thus, Jezebel’s reproduction is now viewed as a liability. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) seeks to not only uncover the often hidden meanings in discourse, but also to challenge these meanings by asking what other stories could have been offered. The image of the breeder women suggests that welfare recipients have multiple children (often with multiple partners). However, statistical data reveals that between 1969 and 1993, the average family size of AFDC recipients has steadily decreased. In 1969, the average family size was 4;, in 1994, it was 2.8; by 2000 the average family size was 2.6 (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services 2000). Data on the number of child recipients, from 1969 to 1994, reveals that families with no more than two children increased from 49.6 to 72.6 percent, respectively of the total AFDC cases (U. S. Congress, House 1994). These data suggest that there was no excessive reproduction among this population during the policy deliberation phase. However, the story “seems to fit” with previous knowledge of black womanhood, such as that of the Welfare Queen, who, according to President Reagan, had 14 or more children simply to collect welfare (see Zucchino 1997). This story has implications for the economic calculation of what these women are expected to contribute to society as well as to issues concerning their sexuality. The statistical data did not support the veracity of these stories. However, false notions (that welfare recipients have many children to obtain more benefits) can be sold to (and bought by) the public precisely

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because of the power of the symbol and its ability to fuse race, class and gender ideologies.

“ . . . Woman you are Loose” The frames of immorality and irresponsibility were dominant throughout the discourse on welfare reform. However, they were sometimes used to tell different but related stories of welfare recipients. In addition to constructing welfare recipients as breeders, they were also used to construct stories of morally loose women. Consider this 1996 statement made by Representative Frank Riggs (R-CA): This legislation curtails food stamp fraud. . . . It addresses a fundamental fairness issue in American society, and that is the resentment of working individuals toward able-bodied individuals who refuse to get off the dole. Most importantly, in my mind, it addresses the problem of welfare dependency and welfare pathology in this country, which has led to soaring rates of family disintegration, illegitimacy in American society, and the other consequences, like youth crime. (H9411) This frame was in direct contrast to one used by President Clinton in his 1994 welfare reform proposal. Leading up to the 1994 proposal, President Clinton often asserted that many individuals Stay [on welfare] for one reason: because they, by and large, have very little education, may not know how to get into the system, if they do get a job, their job would pay low wages and they would lose two things they have on welfare, medical coverage for their kids under the Medicaid program, and they’ll have to pay child care they themselves are providing. (1993: 1673) This is but one example of how policy actors select different frames and often use the same image to tell different stories. Clinton’s frame did not resonate because of the political context in which it was offered. This was offered during the political period of a dominant conservative ideology. Constructing welfare recipients as morally corrupt, “loose” women, was indeed politically motivated. The following statement offered by William Bennett and Peter Wehner captures the Republican Congressional welfarereform moralistic ideology and the rationale for adhering to this ideology. 3 According to Bennett and Wehner: It would be politically smart for Republicans because anything less than calling for an end to welfare will probably ensure that the debate will be conducted on Clinton’s terms. That’s a sure political loser. On the other hand, calling for the abolishment of AFDC is an opportunity

90 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy for Republicans to make a clean, principled break with an old, failed system, seize the mantle of true reform and help return our nation to an older, better time, when moral common sense was the touch stone of social policy. (1994: 11, emphasis added) Bennett and Wehner issued a call, which is particularly value laden, to return to a better time, when moral common sense ruled. The question of whose “moral common sense” was rarely addressed or challenged. With minimum discussion to the question raised above, the plea to frame welfare in moralistic language, in an effort to gain political advantage, was quickly taken up by some members of the Republican Party. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) adopted this moralistic stance when he argued: “It is time that our social institutions and our nation as a whole return to the teaching of the moral obligations: self-sacrifice, social conformity, and abstinence. They are truly virtues to be upheld, and society appreciates them” (1995: S1132). Several Senators and Congresspersons, including Senator John Breaux (D-LA), advocated that welfare reform should encourage good behavior. Closely connected with the issue of morality was the issue of solo-parenting. Solo-parenting, specifically solo-mothering, is referenced in the stories on the crises of welfare usually as a signal to the moral depravity of these women and their children. Relying on the culture of single (black) motherhood it was argued: “Our current welfare program has failed. It has driven fathers out of the household. It has made mothers dependent. It has taken away people’s dignity. It has bred child abuse and neglect, and fi lled the streets of our cities with crime” (Gramm [R-TX] 1996b: S392). Similarly to the “crack” mother, there was an attempt to “criminalize” welfare recipients. These stories are often articulated via the image of the Matriarch, the Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother. Single mother families accounted for 12 percent of family formations in 1970 and 26 percent in 2000 (Fields and Casper 2001). Black and Hispanic women have higher non-marital birth rates in comparison to white women. However, white women “have experienced the greatest increases in nonmarital childbearing in the past three decades, while nonmarital birth rates have declined among black women and stabilized among Hispanic women” (Terry-Humen, Manlove and Moore 2001: 6). In 1970, the nonmarital birth rate among white women was 13.9 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15–44; by 1998 it was 37.5. Among this population, the nonmarital birth rate for black women in 1970 was 95.5 per 1,000 and in 1998 it was 73.3 per 1,000 (Terry-Humen, Manlove and Moore 2001). This decrease is seldom mentioned in the frame of illegitimacy, solo-parenting and poverty. Instead policy makers rely on a politics of disgust and the negative identity of the welfare queen to shape public policies (see Hancock 2004). A racial breakdown of welfare recipients reveals that in 1992, white women accounted for approximately 39 percent of the solo-mothering caseload; black women comprised about 44 percent; Hispanic women comprised

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about 15 percent; and others, about 2 percent (U. S. General Accounting Office 1994). Black welfare recipients, as a percentage of welfare recipients, declined between 1969 and 1994. Despite the rate of usage between blacks and whites, there still remains the perception that welfare use is limited to the black population (Gilens 1999). Black women represent the majority of the most never-married women who receive welfare. However, over the years, the number of black women in this category dropped from 71 percent in 1976 to 57 percent in 1992. While the rate of never-married black AFDC recipients was decreasing, the rate among white women was increasing. The percentage of white never-married AFDC mothers increased from 19 percent in 1976 to 27 percent in 1992 (U. S. General Accounting Office 1994). Despite these changes in the rates of never-married welfare recipients, the perception still remains that black women are the primary users of AFDC and that these women do not subscribe to American values of morality (see Neubeck and Cazenave 2001). Thus, the “moral crusaders” deemed that it was necessary for them to bring values and morals to this corrupt group of individuals. How are racial and gender power relations perpetuated in the discourse on the morality of welfare recipients? The answer to this question lies in unmasking the hidden meanings embedded in the racial and gender codes. To do this, I consider the referential strategies and statements used in the framing of the issue. Again, this is an interpretive analysis, grounded in theory. As such, it is possible for another individual to look at the discourse and fi nd other meanings. For example, it is possible to suggest that the decision makers were simply enforcing core American values and as such were not attempting to reinforce racial and gender hegemony. To help me fi nd the meanings of these texts, I once again turn to previously existing literature—some of which were discussed in the section above titled “The Breeder Woman.” Lawrence Mead (1986) argues that the problem with welfare is that it does not require responsibility. Social welfare, he argues, creates a state of permissiveness thereby perpetuating and encouraging harmful behaviors. One sees this call to require good citizenship in the welfare reform efforts. There are four dominant discursive statements used in the discourse of morality and welfare use. These include: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Responsibility; Illegitimacy; Moral commonsense; and Social conformity.

Individuals who receive these discursive statements then use existing knowledge to decode and understand them. The negative symbolization of black womanhood is often called upon to understand what is being said

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(see Clawson and Trice 2000; Handler and Hasenfeld 1991; Harrington 1984; Tiffany and Adams 1985). This is not to suggest that individuals are racist. What I argue is that the construction of black womanhood is institutionalized—through images we are able to understand people and their behavior. It is like the example I used in Chapter 1 when I stated that my students do not always know the image of Sapphire by name, but they tend to know her “characteristics.” I referenced a quote by John R. Lynch, in the discussion on the construction of black womanhood, who suggested that race, as opposed to character traits, often determines morality (see Chapter 2). In the construction of the “loose” welfare woman, we are exposed to this particular functioning of race. As a result of race and gender hierarchies, it is often suggested that welfare use is synonymous with moral depravity. When Representative Riggs suggests that welfare recipients lack personal responsibility, implied are the images of Jezebel, her sexual aggression, and the Welfare Queen, her willingness to engage in sexual activity with no thought of the consequences. Also present in this frame is the image of the Urban Teen Mother—her simple minded behavior and her need for “parental” guidance. The image of the Urban Teen Mother serves as the relatively new image of the immoral, poor black woman. Despite her age, the Urban Teen Mother is not portrayed as an innocent child who has made an immature “mistake.” She cannot be deemed innocent because of her relation to the Welfare Queen and other morally-debased black women. Further, the Urban Teen Mother represents intergenerational welfare use (we see this when representatives speak about welfare being “a way of life”) and the culture of poverty, and consequently, she contributes to the breakdown of society. President Clinton attempted to offer a different construction of welfare recipients. However, his construction of welfare recipients as somewhat deserving went against the existing knowledge of welfare recipients. This knowledge was abandoned once welfare rolls were opened to women of color. As a result of racial and gender hierarchies, black women are not privileged as a group. Thus, for example, black women are not awarded the same value as mothers as compared to white women (see Chapter 2). This distinction is necessary in maintaining power structures as it limits the possibility of coalition building between groups of women. According to Neubeck and Cazenave (2001: 176) “many affluent white feminists who supported the PRWORA by their actions or inactions functioned more as racial and class oppressors than they did as ‘sisters’ united in the struggle for the rights of all women . . . instead of overt hostility to poor women of color, there was largely indifference.” Let us now take a look at the issue of returning to a time when moral common sense prevailed. What exactly are Bennett and Wehner advocating? Are they calling for a return to the “good” old times when African Americans were denied welfare? We also have to ask, whose moral common

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sense would prevail? And what would morality look like for women that are both raced and gendered? I attempt to address some of these questions later in this chapter.

“. . . Get Out There and Work” Continuing to use the frame of a “corrupt” group of individuals, the policy elite sometimes argued that welfare recipients are poor because they refuse to work. According to Senator Smith (R-OR; 1996: S9353) “… once this bill becomes law [PRWORA], no person will be able to choose welfare as a way of life. And no person will be entitled to cash benefits from the Federal Government simply because he or she chooses not to work.” Additionally, it was argued that welfare, according to Representative Hoke, R-OH, Instead of helping people, [welfare] encourages a value system that distorts the work ethic, destroys family, enables and encourages illegitimacy, and entraps people in a cycle of dependency. In fact, the qualifications for welfare in many instances are just that: One, do not get a job; and two, do not get married. (1996: H7538) The frame of connecting work as a way of rehabilitating welfare recipients was used by a number of individuals included Representative Gutknecht (R-MN). Representative Gutknecht asserted: “Changing the welfare system will help children. Encouraging families to stay together will help children. Putting welfare recipients back to work will help children. Restoring the work ethic will help children” (1996: H6485). While this frame dominated the discourse in 1996, President Clinton in 1994 offered a different type of frame. President Clinton (1994b: 315) initially argued: “If you wish people to go to work, you also have to reward them for doing so. Now a popular misconception is that a lot of people stay on welfare because the welfare check is so big . . . when you adjust for inflation, welfare checks are smaller than they were 20 years ago.” Welfare reform is viewed as the mechanism necessary to get poor urban black women to “behave” and subscribe to the American work ethic. The perceptions that welfare is a program benefiting only blacks and that blacks tend to be lazy are employed to tell the story that welfare recipients lack a work ethic, which is a perceived violation of the American value system. Interestingly, a similar story was used to justify the institution of slavery, which brings me to the task of unmasking the hidden meanings on the discourse of welfare use and work. As previously argued, what is commonly referred to as welfare has become racialized—via the perception that blacks tend to be lazy and lack a work ethic. By unmasking the following discursive elements, we are able to see the functioning of race and gender:

94 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy 1. False entitlement; 2. Cycle of dependency; and 3. Restore morals. These discursive elements suggest the categorization of welfare recipients into the “other.” Using the raced and gendered belief of “other” and “us versus them” allowed decision makers to construct recipients as a threat to society with their false claims of entitlement. They have a cycle of dependency, which promotes dangerous behaviors and they lack morals as exhibited in their failure to work and get married before having children. To frame these policy stories, policy decision makers relied on existing race and gender discursive practices and statements. It is through these discursive practices and statements that individuals can understand the above discursive elements and as such the functioning of welfare. While not explicitly referenced, the image of the Welfare Queen is embedded in many stories of what is wrong with the welfare system. One of which is the black woman’s relation to the labor force. According to the cult of true womanhood, a “lady” was not expected to participate in the paid labor force (this notion has multiple levels of inconsistencies that ebb and flow as a result of changes in the economy). A lady was one who remained in the private sphere dependent on the economic support of her husband. Due to the tropes of gender and race, this position was not available to black women (see Chapter 2). In the event that they were allowed to perform in this manner, the black women would too closely resemble white women. This situation could possibly challenge patriarchy. Welfare recipients, who were not tied to the formal labor force, also challenge notions of racialized patriarchy (this concept is discussed in Chapter 5). The discursive element, which suggests that welfare recipients are claiming false entitlements, speaks to the question of whether or not these women are deserving of such benefits (see Fraser and Gordon 1994; Handler and Hasenfeld 1991). What makes these individuals undeserving is the intersectionality of race, class and gender—they are poor black women. More importantly, they are poor black women acting “white.” They are acting white (symbolically) in the sense that they are not fitting into the expectations of black women—they are not in the work force. This fits with the image of the Welfare Queen. Thus, it seems that a goal of policy is to change the Welfare Queen into Mammy. The Welfare Queen posed a threat to mainstream society because she was not connected to the paid labor force. Using Jezebel’s skills of seduction, the Welfare Queen seems to want to act like a “lady,” however; the title of “lady” was bestowed on a very select group of women. In order to bear the title of “lady” a woman had to be confi ned to the domestic sphere and dependent on her husband. The Welfare Queen challenged this trope as she came too close to resembling a good (white) woman by the fact that she was not participating in the paid labor force. However, the state was now playing the role of her

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husband. As such, the Welfare Queen violated the cultural “norms” of black womanhood, which expected her to serve, to function in a way that would not challenge the racial order. Reforming welfare policy, afforded the moral crusaders the opportunity to fi x this “perverse” behavior of African American poor women. It appears that the poor black woman’s relationship with the labor force is another measure of her morality. It is expected that a good, poor black woman should be working. Work, it was often argued, is a panacea for curing the “Negro Pathology.” Or, as used in the 1990s welfare-reform discourse, it was a means of restoring (American) values. While this frame dominated the discourse in 1996, it was not the frame used by President Clinton in 1994. President Clinton suggested that it was not access to a welfare check that made these women choose welfare over work. Instead, the President suggested that welfare use resulted from a lack of jobs and a livable wage. This frame was rejected, primarily by Republicans. The reason for the rejection is two-fold. For one, it was a political tactic not to construct welfare recipients as embodying values held by those in the wider society. This is necessary for the use of the creation of “other” and the belief of “us versus them.” By suggesting that these women fail to be good citizens, inequalities are masked and go unchallenged. Recognizing Clinton’s political vulnerability, Republicans quickly seized the reigns of welfare reform. During the 1994 post-election period, work was defi ned more in line with the culture-of-poverty argument. Congressional members subscribed to the premise that poverty was directly correlated to the individual’s attitude and/or motivation (see Morris and Williamson 1986). Also employed was a rather negative view of the single (black) motherhood (see Appendix B, Table B.3). This view relied on various images of black womanhood to suggest that welfare recipients were making illegal claims. For example, they wanted to be just like good (white) women—stay at home and take care of their children. However, based on the tropes of gender and race, this option was not available to black women. Congress was effective in thwarting Clinton’s policy goals of providing assistance in return for personal responsibility; instead, they promoted the end of assistance to force personal responsibility, thereby eliminating the culture of poverty. The most concrete manifestation of this shift, between Republicans and the Clinton administration, can be seen in the Congressional use of language such as “dependence,” “self-sufficiency” and “child care.” In the discussions on childcare, there was a focus on who should be responsible for the provision of this service. In support for the GOP’s welfare-reform proposal, Representative Steve Chabot’s (R-OH) policy frame suggest that the purpose is to eliminate Jezebel and the Welfare Queen by sending “a clear message that those who are able to work will work to support themselves and their families. Those who can work, but will not, will no longer get a free ride at the expense of those who have traditionally footed the bill”

96 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy (1995: H2992). Unlike Clinton’s assumption that people would be willing to work, this attitude demonstrated a belief that people do not want to work, and therefore, must be forced to. Such a frame resonates with race and gender ideologies that are used to differentiate groups in terms of good/ bad and norm/other. The institutionalization of rare and gender differences is the second factor that helps to understand the negative construction of welfare recipients. Existing knowledge on the behaviors of black women, knowledge that suggests that they are lazy, for example, made it more acceptable to believe that these individuals would easily choose welfare over work. This is in part the response of the “pervasion of democratic attention” (Hancock 2004: 6), in the sense that the voices of the poor were completely ignored from the discourse and policy deliberations—rendering them invisible. The dominant frame used in the 1990s welfare reform discourse suggests that welfare dependent individuals make a conscious decision not to work. In order to get a deeper understanding of the “work ethic” of welfare recipients, we must first consider the educational background of these individuals.4 I consider the educational background of welfare recipients because it provides some insight into the types of jobs these women could possibly qualify for. A majority of welfare recipients in 1969 had relatively little formal education. Sixty percent of recipients did not have a high school diploma. By 1991, there was a considerable shift in the educational attainment of welfare recipients. Approximately 53 percent of this population had completed high school or some college (U. S. Congress, House 1994). So, if these women are becoming better educated why are they still dependent on welfare? Evidence suggests that there is a relatively strong relationship between the level of formal education attained by welfare recipients and their work experience. A 1994 report informs us that single AFDC recipients who are employed in the formal labor market, in comparison to those that are unemployed, possess at least a high school diploma. Despite these numbers, there tends to be high levels of unemployment among welfare mothers (U. S. Congress, House 1994). The U. S. General Accounting Office reports in Families on Welfare: Sharp Rise in Never-Married Women Reflects Social Trend (1994) that between the years 1969 and 1993 there was a decrease in the percentage of employed welfare recipients from 14.5 to 6.4, respectively. The evidence suggests that welfare recipients were not equipped to secure the types of jobs needed to provide a livable wage for them and their families. This might have better served as an explanation of the poverty rate among this population as opposed to their unwillingness to subscribe to the projected norm of a “work ethic.” When policy makers employ the story that poverty stems from a lack of work ethic among welfare recipients, they often ignore the fact that many welfare recipients experienced a decline in their wages. Solo-mothering welfare families reported a decline in their average earned income. Income levels in this group of women, which includes wages and salaries earned by all

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household members aged 15 and older, decreased 34 percent, in real dollars, between 1976 and 1992. While average earned income was declining, AFDC benefits were also declining; AFDC benefits declined by 43 percent between 1970 and 1992. All of this resulted in a 37 percent decline in total average income between 1976 and 1992.5 Between 1976 and 1992, the proportion of solo-mothering AFDC families receiving incomes of less than 50 percent of the poverty level doubled (U. S. General Accounting Office 1994). The combined impact of the decline in AFDC benefits, income and employment might have served as a better explanation for the increased proportion of solo-mothering AFDC families living in poverty as opposed to their perceived lack of a work ethic and values. This is another example of how, via the use of social images, the racing–gendering process of policy making maintains racial and gender hierarchies by ignoring and excluding some stories from policy discourse. Various interwoven images of black womanhood tell the tale of welfare and welfare recipients. One common thread running throughout the claims is the issue of black female sexuality, or Jezebel. Due to the sex/gender hierarchy in which African American women operate, their experiences with poverty have become sexualized. Using a hegemonic model of the “normal” family, (white and middle-class) with a male breadwinner requires constructing all other family formations as deviant. Black sexuality is often cited as a primary source of deviancy within black family formation (Lorde 1984; Vance 1984). The reliance on black sexuality as the source of inequalities within this community is actually an exercise of power. This brings me to another thread running through these claims. This thread suggests that these women must be contained and controlled at all times to protect white society from sex-crazed, immoral black women and their families (see Jewell 1993; White 1985). I explore this in the analysis of the policy rhetorical elements of welfare.

WELFARE (MORALITY) REFORM TO THE RESCUE: CAN THEY BE SAVED? Some 30 years later, Gans’s predictions seem to have manifested themselves in the reasoning and policy tool selections included in the PRWORA of 1996, TANF. It appears that the War on Poverty was replaced by the War on Morality. Many of the claims advocated in support of the PRWORA focused on the sexuality (which is often implicitly referenced as the manifestation of immorality) of welfare recipients. The public is inundated with pictorials of “black teenage birth rates, black illegitimacy birth rates, and black female AIDS rates” (Jackson 1988: 33). Consequently, reducing the number of children born to women receiving public assistance, in an attempt to end the intergenerational transfer of poverty (the Urban Teen Mother), became a major goal of welfare reformers. Much of the policy discourse focused on how to impose morality on this group of women who were socially constructed as morally “loose.” Gans seems to have prophesied the PRWORA, which includes policies and

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programs aimed at controlling black women’s procreation and conjugal activity by encouraging and at times forcing them into the paid labor force. I call these various policies and programs “policies to teach black women values.”6 The negative construction of black womanhood—specifically the Matriarch, Sapphire, Jezebel, Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother—serves as the wellspring of the approach of promoting morality. Again, I rely on Linder’s typology to categorize the various policy elements. The analysis foregrounds the following policy elements: 1. Policy objective: Change the moral character and behaviors of welfare recipients. In essence, the objective of the policy was to “normalize” the behaviors of poor women of color; 2. Type of policy intervention: Use of coercion and punishment to change behaviors; and 3. Policy instrument: Family caps, lifetime limits for receipt of welfare benefits, requiring work and/or marriage. These policy elements are discussed in two primary categories: the preoccupation with solo-parenting and teen mothering, and the issue of mandating work. One might question why I include issues of teen pregnancy and solomothering in this chapter as opposed to Chapter 5, which deals with issues of family formation. Dorothy Roberts’s explanation of the connection between solo-mothering and the workforce best explains the reasons why I analyze solo-parenting policies and work mandates in the same chapter. According to Roberts, “an individual’s entitlement to welfare benefits [has come to] depend on [the recipient’s] relationship to the market. . . . As unpaid caregivers with no connection to a male breadwinner single mothers are considered undeserving clients of the welfare system” (1994: 872). There are two elements involved in the concern over solo-parenting and teenage pregnancy. First, there is the concern over the procreation decision making of these women, which is projected to be outside the norm of society. Second, there is concern about these women’s relationship to the labor force. Work is often viewed as a cure for morally inferior and sexually debased black women (a view that is undoubtedly ingrained in the minds of Euro-American society from slavery). In essence, it is viewed as a means of addressing the procreation decisions of these women, including their decisions to have children outside of marriage. Unlike this chapter, the analysis in Chapter 5 centers men in attempts to fi x the black family.

Teaching Black Women Values Part I: Addressing Perceived Deviations among Solo and Teen Mothers Black, female, solo-parents, who are perceived as outside of the channels of social control, challenge race and gender hierarchies in a number of

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different ways. Specifically, there is the challenge to racialized patriarchy. Patriarchy is fi rst and foremost about power. It is the power of men over women. Patriarchy operates simultaneously in the cultural, economic, political and social realms to dominate and oppress women. In a racialized society, patriarchy serves to oppress not only women of color differently from Euro-American women; it also differentiates men of color from Euro-American men. Zillah Eisenstein (1994: 2–3) employs the term “racialized patriarchy” to “bring attention to the continual interplay of race and gender in the structure of power.” Employing the term racialized patriarchy, similarly to intersectionality, allows us to capture the dynamic and complex interaction of racism and patriarchy. Black female solo-parents pose a threat as they are not under the (direct) control of men—in other words they are not married. If they are receiving welfare, they also pose a threat to the racialized–gender order which posits that black women cannot play the role of lady—a stay at home mother. Specifically, black women could not be afforded the value of motherhood and mothering. As a consequence of racialized patriarchy, black, female solo-parenting is often viewed as a source of the ills of black communities. Earlier in this chapter, I highlighted the fact that African American women are disproportionately represented among solo mothers receiving AFDC. Using this evidence, one can argue that policy makers were justified in attacking this group in their reform efforts. What my analysis suggests is that the story projected on this issue was not entirely accurate or complete. However, if we consider the functioning of images and stories, we are reminded that these social constructions are not always directed to the apparent group. Social problems often are placed on the agenda as a means of reinforcing particular ideologies (Edelman 1988). At times specific symbols are inflected in the framing of a policy issue to send messages to other groups. Given the fact that solo-parenting among white women has been increasing, the Matriarch and the Urban Teen Mother images were used to warn white women about the consequences of failing to follow a particular gender and racial order. This work stresses that policy making involves a struggle over which policy frame will dominate. As to be expected, there were different conceptualizations of solo-parenting women who receive AFDC. One perspective argued, “Scientific research confi rms that welfare benefits to single mothers directly contribute to the rise in illegitimate births” (Heritage Foundation 1994: 6). Ten years earlier, Charles Murray made the same argument. In 1984, Murray argued that illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time. According to Murray, illegitimacy eclipses other problems such as crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, or homelessness because it acts as the catalyst of all these problems. Given this conceptualization, Murray argued for an end to the welfare state because it was seen as condoning illegitimacy. Other researchers, such as Lawrence Mead, argued that welfare

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recipients should be required to work as a “cure” for illegitimacy and the problems it spawns. Similar lines of reasoning and causation were employed in the debate surrounding the 1996 reform. For example, Representative Gerald Solomon (R-NY) states: The way to effect change for those who suffer in poverty is certainly not additional handouts and entrapment in the current cycle of dependency that has bred second-and third-and now forth-generation welfare recipients. Rather, we should emphasize welfare as a temporary boost from despair to the sense of self-worth inherent in work. (1996: H9393–4) Embedded in this discourse are elements of the images the Matriarch, the Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother, as Representative Solomon highlights the perception that welfare thwarts sanctioned race and gender orders. To reiterate, black woman were not allowed to participate in the cult of true womanhood (see Chapter 2). Specifically, black women could not be afforded the value of motherhood and mothering. Bestowing this value to black women make them appear to be similar to white women and then maybe their claims for equal treatment might appear legitimate. Thus, in an attempt to correct the role reversal of black women, it was suggested that the defeminazation project continue by requiring them to work.

“ . . . Are They Breeding to Get Welfare and Act like Ladies?” Does the availability of public assistance foster pregnancy and childbearing among the poor? Some researchers have challenged this claim. In 1994, 76 prominent researchers signed a statement asserting that “scientific” research does not support the claim that welfare is the main cause of the increased rate of out-of-wedlock births (University of Michigan). Evidence suggests that the birth rate among the female single population has actually changed very little over time. However, with single women representing a larger percentage of all women, births among this group represented a larger percentage of all births (Blank 1995). Depending on the study, results indicate either that once other variables are controlled for, AFDC payments are not related to women’s fertility or that the effect is relatively small (Moffitt 1992). This argument suggests that structural elements, as identified by President Clinton in the early stages of welfare reform, might better explain the existence of teen pregnancy and soloparenting. These structural factors include, for example, poorly-funded schools, limited employment opportunities that foster poverty, and/or the impact of racism (see Amott 1990; Bane 1986). I now turn to what was said about teen parents. In the stories on welfare, I did not present evidence pertaining to this population; however, I would

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like to pause and provide a snapshot of teen welfare recipients (I focus on data that would have been available during the policy deliberation time period). According to Families on Welfare: in 1976, 48 percent of never-married women receiving AFDC were 25 years or older, but the proportion grew to 52 percent in 1992. There was a decrease in births among single women between the ages of 15–24. Never married women between the ages of 15–24 represented 52.1 percent of women receiving AFDC in 1976. The proportion dropped to 38.4 percent in 1992. (U. S. General Accounting Office 1994: 50) This evidence suggests that the bulk of solo mothers receiving AFDC are not teenagers. However, a substantial amount of debate focused on addressing the “crisis” of births in this population—specifically the section that receives AFDC. With the case of teen pregnancy, two competing perspectives were also offered to the public. According to Representative Marge Roukema (R-NJ) “no other civilized nation in the world pays young girls to have babies. But that’s what our welfare system does” (1995: H3424). Consequently, policy has been designed to teach “these little girls . . . to keep their knees together until they grow up and fi nd husbands” (Decter 1984: 23). Based on this line of reasoning, it was initially suggested that policy be denied to parents under the age of 18. Interestingly, this policy suggestion can be traced back to mid-century, after World War II. Rickie Solinger does an excellent job in Wake Up Little Susie of explaining how “the idea and the experience of unwed motherhood were socially constructed at mid-century” (2000: 14). According to Solinger, this construction was part of the “family imperative” or “family agenda to maintain and sanction traditional behavior.” She further argues that race played a major role in the social construction of unwed motherhood. Public policies, according to Solinger, were designed to treat white and black illegitimate pregnancies differently. These race-specific policies and programs allowed the issue of white illegitimate pregnancies to be viewed as a “psychological rather than [as] a sexual issue.” However, policies such as “surveillance” laws, which allowed for periodic checks to determine if there was a man in the house, and the denial of public assistance to more than one illegitimate child of an unwed mother, allowed for black illegitimate pregnancies to be defi ned as “the product of uncontrolled sexual indulgence, the product, in fact, of the absence of psyche” (Solinger 2000: 24). As a result of this frame, black, out-of-wedlock pregnancies are viewed as the source of black poverty and escalating welfare costs. This frame contains elements of Jezebel and Sapphire—sexually debased, morally corrupt black women. The current concern about the Urban Teen Mother (who is often portrayed as an unwed mother) is motivated by this type of construction that occurred at mid-century.

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Arline Geronimus and Sanders Korenman (1992, 1993) provide us with a different understanding of teen pregnancy—one that does not suggest that it is the result of sexual indulgence. They argue that the availability of government assistance does not explain poverty within this group ⎯at least in the long term. In their comparative study on the earnings of teenage parents and adult parents, Geronimus and Korenman found that the earnings of teen parents were slightly less than that of adult parents (1992). According to their analysis, it is difficult to determine, by the time these women reach their mid-20s, who was an unwed teen mother and who was not. The results of the study indicated that girls who postponed pregnancy were not significantly more likely to fi nish high school, get married, or escape poverty in comparison to their “sisters” who became teen mothers. Other research supports these results (see Bane and Ellwood 1983; Duncan and Hoffman 1990). This evidence suggests that the problems of poverty among unwed teen mothers may be less related to their childbearing, per se. Instead, the data suggest that there are a whole host of factors that function to limit the opportunities and increase the attractiveness of motherhood among this group. President Clinton made a similar claim during the 1994 discussion on welfare reform. This brings into question the rationale of the use of family caps as a method of deterring pregnancy among this group. Family caps,7 which offers no additional monies for children born while the mother is receiving welfare, is designed to control the births of “unchaste” children. This policy approach is not new. It was fi rst used in 1951, when Georgia legislated the denial of welfare benefits to more than one illegitimate child born to an unwed mother. The purpose of this policy proposal is two-fold. For one, it is designed to limit the birth of subsequent children to women receiving welfare. The policy seems designed to control the sexually debased Jezebel, Matriarch, Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother. Secondly, it was also a policy designed to force the negatively-constructed black woman into the paid labor force by denying them benefits. Advocates of this policy contend that it sends a strong message that conceiving an additional child while on welfare is not acceptable behavior. Proponents pushed for the inclusion of family caps although Donna Shalala8, among others, informed policy makers “we have no evidence that a family cap will deter the behavior of an individual who chooses to have a second child” (Federal News Service 1994). Apparently, the desire to send a particular message overrode or outweighed consideration of the efficacy of the policy itself. As a part of the racing–gendering process of policy making, the decision to use family caps appears to be an exercise in social control. These women are told that if they do not conform to certain sanctioned behaviors—work or get married—then they will be punished. In other words, Jezebel, Sapphire, the Matriarch, the Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother will be removed from society. In their place a new version of Mammy will be reinstated. Remember that

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Mammy was controlled by her mistress and state sanctioned racism (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). An underlying assumption of the concept of family caps is that mothers profit from having additional children—the image of the conniving Jezebel. These women are constructed as being astute enough to figure out that there is some “profit” to be made from having an additional child but lacking the moral character to understand that this is an “immoral” way to turn a profit. The average payment increase in 1994 was $72 a month for a family of three in comparison to a family of two (U. S. Congress, House 1994). The meager increase is clearly not enough to prompt any rational economic being to have another child, thus showing the insidious nature of this argument. Interestingly, supporters argue that they are teaching black women values, so that she could transfer these “new and improved” morals to her children (in other words, they are breaking the cult of single [black] motherhood). However, in trying to impart these values, policy makers are willing to punish these children. Historically, black children have had little social value, primarily because their mothers are not valued. Thus, it is not surprising then that black children are not socially constructed in a similar vein, as innocent and in need of protection, to children of other racial/ethnic backgrounds. The language and assumed values used to frame the issue of family caps highlight that the ideologies of race and gender were more influential than economics in guiding reform. Family caps appear to be more of an exercise in using the state to supervise the sexual decisions of welfare recipients as opposed to efficacy in dealing with the issue of poverty. It is an exercise to convey moral judgments and “practical advice.” In using this frame, policy makers “confi rm” that black women are morally loose, breeders and in need of fi xing. Consequently, they do very little to challenge race and gender power relations that have become institutionalized. Efforts have also been made to encourage marriage among poor welfare recipients in an attempt to make them more like the middle class— the hegemonic family model (this issue is addressed in Chapter 5). As framed, policy decision makers suggested that marriage would lift these women and their children above the poverty level. Ignored is the fact that patriarchy differs along racial lines. There seems to be an assumption in this line of argument: that black men are able to earn a family wage. As a consequence of racism, black men, historically, have found it diffi cult to secure work in the primary and even secondary sectors of the labor market (Holzer and Offner 2006). This approach does achieve one goal; it relieves the government from the responsibility of protecting these families. It appears that marriage is an alternative to ensuring that welfare recipients are prepared for jobs that will provide a livable wage—if they fi nd a man to provide, then they do not need to be provided for. As such, TANF policy aimed at promoting marriage “treats wage work as the alternative to marriage not to welfare—as punishment

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for mothers’ independence” (Mink 2001: 81). In essence, welfare policy eliminates the Matriarch and Sapphire, for example, by requiring these women to fi nd a partner, preferably a male, to survive. Those women who are unable to fi nd a partner will be required to work. It appears that the PRWORA attempts to reverse the effect of the Welfare Queen—the image of black women living a life of luxury with “illegally” obtained money. It is illegally obtained because (a) they have not earned it, since they are not participating in the paid labor force, and (b) it was not earned as a result of marriage, that is from the traditional role of the man being the primary breadwinner, supporting the wife while she maintains the traditional role of the housewife. Work is viewed as a cure for black women who “pretend” to be ladies, staying at home and taking care of the children. Thus, policy seems to be designed to put her in her “rightful place”—the paid labor force. In the discourse on childbearing among the poor, specifically those that are dependent on welfare, a number of images were implicitly and explicitly introduced to encourage the public to support a particular policy position. The text on welfare draws upon ideological schemes to craft a particular reality of welfare recipients. Policy makers relied on a complex set of relations to frame their discourse that allowed them to invoke the term “Canadian” to tell the story of poor black women (see Chapter 1). Like the term “Canadian,” various images of black womanhood were used to tell different stories. At times, the five primary images of black womanhood, Sapphire, Jezebel, Matriarch Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother, were used singularly. At other times, a combination of these images was used to give salience to the claims being made. These images become embedded in the various codes. However, codes transmit different stories. They are used to reference different types of black women. This makes it somewhat complex to single out specifi c images. However, if one views the images not in a linear form, but as a continuum, connected by issues of sexuality and morality, then it is possible to see how different images of black womanhood worked in tandem. This discourse shows how those in power can use old scripts with few to no explicit reference to specific images. For example, we see the characteristics of the Matriarch and Welfare Queen running throughout the discussions. The women were portrayed as masculinized, corrupt and devious. Such a construction was used in the formulation of policy suggestions that called for the denial of aid to unwed teenage mothers, among others, work for others and marriage for welfare recipients. The imposition of family caps, marriage, work requirements and time limits on recipients of TANF as a requirement for aid also resulted from a particular construction that posits black women as oversexed, irresponsible and lazy invoking the images of Jezebel the Urban Teen Mother, and the Welfare Queen. The goal of the policies seems to be, as Glenn Loury points out, “to make unwed childbearing so miserable an experience that no young

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woman would choose to endure it” (1996: 20). Additionally, by making life unbearable, policy forces these welfare recipients to participate in the labor market, usually for an unlivable wage.

Teaching Black Women Values Part II: Mandating Work The need to enforce work is a continuation of the slave-mentality perception of slaves and later, freed African Americans as lazy and unproductive⎯sans a slave driver. Work is posited as the means to curb “black” behavior⎯whether that is excessive sexuality, trickery or drug use. African Americans, specifically African American women, who are perceived to be outside of the monitoring provided by the paid labor force, are viewed as violators and as threats to society. The intersection of race, gender and class has led to a construction that posits that African American women have violated the cult of true womanhood and therefore should not be allowed to play the role of a “stay-at-home wife or mother” (see Chapter 2). Thus, it has become a socially accepted norm to expect black women to work. As such, the preoccupation with work among welfare recipients seems to be a preoccupation with their violation of this norm.

“ . . . Seeking Self-Sufficiency?” Intimately connected to the issue of childbearing among welfare recipients is the issue of work. These two issues are connected because they stem from the perception that these women are irresponsible and lazy⎯that they bare children to avoid work. Is it the individual’s reluctance to work or a pathological dependency on handouts that leads him or her to rely on welfare? Or is it the individual’s inability to secure employment that pays a wage higher than what is received through welfare and associated publicassistance programs that cause him or her to rely on welfare? These stories of welfare use are reflected in the dichotomy between President Clinton’s initial welfare reform efforts and the policy he actually signed into law. The explanation of poverty that relies on individual pathologies symbolically portrays recipients as lazy and unwilling to work (that is, Welfare Queen, Jezebel and Sapphire). For example, the image of the Welfare Queen, who is portrayed as selfish, greedy, devious, corrupt and immoral, allows for the claim that she is willing to procreate with little thought as to how to provide for her children because she expects the “good” citizens to provide for her. Like Jezebel, the Welfare Queen operates under a false sense of entitlement and is willing to seduce white America into providing for her “illegitimate” offspring (I use the term illegitimate here not only to reference children born out of wedlock, but also to reference children born to individuals portrayed as having no means to provide for them). Such a portrayal has led to proposals that deny assistance and that utilize disincentives to change the individual’s behavior.

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Contrary to this pictorial is the one that depicts welfare recipients as devoid of opportunities. This was the approach taken by President Clinton in the earlier stages of welfare reform. President Clinton often stated: There are millions of Americans trapped in welfare who want to go to work, who want to be good parents and good workers. Most of them are young women with little children. Most of them have almost no education. Most of them are part of a 30-year decline in the American family and in the communities they live in and the loss of jobs. (1994: 237) Based on this philosophy, President Clinton sought to expand funding for the education and job-training component of the JOBS program. His proposal called for an increase in the federal contribution to JOBS from $1 billion in fiscal year 1994 to $1.5 billion in fiscal year 1996. In totality, the plan envisioned spending an additional $2.8 billion over 5 years for more education, training and job placement for welfare recipients. Additionally, the Work and Responsibility Act of 1994 (WRA represents Clinton’s initial welfare reform efforts) included a proposal for the use of employability plans. The goal of this tool was to help recipients secure employment as soon as possible. Employability plans considered the education and general skill-levels of the recipient. Also, these plans provided a needs-assessment in various areas, such as childcare. The purpose of the plan was to identify the needs of the recipients so that services and job training could be individually tailored to transition individuals from welfare to work as quickly as possible. In contrast to Clinton, Congress took somewhat of a different approach to mandating work. First, they attempted to discredit Clinton’s claims about the need to provide education and job training. The general Congressional reaction to the provision of and expansion of education and job training is captured in the following exchange. Congresspersons, such as Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Jim McDermott (D-WA), proposed requiring states to offer recipients counseling, education, training, substance-abuse treatment, health care and day care before termination of benefits. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-FL, Chairman of the Human Resources Subcommittee) responded by asking, “What are we going to do? Send them to Harvard?” (1996: S13508). Unlike the WRA, the PRWORA required that states have a certain percentage of their welfare caseload participating in work activities. This requirement started at 25 percent in fiscal 1997 and increased to 50 percent in fiscal year 2002. Similar to the WRA, the PRWORA mandated that adults receiving welfare benefits be required to work within 2 years of receiving aid. However, the PRWORA time-limited welfare evolved into ending all income support without a work guarantee. The lifetime limit on welfare use follows from the symbolic construction of recipients as individuals not willing to secure a job and assume responsibility for their families. This discourse relies on the images of Sapphire (the emasculator),

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Matriarch (bad mother), Welfare Queen (lazy) and Urban Teen Mother (immature and incapable mother). The underlying assumption of work requirements and time-limited welfare is that welfare recipients are able to compete in the labor market and earn wages that would allow them and their families to become selfsufficient. Research tells us that this assumption was not entirely valid, as women who left welfare for work often found themselves in the clutches of poverty. According to Bane and Ellwood (1994), within the fi rst year of a family leaving AFDC, 30 percent earned $9,000 or more. Unfortunately, the story was not always this promising. Fifty-nine percent earned no more than $6,000. It was estimated that if all poor single mothers worked full-time, year-round at their potential wage rates, more than one-third would have gross earning below the poverty level. In addition, it was estimated that if these women worked 30 hours per week, 70 percent of them would have earnings below the poverty level. After taking into account child-care costs, payroll taxes and income available from the Earned Income Tax Credit Program (EITC), 9 about 55 percent of full-time workers and nearly 80 percent of those who work 30 hours per week would not have been able to escape poverty (U. S. General Accounting Office 1991). Work requirements and the imposed 5-year lifetime-limit on AFDC do not tackle poverty or other issues of resource inequality faced by this population. The premise behind time limits is that most recipients leave the welfare rolls within a 2-year period. This ignored the fact that there were two distinct welfare populations: those who relied on assistance for 2 years or less (the larger constituent), and those who relied on assistance for 8 or more years. On May 23, 1996, LaDonna A. Pavetti, research associate at The Urban Institute, testified in a House of Representatives hearing that: “The majority of families who leave the welfare system do so after a relatively short period of time—about half leave within a year, 70 percent within two years, and almost 90 percent within five years.” This majority of welfare recipients were likely to be more educated, previously married and recent participants in the labor force. Long-term welfare recipients, on the other hand, tended to be young, relatively uneducated and have little job experience and more children in comparison to their short-term counterparts (See Bane and Ellwood 1994; Weinberg 1989). Studies examining why some families receive aid for longer periods of time in comparison to others revealed that a woman’s educational background and prior work experience are strongly related to the duration of welfare use and the likelihood that the family will leave AFDC because of employment (Bane and Ellwood 1994). During the period of policy deliberations, it was shown that women without a high school education comprised 63 percent of the women who received aid for a total of 5 years or more. In contrast, women with a high school degree

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or GED accounted for almost two-thirds of those who received aid for 2 years or less. Sixty-one percent of all new entrants into the AFDC program had some work experience. However, half of the women who received aid for more than 60 months had no work experience in the year before they fi rst began to receive AFDC (Pavetti 1995). A family headed by a woman who had not completed high school and had no recent involvement in the labor market when the family fi rst began receiving welfare was almost three times more likely to end up receiving aid for 10 or more years than a family headed by a woman who was a high school graduate and had recent work experience (Bane and Ellwood 1994). The issue of dependency and poverty has been defi ned in such a way as to locate its causes in the individual’s failure to secure the necessary education and job training needed to avoid and even escape dependency. The individual, usually a female single parent, is constructed as a person who consciously makes the decision to let other people support her and her family, thus drawing on elements of Jezebel. Additionally, elements of Sapphire are integrated in locating the causes of poverty to individual failings. Sapphire is used to suggest that these women are unable to control black men. As a consequence, they tend not to get married thereby perpetuating poverty. The Welfare Queen’s ability to emasculate black men, which is now linked to her sexuality and procreation, are also involved in blaming the individual for her poverty and for making suggestions that she needs to change before she can receive assistance. Finally, the Urban Teen Mother’s portrayal as a child/mother, incapable of making decisions and unaware of the consequences of her decisions, is used to justify using the state apparatus to monitor the private decisions of these women. Locating the origin of poverty within the single parent’s resistance to social norms, such as education and work, represents a convenient way to avoid the issue of equality for all families. Such a symbolic depiction of poverty camoufl ages issues such as low wages and the lack of jobs, issues that many welfare recipients confront.

CONCLUSION Regarding the influence of culturally constructed “truths” on welfare policy, Sanford Schram claims: “All the while aspiring to scientific impartiality, welfare policy research achieves political credibility not by its objectivity, but by its consistency with the prevailing biases of welfare policy discourse” (1995: 6). Reliance on the negative, degenerate construction of black women allows policy makers to equate poverty within the black community with “immoral” black women. African American women carry the brunt of this “deficit” since it is argued that a race cannot rise above the morality and virtue of the mother. For example, in

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both the Moynihan Report and Losing Ground (Murray 1984), poverty among blacks is explained as the result of the individual, specifically the black women’s, failure to follow societal norms, such as family formation and gender roles. Relying on the image of the Matriarch, black women are portrayed as refusing to follow the norms of family formation and the black family structure is constructed as deviant. This assertion assumes that the Matriarch suffers from a misplaced sense of independence. Consequently, she is constructed as having violated cultural norms of sexuality, femininity, marriage and maternity. There is the myth of the emasculated black male, a direct result of the behaviors of black women, embedded in these stories. Interestingly, the black man is often portrayed as deserving of assistance to reinstate them into their rightful position (this is explored in Chapter 5) as opposed to deserving of punishment to make him conform to societal norms. In addition, there is the image of the Welfare Queen, the cheater— the woman living “high on the hog” at the expense of taxpayers. We also see elements of Jezebel and Sapphire, who are both constructed as sexually promiscuous and driven by their libidos with no thought of the consequences. Poor, welfare-dependent women are symbolically defi ned as seducers. They are viewed as seducing individuals whom Murray (1984) has termed the “generous people” in society. These generous individuals, according to Murray, are morally good and upstanding unlike the black poor (a similar frame was used in the discourse on the War on Drugs). As constructed, poor welfare-reliant blacks are portrayed as seducing these “generous people” into assuming responsibility for the actions of lazy, lustful, sex-driven black women. Interestingly, the “crack mother” was also portrayed as seducing the good member of society. In an attempt to change these behaviors and to get these socially-constructed deviants to conform to the norms of society, policy is designed to move them from welfare to work. Work is viewed as the medium for teaching welfare recipients values such as the American work ethic. This proposal appears to be a desire to resurrect Mammy—a servile individual who made white individuals feel safe. This image is employed to imply to poor African American women, that if they work (engage in activity where their behavior is monitored and which will lessen the possibility of their engagement in sexual activity), then they will be deemed deserving of receiving the positive benefits of state sanctioned policy, such as EITC (payment for making the dominant group feel safe). Mammy received such “perceived” benefits, fi rst because she did not work in the field and she got to stay in the big house in exchange for taking care of whites’ children. Second, she was bestowed such privileges because of her ability to police other blacks via her aggressive behavior. Work, in conjunction with the denial of benefits to recipients, replaces the plantation mistress. It serves to monitor and teach poor-black-women values, thereby allowing whites to feel safe.

110 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Racist–sexist mythology serves to justify punishing black women and their prodigy, thereby curtailing public discourse on justice and fairness. Such mythology is employed to convey which behaviors (usually the dominant groups’ ideology) are virtuous and which are deviant. Employing the myth of the deviant black woman is as much directed at black women as it is directed at white women and white men. In order to uphold such socially sanctioned gender and race hierarchies, often framed in a language of work ethic and family values, the claims of black women are made illegitimate. Such a construction influences discourse on justice and fairness since they transmit a value set used to judge individuals. The value set establishes a group’s claim to receive societal benefits, goods and services. Placing culpability for the ills of the black community—that is, joblessness, high unemployment rates, crime—on the black woman (via an ideology that might not accurately depict reality) leads to policy that is not beneficial to the black community. Such a frame works to mask how gender and racial hierarchies influence issues such as joblessness, affordable childcare and inequitable heath care, as policy is designed to improve/ change the morality of welfare recipients.

5

The Government’s “Make a Man Kit” Family Policies

1

Ours is a society which presumes male leadership in private and public affairs. The arrangements of society facilitate such leadership and reward it. A subculture, such as that of the Negro American, in which this is not the pattern, is placed at a distinct disadvantage. —Patrick Moynihan (1965: 75)

The black family has received placement on the policy agenda at different periods throughout history. The concern over the black family dates back to slavery when the enslaved were denied the right to form intact family structures. As a result, the black family occupies a strange position in the history of America’s race and gender legacy. Subsequently, throughout the years, there have been a number of commonalities binding the “concerns” over the black family. For example, the black family has been constructed as “deviant,” “pathological,” and in need of “fi xing.” Poverty may be Americans’ greatest social challenge for the 21st century. Poverty rates are highest for families headed by single women, especially for African American females and Latinas (National Poverty Center 2004). Female headed households are also the fastest growing segment of the homeless population (Wasson and Hill 1998). Many analyses take as a given that there is a causal relationship between family formation and poverty. As a result, the increase in poverty among African American femaleheaded households, in conjunction with evolving family patterns, have led to the perception in the mind of the American public that there is a social and economic crisis (Zinn and Eitzen 2005) that requires immediate political and social attention. This concern has prompted government action to implement marriage and fatherhood initiatives, all with the goal of alleviating poverty and other resulting social ills—particularly among African Americans and Latinos. Historically, much of the policy efforts on changing and modifying the black family have concentrated on modifying the behavior of black women. Her behavior is often cited as failing to conform to the patriarchal family formation and consequently is viewed as the source of many social problems facing the black community. However, more recently, black men have been receiving more attention from policy makers in hopes of curing the “pathological” black family. As argued by Nikol Alexander-Floyd (2007) the metanarrative of the Black Cultural Pathology Paradigm (BCPP),

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which operates through stories of the (pathological) black family, tends to privilege maleness in its organizing, ideology and practices, among Black nationalists specifically, Black politics in general and the state. BCPP, it is argued, tends to construct the black female as damaging to the black man and the black community in general, as such, the black man is constructed as “endangered.” The story of the “endangered” black man then serves as the foundation on which policy is based. According to Ann Orloff (2003), the positioning of men into the poverty and welfare reform debate is a relatively “new” occurrence. Welfare policy rarely targeted men as fathers. Instead, men have historically been constructed as the opposites of women: independent, wage earners (see Fraser 1989; Nelson 1990). I must recognize that the “(re)positioning” of black men as head of the household is part of a long history—a history that comes from the legal, social and moral understanding of “illegitimacy.” Much of our current work on reforming the black family focuses on “illegitimacy” and teen parenting as social and psychological problem (see Miller and Moore 1990 for a review). Often ignored is that legitimacy/illegitimacy is not a “naturally-occurring demarcation” but instead should be viewed as a “human artifact created for a particular purpose or purposes to serve certain political or administrative ends” (Reekie 1998: 7). Given this, we would be mindful to recognize how illegitimacy (although not always explicitly mentioned) is relevant to the policy frames of strengthening families and subsequently plays a substantial role in informing “antiblack public policies” (Solinger 2000: 41). Zunshine (2005) argues that the 18th century’s preoccupation with illegitimacy had its roots in the period’s obsession with the transmission of property, which according to Zunshine, had a gender dynamic. According to the analysis, bastard narratives tended to center boys, while foundling stories focused on girls. The foundling narratives, as Zunshine claims, marked the period’s attentiveness to the sexual character of women and the evolving economics of the marriage market. Illegitimacy has indeed become part of the cultural narrative on the ideal of the good mother and also the good father. Zunshine’s literary analysis of bastards (illegitimate) and foundlings (legitimate but unacknowledged or lost) purports that some bastards are often viewed as lost or unredeemable. Consequently, it is suggested that they grow up to be disorderly adults, who pose a possible danger to property (middle class) through crime, vagrancy and idleness. We see this implicit use of the bastard and the foundling in current attempts aimed at promoting marriage among the (black) poor. Increasingly, in the post-1996 welfare reform efforts, policy has focused on encouraging marriage and promoting fatherhood among what is termed “fragile families.” Low-income, unmarried couples who have a child are considered “fragile families.”2 The family is deemed fragile because it has a higher risk of poverty, economic insecurity, vulnerable relationships and family dissolution. Recent research focused on these couples and the wellbeing of their children has found that, although the majority of children

The Government’s “Make a Man Kit”

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born to unwed parents in large U. S. cities are born to parents in committed relationships, these parents have many barriers to marriage and these relationships often falter. These barriers include low educational attainment, an income below the poverty line and health limitations (see McLanahan, Garfi nkel and Mincy 2001). Some researchers and policy makers argue that female-headed households perpetuate and foster fragile families. The assumption of this argument is that the causation of poverty is rooted in family formation—particularly the failure to follow the prescribed norm of two heterosexual, married, parents and children (Thomas 1998). In an attempt to “save” and “normalize” what was once dysfunctional families but are now termed fragile families, the government is engaging in two related efforts—promoting fatherhood and promoting and encouraging healthy marriage. Within the fatherhood promotion movement, there are two strands. One strand targets all fathers regardless of class. The purpose is to encourage these men to be more engaged with their children. To date, efforts have included public campaigns to promote fatherhood. The second strand focuses of low-income fathers, particularly African American and Latino fathers. This policy strand grew out of the Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988. Specifically, it grew out of the Parent’s Fair Share Demonstration. Policies targeting low-income men whose purpose is to encourage these men to pay child support, to marry or become an active participant (in the event that marriage is not an option) in the child’s life (see Gavanas 2004). Marriage promotion, unlike fatherhood promotion, is a relatively new endeavor of the federal government. Unlike fatherhood promotion, which can be tracked to 1988, if not earlier, marriage promotion evolved in the post-1996 era. This is not to suggest that the federal government has not at various times attempted to either encourage or discourage marriage among some segments of the society. However, centering low-income men in this particular manner is relatively new. I am unaware of any other attempt aimed at “rehabilitating” black men in this manner. I refer to these policy proposals and initiatives, marriage and fatherhood promotion, as paternal policies because they utilize a patriarchal ideology and focus on centering men as the dominant individuals in the family. Interestingly, many of the proposals ignore the historical, economic and social conditions confronted by many of America’s poor. It is often these inequalities, as opposed to their personal morals, that help to create a situation that does not encourage marriage among African Americans (McLanahan, et al. 2001). The racing–gendering process of policy making limits society’s ability to engage in a type of discussion that would center such barriers since it tends to mute discussions on power relations and how these relations influence what are often viewed as personal decisions. Furthermore, the racing–gendering process is used to offer stories to the public that make invisible the role of patriarchy and race in many of the policy suggestions. The central question posed is, what type of raced and gendered images and symbols are employed in the policy-making process and how do these

114 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy images allow for the maintenance of power structures and the persistence of inequality vis-à-vis the state? In the previous chapters, in my attempt to answer this question, crime and welfare policies served as my cases. In this chapter, I explore the racing–gendering process of family policy proposals aimed at curing the “bad” black mother, and ultimately, the black family. In essence, I analyze the influence of the dichotomous view of black women, they are able to care for other’s children and not their own, on the policies targeting family formation and procreation decisions of this group. This analysis continues to show how the symbolic construction of African American women and their families reflect, and at the same time, construct, power relations. My analysis in this chapter concentrates on the political construction of many of the black family-formation “crises” and the resulting policies. I recognize the need to analyze family formation among African Americans (for example, nuclear, extended and single-headed families) and its impact on the African American community (see Billingsley 1992; Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan 1995). However, I argue that it is also important to analyze these types of family formations as the product of the state and how family policy, in its various guises, works to maintain control over the decisions made by these individuals. In addition, I strive to illustrate how using the family to maintain control over black women further exacerbates social, economic and political inequality. Traditionally, the realm of family formation is considered to be apolitical, a relationship that is fostered without influence from the government. For example, Murray (1984), among others, analyzes African American families through the concept of personal pathology, thereby overlooking the influence of the interactions of race, class and gender dynamics within American social, political and economic structures. However, families are anything but apolitical as Zaretsky (1976) points out. The state has multiple, and often confl icting, family policies (this becomes particularly apparent when one interjects class into the analysis). These various family policies reflect the constant struggle of the state’s need⎯which grows from the racist, sexist and capitalist mode of operation⎯to mediate confl ict and create order. Family formation concerning the role of the mother, in particular, allows the state to influence the lives of these women directly (abortion laws) and/or indirectly (marriage laws, tax laws) ensuring the state’s ability to mediate any conflict. Unlike the analysis of Chapter 4 that focus primarily on social welfare and its relation to work, the elements of welfare reform analyzed in this chapter focus primarily on familial and domestic relations. I do so by centering the policy initiatives in the post-1996 welfare reform effort. In essence, this chapter emphasizes procreation-focused policy proposals and what feminist scholar Mimi Abramovitz (1996) refers to as “family ethic” policies. Family ethic policies are those concerned with patriarchy—either familial or social vis-à-vis welfare policy (Abramovitz 1996)—the result


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of which is the positioning of women relative to men. An analysis of these policies illustrates that they contain various tools, ranging from sterilization to “reinstating” (black) men as the head of the household, which effectively controls (black) women’s childbearing. While the analysis looks at the subpolicies within the larger policy areas in a linear, discrete fashion, the reader should keep in mind that they are, in fact, not discreet. The reason for treating the policy areas in a discreet manner is to bring to the forefront the ways in which the images of black womanhood are used in different contexts. To help understand the influence of family policy on black women and the black community, I fi rst offer a brief overview of how “degenerate” black motherhood was socially created. I consider Presidential and Congressional descriptions and rationales of the problems related to family formation focusing on those that for various reasons do not fit some prescribed model of the “good” family. This section is followed by the description and analysis of the various family policies levied at the black community. Much of the family policies targeting the black community are incorporated within welfare (anti-poverty) programs (see Shapiro 1985). As such, there is no one particular piece of policy that stands for family policy. While my primary emphasis is on the post-1996 welfare reform initiatives, which center fatherhood and marriage, I also include The Family Support Act of 1988 (FSA) and the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). FSA of 1988 and PRWORA of 1996 serve as the wellspring for the fatherhood and marriage initiatives that I analyze. Finally, I analyze and discuss the impact of the various tenets of family policy, welfare reform and fatherhood initiatives. In this section, I illustrate how the use of various images, such as Sapphire, her male counterpart Kingfi sh, and the Matriarch, work to maintain a particular race and gender status quo. The conclusion summarizes how family policy acts as a form of oppression by limiting and controlling the reproductive and familial choices of black women.

RACIALIZED PATRIARCHY: HOW RACE AND GENDER INFLUENCE FAMILY POLICY As a result of the lack of protection from public laws and opinion, poor black women who fi nd themselves reliant on welfare for subsistence are forced to make a choice between having their babies and putting food on the table.3 Their Constitutional rights are at times limited and constrained. For example, the federal government once prohibited Planned Parenthood from counseling women on the full range of options, such as abortion, available to them. This is often referred to as the 1987 gag rule, which limited the use of public funds for counseling on abortion. Welfare-reliant solo-parenting black women are forced to disclose their sexual histories to

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receive public assistance. These women are forced to disclose the father of the child, and sometimes to engage in potentially abusive relationships in order to receive public assistance (such as bridefare or wedfare programs). These are just a few of the governmental actions aimed at addressing the perceived parental inadequacies among poor, black women. The private sector also limits poor women’s parental and familial choices. Children Requiring a Caring Community (sometimes spelled Kommunity to allow for the acronym CRACK), founded in 1997, is one such private entity. This organization offers substance-abusing women a $200 payment in exchange for their sterilization. The women are offered this compensation if they agree to use long-term birth control, such as hormone implants, injections, IUDs, tubal ligations or vasectomies (Project Prevention 2001). The above-mentioned approaches aimed at curing the debased black woman and her dysfunctional family formation are the result of racialized patriarchy. I make this claim because these policies are about power relations both between and within groups. Patriarchy is fi rst and foremost about power. It is the power of men over women. Patriarchy operates simultaneously in the cultural, economic, political and social realms to dominate and oppress women. Higginbotham (1996) challenges the concept of universal patriarchy by asking how race relates to gender. She argues that gender has always had a racial meaning. Indeed, gender is both constructed and fragmented by race. Consequently, in a racialized society, patriarchy serves to oppress not only women of color differently from Euro-American women. It also differentiates men of color from Euro-American men. Thus, there is a constant interaction between race and gender (Eisenstein 1994). As a consequence of racialized patriarchy, black, female solo-parenting is often viewed as a source of the ills of black communities (see Alexander-Floyd 2007). These women, implicitly and explicitly are cited as the cause of poor school performance, criminality and other forms of deviant behaviors. In essence, they are the source of what Zunshine (2005) refers to as bastards and foundlings. When we analyze familial policies via a lens of racialized patriarchy we are able to better understand and explain the dynamic and complex interaction of racism and patriarchy in the policy-making process. For years, black motherhood and black womanhood has been the sight of contestation. Black women, as a result of the intersectionality of class, race and gender, are often not provided with the protections to be “good” mothers and women, although they are judged by the standards of the hegemonic image of the “good” woman (see Chapter 2). For example the state has not always protected these women against rape and the state has not always given their children comparable access to education and health care in comparison to others. Slavery required that black women be stripped of maternal qualities and abilities (Davis 1983). As a result, black women’s reproduction was viewed as a source of maintaining the means of economic production. During slavery and in the immediate post emancipation period,


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the Mammy image was employed to convey stories of black motherhood. Mammy was not a particularly good mother, but she was constructed as being socially responsible because she cared for white children and did not pose a threat to white domination. The image of Sapphire, and her counterpart, the “emasculated black man,” also play a prominent role in much of the story telling of family policy. Sapphire, the nag, refuses to let her man play his patriarchal role as head of the household. Eventually, the Mammy image gave way to the image of the Matriarch. Much like the Mammy, the Matriarch is also a “bad” mother. However, because the dominant group no longer supervises her, she is portrayed as more of a threat to society. Theorists have argued that the symbolic Matriarch served as part of the white political backlash to the civil right gains made by African Americans in the 1960s (Neubeck and Cazenave 2001). The use of the Matriarch, which was used to convey stories of the absence or decline of two-parent nuclear black families, Neubeck and Cazenave (2001: 33) argue served to shift “blame from African Americans’ deep-rooted poverty away from white racial oppression and onto the backs of black women.” Furthermore, it was not politically feasible to construct black, female, solo parents as independent as their existence posed a threat to the patriarchal (white) order. Consequently, black, female, solo parents were constructed as negative and in need of fi xing because: The image of the Black matriarch serves as powerful symbol to both Black and White women of what can go wrong if White patriarchal power is challenged. Aggressive, assertive women are penalized—they are abandoned by their men, end up impoverished, and are stigmatized as being unfeminine. (Collins 1991: 77) The racing–gendering process on which the construction of black women is based has created a paradox. Black women, via the image of Mammy, while perceived as being capable of caring for other people’s children, are perceived as being incapable of caring for their own. During slavery, black women’s reproduction had more to do with the production of capital resources (slaves) than family formation. This construction legitimized the control/supervision of reproduction among blacks. When children are seen as capital (and in the post-civil rights movement, as a drain on capital), childbearing is distinctly not about motherhood. Thus, black women, and consequently their families, are not afforded the same protections offered to white women. Public laws and opinion idealized and protected motherhood by protecting the white female body. Policy makers are cognizant that ending welfare as we know it will not translate into the end of poverty among solo-mothering families. Thus, they have focused on promoting marriage, and enhancing paternal wages and the paternal role as possible cures for poverty. Policy has sought to accomplish what Dorothy Smith (1993) terms the model of the “standard North

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American Family” (SNAF). It is worth mentioning that these proposals cross all ideological boundaries and they have been endorsed by politicians as disparate as Al Gore and George Bush (during the 2000 presidential campaign), and the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, House Democrat Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

A FAMILY AFFAIR: THE DISCOURSE OF POLICY DECISION MAKERS Recently, the economic benefits of marriage have been put forth as a key rationale for promoting healthy marriage. Additionally, it is argued that the child’s well-being is also enhanced as a result of marriage. Thus, marriage is viewed as a way of combating a national concern over the increase in poverty, and the ensuing social problems, especially among unmarried African Americans females. This approach, promoting marriage and fatherhood, is not without controversy and it has been a much debated topic in the U. S. political arena. Although the traditional two-parent family type represents a small minority of U. S. families, key political, social and cultural leaders continue to make decisions about the family based on the assumption of this as an ideal family structure. According to Zinn and Eitzen (2005) in 2002, traditional families accounted for only 7 percent of U. S. households; 16 percent of households were dual-income households with children; 13 percent of households were dual-income with no children; and other households accounted for 64 percent of U. S. households. These researchers further predict that household composition and family patterns will continue to change. It is expected that by 2010 there will be, approximately, a 5 percent decline in the number of traditional twoparent households with children (Zinn and Eitzen 2005). The romantic notion of the traditional American family and the ideal roles of fathers and mothers frame contemporary political, economic and social rhetoric, and family policy. Historically, key cultural beliefs have guided the evolution of American behaviors and values related to marriage and the responsibility of parents. Those operating outside of these norms, of the two-parent household, are viewed as deviants. However, the assumptions about marriage are not inclusive of most contemporary American families, including African American families. In the framing of the breakdown of the family, key policy makers often ignored the impact of class, race and gender as key variables in shaping the family. In trying to unmask the hidden gender and race power relations, I performed a critical discourse analysis (CDA) on 79 Congressional and 64 Presidential-level documents. While there has been a number of proposals aimed at changing the procreation and familial decisions made by the poor, it should be noted that I concentrated the discourse analysis primarily on the following policy proposals: The Fathers Count Act of


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1999; The Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 (U.S. Senate 2007a); The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (U.S. P. L. 109–171); and The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 (U.S. Senate 2007).4 Additionally, I also analyze FSA of 1988 (U. S. P. L. 100–485). FAS of 1988 cemented the major shift in the characterization of poor women who were reliant on welfare from inept mothers to calculating parasites. The socioeconomic class of these women played a factor in influencing the social construction of this group and contributed to the positioning of these poor women of color (see Williams 1995; Quadango 1994). I also consider some of the proposal included in the PRWORA legislation of 1996. I realize that there are commonalities in the goals of the legislation. For example, the primary purpose of the FSA of 1988 was to revise the AFDC program to emphasize work, child support and family benefits. FSA of 1988 represented a shift in policy making in that it reshaped the welfare reform debate in terms of family formation, family responsibilities and the role of the mother in the lives of her offspring. Across FSA of 1988, PRWORA of 1996, and current fatherhood promotion initiatives, the policy targeted group, poor black women, was characterized as inept mothers and breeders of predators—that is, they were conceptualized as spawning the “cultures of violence and poverty.” This line of reasoning derived from the notion that these women transferred the culture of poverty and violence to their children because they did not adhere to the state-sanctioned nuclear-family formation of a man, woman and children. However, unlike the analysis of Chapter 3, which focused primarily on issues of work, the recent approaches to welfare reform focus on promoting marriage and fatherhood. Focusing on the language of the discourse on family formation, poverty and welfare use, via CDA and grounded theory, allows me to uncover the ideological standpoint(s) and values transmitted in the text on family policy and poverty (see Appendix A). My analysis highlights a number of policy frames including: “Are you a good mother?” “Costly family formation,” and “Looking for a few good men.” A number of rhetorical claims, through which the issue was framed, were discovered (see Appendix B, Table B.3). In determining the rhetorical elements, I asked: (a) What was said about (black) family formation? and (b) How did race and gender influence what was said about these individuals? Relying on grounded theory and category analysis, I was able to categorize the following rhetorical elements: 1. The nature of argumentative appeals and warrants: Moralistic and paternalistic in nature. Discourse was framed in terms of individuals who lack personal responsibility and morals and who engage in transmitting intergenerational poverty, early child bearing, crime and other social ills; 2. Image of the public underlying the rhetoric: Members of the policytargeted group were described as subscribing to and perpetuating an

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underclass culture; unable to care for their offspring; fraudulent, and costly to tax payers; and 3. Images of existing/lack of social programs (policy): Allowing the state to replace the “natural” head of the household (the man); promoting personal and family irresponsibility; increasing social costs to “good” members of society, and encouraging “weak” men. Relying on existing knowledge, as relayed via race and gender images such as the Matriarch, Jezebel, Sapphire (and her nemesis Kingfish) and Urban Teen Mother, policy makers framed the issue of family formation in the black community on the notion of the “bad” black mother (see Appendix B, Table B.3). Combined, these images suggest that black mothers, who fail to conform to underlying values, will never become members of the cult of true womanhood—that is a cult as defi ned by Euro-American standards, morals, etc. Because they fail to follow the patriarchal and raced-sanctioned “normal” family, they are constructed and portrayed less frequently in policy discourse as inept or reckless reproducers in need of moral supervision. Rather, they are presented as calculating parasites deserving harsh discipline (Lubiano 1992). I now turn my attention to the policy elite’s constructions of the (black) family and their policy claims. As was the case in Chapters 3 and 4, the examples of the claims are representative of the numerous claims made in the discourses on family policy. They are not exhaustive, but they represent the most proximately used claims, for the purposes of this analysis. Again, the claims were randomly selected and represent the rhetorical and policy elements introduced above (for additional quotes see Appendix B, Table B.3).

“ . . . Are you a Good Mother?” The construction and representation of motherhood used in the modern fatherhood and marriage promotion movement has at its roots the belief that single, improvised black motherhood is dangerous. In efforts to control and regulate childbearing, in particular “illegitimate” childbearing, there is much emphasis (covert at times) placed on “what makes a good mother” and “who is worthy of being a mother.”5 According to President Reagan: It is fitting that the word “family” figures prominently in the title of this legislation [FSA of 1988]. For too long the Federal Government, with the best of intentions, has usurped responsibilities that appropriately lie with parents. . . . In so doing, it has reinforced dependency and separated welfare recipients from the mainstream of American society. The Family Support Act says to welfare parents, “We expect of you what we expect of ourselves and our own loved ones: that you will do your share in taking responsibility for your life and for the lives of the children you bring into this world.” (1988c: 1329, emphasis added)


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Relying on a particular value set, President Reagan made the claim that poverty and welfare use equals irresponsibility. The issue of promoting and encouraging individual responsibility was also a theme in the 1990s and 2000s welfare reform discourse. In 1996, Senator Moynihan (D-NY) stated: The single parent family does not work very well. . . . When the single mother is unmarried, immature, with an absentee father who, in any event, is as poorly equipped to be a parent as is the mother, the single parent family tends to be a disaster on the upbringing of the child—not in subtle way, but in ways that produces the grossest form of emotional and intellectual maldevelopment, up to and including death. . . . Let government policy start from the premise that to bring a baby into this world when one is not emotionally or fi nancially equipped to be a parent is profoundly irresponsible. (24–25, emphasis added) In the post-1996 welfare reform era, what was suggested was that these women were not necessarily bad, but they were lacking in their abilities to effectively parent. So, for example, Congressperson Osborne (R-NE) used the following frame to encourage fatherhood and marriage: The problems associated with fatherlessness are far-reaching. . . .There is a much higher incidence of teenage pregnancy, suicide rates are much higher, they are two to three times more likely to commit crime, much likely to drop out of school, much more likely to get involved with drugs and alcohol and I think, most importantly, and something that a lot of people miss, a fatherless daughter suffers just as much or more than a fatherless young man. It would appear that daughters are much more likely to be abused or assaulted if they do not have a father. A father acts as a protector for his daughter. We need fathers to be active in their children’s lives to instill values and act as role models. Fathers . . . provide affi rmation, affection and advice. (2002a: H3487) Welfare-reliant, mother-only families were symbolized as failing to protect their offspring by engaging in irresponsible behavior—attempting to raise children without the presence of a man. Consequently, these women are framed as “incomplete” and as a result harmful to their offspring. One of President Clinton’s domestic policy advisors, William Galston, consistently asserted: “sharply rising rates of divorce, unwed mothers, and runaway fathers represent abusers of individual freedom, for they are patterns of adult behavior with profoundly negative effects on children” (1990–1991: 21). In the post-1996 era, it is suggested the welfare to work movement has been successful; however, there is still something lacking. What is lacking is that these women need to be further normalized in terms of patriarchy. It is only when they participate in the paid labor force and follow the patriarchal norm

122 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy that welfare-reliant, mother-only women can be fixed. It bears mentioning that the goal is not necessarily to get these women (and men) to follow too closely the white model of the “good” family. Indeed, these women are not being reformed to be stay-at-home mothers, for example. To promote such a model would blur class and racial lines. When motherhood is raced, the result is that the woman and her children are debased and viewed as unworthy of receiving positive benefits. Normally, children are categorized as dependent and worthy of society’s care. However, the racing–gendering of family policy resulted in the categorization of black children (whose mothers are welfare reliant) as sinister members of society. The impact of this categorization was seen in discussions on who should be responsible for these children when their parents are sent into the paid labor force. Initially, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee rejected the proposal to require that states ensure that children were cared for when welfare recipients went to work, which then begged the question: What to do with the children? Kennelly (D-CT) argued that it was unfair to ask parents, primarily mothers, to fi nd childcare when they were adjusting to new work responsibilities (1995: H3581). Republicans contended that parents, not states, ought to be responsible for fi nding safe child care and that those who failed to do such could be prosecuted for abandoning their children. “Soon we’re going to have a Department of Alarm Clocks to wake them up and a Department of Bedtime Stories to tuck them in,” said Jim Nussle (R-IA), “It’s not the government’s responsibility” (quoted in Dodd 1995: 3061). There are a number of referential strategies, discursive practices and statements included in the discourse on family formation and welfare use. These include: 1. Lack of (American) values; 2. Personal responsibility; and 3. Absentee parents. Before I can analyze these referential strategies and statements to determine how they allow for the perpetuation of racial and gender hierarchies, I fi rst want to consider the context in which this discourse took place. The context was very similar to the context of the War on Drugs (see Chapter 3). Across these time periods, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the political context was one of conservatism, minimum government interventions, a free market approach and the promotion of morality. Out of this context we see the every increasing concern over “family values” and, according to Smith (2007), the sexual regulation of poor, welfare-reliant women. There were a number of demographic shifts used to explain the changing nature of welfare reform. First, the increase in the number of women entering the labor force meant that legislation designed to get welfare recipients to work did not appear punitive. Second, there was a change in


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the characteristics of welfare recipients. Gone were the days of the widowed woman. Instead, she is now constructed as a younger, never-married mother. The Urban Teen Mother now serves as the image of welfare clientele. Finally, welfare rolls included more blacks. These shifts allowed for a reconceptualization of welfare recipients that justified the approach designed to move welfare recipients into the paid labor force as opposed to allowing them to stay home and care for their children (see Terry-Humen, Manlove and Moore 2001). Consequently, motherhood (particularly black motherhood) as it relates to welfare became contentious. Numerous critical race and gender theorists, among others, have shown that black motherhood has always been a contentious issue in U. S. society (Collins 1991; Mullings 1997; Roberts 1994, 1997; Solinger 2000). Symbolically these women, in their role of mothers, have been constructed as bad and ineffective and as violating normative gender roles (see Schlesinger 1986; Schorr and Moen 1979). This negative depiction allows for the construction of the female headed household as the “other” (see Sands and Nuccio 1989) and as a threat to society. In the frames dealing with the issue of responsibility, it is often suggested that existing policy usurps personal responsibility. In usurping responsibility, the availability of welfare fosters dependency—it allows Jezebel and the Welfare Queen to engage in their laziness and deceitfulness and make false claims of entitlement. This false sense of entitlement, encouraged by welfare, allows these women to engage in practices, such as solo-mothering, that “separates” them from mainstream America. This is often framed in a language of un-American values. Many of these women were depicted as breeder women (the Welfare Queen. See Chapter 4). However, there was no longer a societal need for this class of women; therefore, she had to be controlled. Invoking the image of poor welfare reliant women as “parasites,” taking from society and offering nothing in return, justifies using the state to teach them to be responsible. Later in this chapter, I explore the policy tools used to contain these women. This brings me to the frame of “absentee parents.” They are two components to this frame. One frame suggests that women who care for these children are morally absent. A second frame says that the fathers of these children are absent. I have previously discussed how the cult of single (black) parenting makes these women bad and absent parents. So, I concentrate more on the men. Men’s absence results from the availability of welfare, which allows for the functioning of Sapphire—the emasculator of black men. It is through Sapphire and welfare availability that we have the Matriarch—the black woman who fails to follow normative gender roles. This frame also uses the script of the Welfare Queen. Part of the problem with the Welfare Queen was that she was no longer participating in the paid labor force, but rather, was imitating the role of the good mother who stayed home and cared for her family. Due to the intersection of race, gender and class, the Welfare Queen was viewed as illegitimate in her attempts

124 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy to act like a “lady.” In addition her efforts at being a stay-at-home mother were misplaced because of the perception that she lacked the skills and morals needed to raise an upstanding citizen, after all she had no man in the house. If, in fact, the Welfare Queen wanted to play this role, then she needed to fi nd a man who would support her. In the event that the Welfare Queen could not fi nd a male partner, then she would have to enter the paid labor force. Policy makers argued that by either forcing these women to get married or find a husband, they would be able to stem the problems associated with absentee parents. In the post PRWORA era, it has been recognized that it is simply not enough to move these women into the paid labor force. Representative Shaw (R-FL) stated: “we are training moms to become breadwinners and we have done some wonderful things . . . but there is still that great vacancy in the home because there is not a father” (1999: 11863). It is assumed that the man would take his rightful role as the head of the household and gender roles would be normalized, thus allowing for the transmittal of “good” values. In the event that marriage was not an option, then work could function similarly in transmitting good values—a strong work ethic and end the false sense of entitlement. Either scenario would end government’s responsibility for these children. Poor black children, as argued by Dorothy Roberts (1999), have never been the recipients of positive benefits from government. Maybe this is the result of the perceived societal value of these children. Degrading black mothers, who fail to follow the hegemonic model of family formation, also allows for the denigration of their offspring. Thus, when these children are constructed as predators (in the sense that they possess corrupt values and are prone to be welfare dependent), they are deemed unworthy to receive societal benefits. This is the result of the use of the policy frame that suggests that anyone who abuses “individual freedom” is inherently un-American. Consequently, these women and their children are subjected to punishment and monitoring since they are constructed as violating one of the basic principles of American ideology. In many instances, the punishment and monitoring is not necessarily to protect or save these individuals, but to maintain, without challenge, many norms and practices of society. The racing–gendering process has provided a particular meaning of motherhood and mothering. Motherhood has been delineated in terms of polar opposites that appear to be determined along a race and class continuum. The creation of these polar opposites is used to promote and maintain power hierarchies and to protect group interests. When one group of individuals is constructed as degenerate mothers, via the use of images such as the Matriarch and the Urban Teen Mother, then its opposite tends to be elevated as the valued group. As a consequence, policy, more than likely, will attempt to change the behavior of the degenerate group to move them more in line with the socially-sanctioned “normal” group. The implication of this frame for policy design is discussed later


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in this chapter. Below, I consider the rhetoric of the costly family formation and how this discourse further compounds inequality.

“ . . . Costly Family Formation” In an effort to promote and implement racialized patriarchy, decision makers often employed the frame of the cost of family formation among poor blacks, continuing the claims that were similarly used in the frame “Are you a good mother?” According to Congresswoman Jackson-Lee (D-TX): “I am not only talking about the physical poverty, the fi nancial poverty, but also the spiritual and social poverty of children; that when children do not have the steady hand of the dad, we can see the difference” (2002: H3491). Again, this is not a particularly new frame that appeared in 2002. In defi ning the issue of family formation, Senator Specter (R-PA) stated: One other major cost should be considered [as justification for reforming welfare], although it is hard to calculate and candidly raises questions of fairness, and that is, the related costs of crime. To raise this issue is neither to assess blame nor to provide excuses for antisocial conduct. Broken homes, one-parent families, slum housing, and exposure to the drug subculture spawn truants and juvenile delinquents, many of whom become youth offenders and some of whom become career criminals. (1988: S7731) The cost of mother-only families is consistently used during the various periods of welfare reform. The discourse highlights fi nancial and moral costs associated with broken homes (for additional statements see Appendix B, Table B.3). This frame tells two interrelated stories. For one, it tells the story of the economic cost of “illegitimacy” and single parenting that is often borne by others in society. The others in society are usually constructed as “good” citizens—in the sense that they are taxpayers and follow American ethos (a similar construction was used in the War on Drugs discourse). The second story, which is necessary for the fi rst story to have credibility, relates to black female sexuality and morality. In Chapter 4, through the lens of the cult of single (black) motherhood, I began to explore how these concerns are addressed in the policy making process. As argued, there are three components to the cult of single (black) motherhood. These include: excessive and uncontrollable sexuality (Jezebel), welfare dependence (Welfare Queen and the Urban Teen Mother) and female headness (Sapphire and the Matriarch). This culture of single (black) motherhood is embedded in the frame of costly (black) family formation. The referential strategies and statements used to construct the cult of single (black) motherhood are also used in the construction

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of the cost of family formation. This frame is used to suggest that black women’s behavior is a danger to others in society and, therefore, must be contained. In the above-referenced quote, Senator Specter cleverly avoids the issue of race and gender in specifying the societal costs of “deviant” family formations; however, he employed race and gender coded symbols. The terms “broken homes” and “one-parent families” take on a “black face” as welfare often is associated with black females (see Gilens 1999; Hancock 2004, Neubeck and Cazenave 2001; Quandagno 1994). The work of Moynihan (1965) and that of subsequent social scientists have equated broken homes with black women via the image of the Matriarch. Thus, it is not necessary for individuals such as Senator Specter to explicitly reference black women as it is implied in the “evidence” he cites. In more modern times, one sees an explicit reference to race and how it worsens the problems associated with mother-only poor and welfare-reliant families. According to Congressperson Pence (R-IN) “. . . in the last 25 years, fatherlessness has become a crisis in Black America” (2002: H3490). Additionally, Senator Obama (D-IL) in his support of the Responsible and Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 specifically mentions the impact of fatherlessness on African American Families (2007). As such, race became more “explicit” in the deliberation of marriage and fatherhood promotion, which are considered as the next logical step in welfare reform. In framing the issue of the broken black family and the costs it infl icts on society, many members of Congress and Presidents relied, implicitly and explicitly, on many of the preexisting images of black women. Embedded in this frame were Jezebel and her alleged promiscuity, and Sapphire and Matriarch and their ability to emasculate black men. These constructions worked in tandem to construct black mothers as unfit and morally corrupt. For example, Reagan combined many of the aforementioned characteristics of black women and gave birth to the Welfare Queen (see Zucchino 1997). The Welfare Queen image is closely connected with Jezebel and her uncontrolled sexuality and selfi shness. The Welfare Queen adopts her self-centeredness and controlling nature from Sapphire and Mammy. President Reagan, among others, evoked the image of the Welfare Queen ⎯ driving in her pink Cadillac and living a life of luxury⎯to drum up support for his efforts to engage in social engineering. In the current attempts of welfare reform, because welfare is now viewed as a success (in terms of welfare roll reductions) these women are not necessarily viewed in this manner. Instead, they are viewed as in need of “completion” and as weak in terms of their abilities to raise morally upstanding children. Even in the face of this “new” construction, the black mother, via the welfare recipient, is constructed as a sinister individual and as costly to society, both economically and morally. It is also assumed that individually, government policy cannot


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be solely responsible for fi xing this woman; she now requires a man in the household.

“ . . . Looking for a Few Good Men” In 1988, Senator Cochran (R-MS) argued: “Where possible, we need to encourage families to stay together. The existing welfare system provides little or no incentive for mothers and fathers to form and maintain families. Indeed, welfare income often increases when parents break up or never marry” (S3069). Senator Gramm (R-TX) made a similar argument in 1996. According to Senator Gramm: When we started the War on Poverty in the mid-1960s, two-parent families were the norm in poor families in America. Today, two-parent families are the exception. Since 1965, the illegitimacy rate has tripled. I know that we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are going to lament the passage of this new welfare reform bill. But I do not see how anybody with a straight face, or a clear conscience, can defend the status quo in welfare. Our current welfare program has failed. It has driven fathers out of the household. It has made mothers dependent. It has taken away people’s dignity. It has bred child abuse and neglect, and fi lled the streets of our cities with crime. And we are here today to change it. (1996a: S9352) A similar claim was also made in 1999 by Congressperson Wynn (D-MD) when he said: “For too long this Congress and this society has ignored this problem or, as I said, has taken a head-in-the sand approach. It is high time that, as a society, we address the problem, we accept responsibility, and we, more importantly, enable these young fathers to accept responsibility” (H11871). In the frame of “look for a few good men” there are two dominant discursive statements: 1. Broken homes; and 2. Culture of violence and poverty. The discursive element of “looking for a few good men” continues to employ the notion of the “other” and an “us” versus “them” approach. Using the absence of men in the household, these families are constructed as “broken” and as “threats” to the moral fiber and fabric of American society. It is through this construction that policy makers are able to justify their paternalistic approach to policy—they know what is best for these (black) families. The discursive elements rely on a number of scripts of black womanhood. The story of the dangers of single (black) households uses the script of the Jezebel, Matriarch, Welfare Queen and the Urban

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Teen Mother. As suggested by Foucault (1972), among others, those in power need not offer explicit reference to oppressive symbols. Instead, they rely on referential strategies (Wodak and Sedlak 2000), which are historically and cultural grounded, to convey their meanings. Both Senators Cochran and Gramm and Congressperson Wynn use the frame that the existence of welfare encourages single parenting, which in turn results in a number of social ills. Again, we see the reference to the relationship that single-parenting causes poverty. Consequently, over time, the role of men has become central in addressing poverty. This highlights a growing trend in policy discourse that overwhelmingly focused on women. This shift in emphasizing the paternal role dictated appropriate paternal behavior, which ranged from requiring paternity testing to promoting marriage. In the 1980s, using gender hierarchies, the Reagan administration and Congress stressed the role of men and fathers in the construction of a “good” mother and “good” parents—which allows for “us” versus “them” categorizations. Using gender hierarchies, President Reagan and his administration’s efforts to reduce welfare rolls focused on getting absent fathers to support their children. The FSA of 1988 advanced parental support (usually fi nancial support) as a cure for the pathological black family. The Act supported the goal of reestablishing the male as a part of, in fact the head of, the family and as a cure to poverty. Whenever possible, decision makers promoted marriage. In cases where it was not possible to have, encourage, or require a man in the house, policy concentrated on requiring economic ties via child support. The PRWORA relies on a similar frame as used in FSA. Through the use of statements such as “marriage is the foundation of a successful society,” PROWRA explicitly highlights in its preamble the social importance of father-mother families. The Act goes on to stress the danger of not following patriarchal norms—specifically stressing the correlations between non-marriage and various social ills. Additionally, PRWORA foregrounds paternal obligations as part of the cure to many of the social ills plaguing poor communities. Various fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives emerging since 1996 continue this trend. In the early versions, such as the Fathers Count Act of 1999 (U.S. Congress, House 1999a), much emphasis was placed on encouraging the payment and collection of child support. Eventually, this gave way to the suggestion that the father was important for the well-being of the child beyond his simple fi nancial contribution. Men, as fathers and even better as husbands, are necessary to teach children values, according to the current argument that dominates much of the latter initiatives such as the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007. These men are viewed as worthy of rehabilitation. The barriers they confront as “inner-city,” African American men, it is argued, must be demolished (Obama 2007). In this current attempt to


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reform this population, it appears that the needs of women as parents are no longer on the policy agenda. Similar to the frame used to describe maternal drug use, the frames used to describe family formation suggest that these women are a danger to society. They are perceived as posing a danger because they do not follow patriarchal norms—particularly racialized patriarchal norms. The danger posed by these women is the assertion of their independence. This danger has to be placed in the context of rising single parenting among women, especially among Euro-American women. Perceived independence among women threatens the male’s role in not only the family, but society. In Chapter 2, I discussed how race influenced the cult of true womanhood and determined the hierarchy of women based on racial categorizations. A value of separating women along racial categorizations is that it fractured and fractures any unity that might be fostered among and between women. As more women exercise their right to bear children outside of the institution of marriage, it increases the possibility that they will foster coalitions and thereby increase their demands for protections from the state. Thus, policy makers use welfare dependent women, who are often perceived as being black, to send messages to other women in society. The message sent is that “you will not be valued.” Members of the black community can also use this message to regulate each other (see Alexander-Floyd 2007). The state, by implementing racialized patriarchy, sends the message that a woman’s value, and thus what the state is willing to provide, is tied to her connections to a man. Through the use of a “racial threat” (you don’t want to be like those black women), the state (and the black community) is allowed to circumvent the issues of gender inequality. In order to (re)align these women—the Matriarch and her offspring, the Urban Teen Mother—to fit into their perceived role in society and to save the “endangered” black man, many policy decision makers advocated (re)installing men into their “proper” place. The frame of “looking for a few good men” was used to suggest that once (black) men were allowed to serve as the head of the household, the dangerous (black) woman would be tamed and brought in line with the norms of racialized patriarchy. The governing of black women’s bodies, by private individuals and the state, dates back to the institution of slavery. Slavery necessitated the replenishment of its main source of capital—black workers. Accordingly, black women’s reproduction was constructed not in terms of personal rights to be protected, but as capital to be controlled. Thus, black women lost all control over their bodies and then became objects to be subjected to social regulation. The formal end of slavery did not lead to the termination of such control. Instead, it ushered in a slightly modifi ed justification to continue controlling black women’s sexuality. Similarly to the Post-Emancipation period, it was suggested that such behavior

130 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy was warranted as a means of protecting white society from the “violent” prodigy, male or female, of blacks.

FIXING THE PARADOXICAL BAD BLACK MOTHER: TOOLS FROM THE 1980S THROUGH THE 2000S Policy decision makers often present to the public very simplistic stories of what are rather complex issues. In framing a policy issue, decision makers rely on symbols that evoke particular meanings to convince the public that this is a true representation of an issue, thereby justifying their policy decisions. The above-referenced rhetorical elements, “good mother,” “costly family formation” and “looking for a few good men,” were employed to justify the use of particular policy approaches. Running through these three frames is the notion of a dangerous black woman. She is dangerous in her challenge to patriarchy. Thus, soloparenting by black women is not valued, but instead, is viewed as dysfunctional. These often stated correlations between solo-mothering and social dangers, crime, poor school performance and intergenerational single motherhood are reminiscent of Moynihan’s (1965) and Murray’s (1984) work. Using such correlations allows policy makers to argue that welfare policy should focus not solely on providing a safety net to needy families (see Appendix B, Table B.3). Instead, policy is also designed to “end the dependence on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage . . . prevent and reduce the incidence of outof-wedlock pregnancies, and encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families” (U. S. P. L. 104–193, Title I, emphasis added). Policy is attempting to normalize these women and get them to conform to gender norms while maintaining a particular status quo. Policy decision makers, across the political spectrum, have embraced this policy approach. This becomes evident as I discuss the various policy elements used in the discourse of black family formation. Again, relying on Linder’s typology, my CDA revealed the following policy elements: 1. Policy objectives: To maintain and promote the sanctity of marriage. Focus on the role of fathers in counteracting the negative influences of single-mother household. The rationale for these objectives asserts that children benefit from a two-parent family formation; 2. Type of policy intervention: Control of behavior—conjugal and parental; and 3. Policy Instrument(s): Child-Support enforcement; paternity establishment; and marriage and fatherhood training. Maternal functioning is often examined as a function of family structure, lifestyle and class. It is from this reference point that portraits of black


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mothers are placed and analyzed, and policy is formulated. There is no one law or policy document that encompasses family policy. The United States basically has a hodgepodge of family policies ranging from the explicit, such as foster care and child protection, to the latent, such as tax credits for new homebuyers (see Wisensale 1997). Prior research, such as that conducted by Gwendolyn Mink, Dorothy Roberts and Rickie Solinger, suggests that family policies targeting African Americans and poor individuals, tend to concentrate on sterilization, limiting procreation, providing childcare, enforcing child-support payment and strengthening the role of fathers. This analysis continues to explore how these approaches serve as a means of perpetuating race and gender hierarchies. While it would be beneficial to consider these various policy approaches, time and space do not permit me to do such. Thus, my focus is on the policy efforts targeting men as both fathers and husbands. I recognize that much of the more recent policy family policy initiatives stem from The FSA of 1988 (U. S. P. L. 100–485); however, I offer a minimum review of this policy. FSA of 1988 sought to revise the AFDC program to emphasize work, child support and family benefits. The goal of the legislation was to assist needy children and parents to obtain the education, training and employment needed to avoid long-term welfare dependency. Also included were a number of policy tools to encourage child support and to promote the benefits of the two-parent family. Many of the policy proposals of the 1988 Act were extended and strengthened in the 1996 welfare-reform legislation, the PRWORA. The PRWORA is worth mentioning here; however, Chapter 4 is specifically dedicated to an analysis of this policy as it relates to the issue of work. The PRWORA, unlike its earlier version, pays particular attention to paternal roles, as it tends to advance the role⎯economic, and non-economic⎯of fathers in the lives of their children. Included in PRWORA are the following four family-formation objectives: 1. Provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; 2. End the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage; 3. Prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and 4. Encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. (U. S. P.L 104–193, Section 401[a]). There is now a push at both the federal and state level to undertake a series of marriage and fatherhood initiatives designed to accomplish the above stated four family-formation objectives of the PRWORA. I now turn my attention to some of these policy proposals and initiatives.

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In November 1999, The Fathers Count Act (H. R. 3073), introduced by Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R-CT), was passed in the House of Representatives. In her announcement on the hearing of the fatherhood legislation, Representative Johnson (1999) stated: We must support programs that focus on improving relationships between poor young men and women to increase the prospects that they can marry and form two-parent families or at a minimum, work together to rear their children. Promoting marriage and two-parent families, and aggressively helping these men become responsible parents, is the next step in welfare reform (U.S. Congress House). This piece of legislation was sent to the Senate on November 16, 1999, but no action was taken. Building on this proposal, at the Congressional level, three proposed bills calling for increased funding for fatherhood programs were introduced. These fatherhood programs were designed with the goal of helping fathers and their families avoid or leave cash welfare by providing employment services. The bills are the Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 (S. 653/ H. R. 1300), the Strengthening Working Families Act of 2001 (S685) and the Child Support Distribution Act of 2001 (H. R. 1471). Below I discuss the Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 (the other acts are not discussed because they did not generate much discussion after they were introduced). Introduced simultaneously by Senator Bayh (S653) and Congresswoman Carson (H. R. 1300), the Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 sought to promote fatherhood as a viable means of addressing the social ills associated with fatherlessness. The act sought to amend Part D of Title IV of the Social Security Act by providing grants to states to encourage media campaigns to promote responsible fatherhood skills, and for other purposes. While this bill did not become law, it was reintroduced in subsequent years. Additionally, the concept of media campaigns to promote fatherhood has garnered support and is now used in a number of states, such as Maryland. In 2002, the House passed The Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act (H. R. 4737). During that same year, the Senate Finance Committee proposed and passed legislation that included a number of marriage provisions. H. R. 4737 captures the familial ideology of the post-1996 welfare reform efforts. The language of this act was changed to emphasize a particular familial ideology. The revised introductory language reads [the new language is italicized]: “The purpose of this part is to improve child wellbeing by increasing the flexibility of states in operating a program designed to” meet the four purposes. Reference to “parents” in H. R. 4737 was changed to “families.” In addition, the bill also added a focus on reducing poverty in purpose 2, so that it reads: “end the dependence of needy families, on government benefits and reduce poverty by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage.” H. R. 4737 also altered purpose 4 to encourage healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood so that it reads “encourage the formation and


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maintenance of healthy two-parent married families, and encourage responsible fatherhood.” Additionally, this piece of legislation established annual, numerical and measurable performance goals with respect to each of the TANF purposes, including promoting “healthy marriages.” The welfare reauthorization (TANF), contained in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (U.S. P. L. 109–171), in its formulation assumes this same parasitic construction of single (black) mothers used in earlier attempts to teach poor black women values by encouraging marriage and strong fathers. As specified in the Marriage and Fatherhood provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, states and private entities are allowed to use TANF funds to encourage and promote marriage and fatherhood. In an attempt to promote and encourage marriage, the following are activities for which TANF funds can be used: public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage; teaching high school students about the value of marriage, relationship skills and budgeting; and targeting non-married mothers and fathers to teach them about conflict resolution, financial management, career advancement and parenting skills. The Act also allows for welfare funds to be used to target married couples, through divorce reduction programs, in hopes of strengthening their bond. President George W. Bush continues to champion the cause to reinstate poor black men as the head of the household. In an attempt to promote and encourage racialized patriarchy, in 2001, President Bush proposed allocating $1.5 billion over 5 years to promote and encourage marriage among poor individuals. This was one element of his larger efforts aimed at addressing poverty. The goal of Bush’s proposal is to help couples develop interpersonal skills that promote “healthy marriages.” This plan concentrates on an individual therapeutic approach with the goal of lessening the decline of marriage. A central component is to transform poor men into “family” members as the initiative goes beyond simply requiring men to pay child support. Wade Horn, founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative whom George W. Bush picked as Assistant Secretary of DHHS for welfare and related issues, argued that women who are “at high risk of bearing a child out of wedlock” should be paid $1,000 annually for 5 years if they bear their first child within marriage and stay married (2001: 39−42). These various “fatherhood initiatives” all target “unmarried poor fathers.” However, they seem to be an attempt to remedy the damage done by the Matriarch and Jezebel by applying patriarchal public policy to enforce a family formation that reflects the dominant culture’s value system (this is explored in the fatherhood initiative section of this chapter). The various legislations and initiatives seem designed not only to improve the black man’s work situation (with the intention of increasing their paychecks so that they can contribute more money to their children), but also to prepare them for a particular role as head of the household. Clearly, these men are encouraged to marry and assume responsibility for the family budget and the family home. The suggestion is that “real men” are bankers, handy-men and organizers of their family’s schedules.

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Similarly to the FSA, PRWORA utilizes programs such as family caps and illegitimacy ratios to encourage states to reduce the number of children born out of wedlock. The more recent fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives go beyond requiring child support and seek to encourage men to be disciplinarians and leaders of the family. These policies seemed aimed at controlling family formation among poor, black women, and as a means of validating “normalized” family formations and relations (Mink 1998, 1995; Smith 1993). These various pieces of legislation appear designed to promote fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives either by promoting marriage, joint custody, visitation rights, or child support enforcement. Combined, they appear to be policies targeting the black Matriarch. The Matriarch is the purveyor of all that is threatening to white society, for she creates a flawed family and then sends her emasculated man as well as her immoral and inherently flawed children out into the world. These policies also seem to be a patriarchal response to the Urban Teen Mother. The Urban Teen Mother, while having some of the sassiness of Sapphire, and, the uncontrolled sexuality of Jezebel, is still a “child.” However, because of her age, she is unaware and lacks the savvy to capitalize on these qualities. Because she is a “child,” it appears that there is hope to save her, via marriage. The scripts of the perceived misplaced independence of the Matriarch and the Mammy’s inability to raise her children are employed to tell this story. Consider The Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2000, which states: “States should be encouraged, not restricted, from implementing programs that provide support for responsible fatherhood, promote marriage, and increase the incidence of marriage” (U. S. House 2000). In short, states should be given the power to eliminate the Matriarch. Here we see the functioning of race and gender structures in the policy making process. The Matriarch is viewed as a threat as she fails to follow racialized gendered norms. She is a threat to the racial order as she does not protect white interest (a role played by Mammy). Additionally, the Matriarch is considered a threat because it is possible for her behavior to be viewed as an assertion of imposed gendered behavior—the value of a woman is measured by her ability to procreate within a patriarchal context. Below I consider some of the specific tools designed to “cure” the “pathological” black mother, thereby eliminating this societal threat. While there are a range of policies designed to eliminate this woman from society, I focus on the policy efforts targeting men—specifically on policy targeting the emasculated black man.

CURING KINGFISH: UNEMASCULATING THE BLACK MAN Neubeck and Cazenave (2001) employ the concept of gendered racism to explain the often visceral and negative response to welfare dependent (black) women. These authors argue that “the concept of gendered racism can be used in analyzing the gender-specific racist portrayal, treatment,


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and experiences of both men and women of color” (30). Although the authors articulate the impact of gender racism on both men and women of color, their analysis is not particularly inclusive of men. Indeed, most of the analyses on race and gender and welfare, such as that conducted by Gilens (1999), Hancock (2004) and Neubeck and Cazenave (2001), pay minimum attention to the image of the black man. However, I argue that the socially constructed image of the black man plays a key role in the construction of the black woman (see Chapter 2) and resulting social policies. Ignoring the counterpart of the damaged black woman overlooks a key element in the discourse of welfare and poor women’s procreation choices. It does not afford us with a complete picture of how race and gender function to influence policies targeting these women. Many of the policies aimed at controlling the degenerate black woman appear to be designed to enforce the “family ethic” (Abramovitz 1996). At the foundation of many of the policy proposals is a traditional, heterosexist, patriarchal ideology. Consequently, policy following this patriarchal model, according to Abramovitz, allows for social patriarchy to replace familial patriarchy. Welfare policy has increasingly served in this role by promoting policies to encourage these women to marry (for example, by increasing assistance if married and stay married), to work, and to control their reproduction. This happens because the government takes on the role of supervisor/protector—a role traditionally played by the husband. Encouraging marriage and reinvigorating the black male through fatherhood initiatives is an effort to reinforce patriarchal domination of family life. These state-sanctioned policies are geared at unemasculating the black man by attempting to address the gender role confusion caused by the Matriarch. Consequently, black men are being “rescued” from the Matriarch, Jezebel and Sapphire. A number of tactics are employed to achieve this goal; a few are discussed below.

“ . . . Calling all Daddies” Efforts to control the “degenerate” reproduction and procreation choices of poor women, and to “unemasculate” the black man, led to the creation of measures such as paternity establishments and child-support enforcement (see PRWORA) and efforts to teach these men how to be men by offering job training, for example. Policy appears to invoke the image of Kingfi sh—a man lacking moral integrity and who is childlike in his relation to Sapphire (see Chapter 2). Employing the frame of the emasculating black woman, Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, informed Congress: Federal legislation must clearly promote married fatherhood as the ideal. All available evidence suggests that the most effective pathway to involved, committed, and responsible fatherhood is marriage. Research

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Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy consistently documents that unmarried fathers, whether divorced or unwed, tend over time to become disconnected, fi nancially and psychologically, from their children. . . . We need a public policy that supports [father’s] work as nurturers, disciplinarians, mentors, moral instructors, and skill coaches. (U. S. Congress, House 1999b)

In terms of policy prescriptive, it was argued by the likes of Preston Garrison, head of the National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, that “serious attention must be paid to the capacity of low-income fathers to attain the economic sustainability necessary to maximize the potential for children to grow up free from poverty and dependence on the government.” He suggested that “ we must give attention to increasing the ability of fathers [make them] employable in the new work force so they can contribute economically and emotionally to their children” (U. S. Congress, Senate 2000). The ideological supposition of this policy prescriptive presupposes that when men assume these traditional roles in the family many of the ills plaguing poor African American communities, such as relative higher rates of crime, teen pregnancy, solo mother heads of households and poverty, will at a minimum be less and eventually reversed. In other words, the salvation of the black family can be found by creating the opportunity for black men to assume a more traditional role in the family. This also assumes that the success of the American family (that is, white middle class norm) is due to white males aggressively taking such a headship role. In framing the policy discourse in this manner, decision makers also assume that patriarchal norms are experienced in the same manner along racial lines. Ogbu (1981) suggests that evaluating black family norms against dominant cultural assumptions does not facilitate understanding minority groups. He suggests that a cultural-ecological perspective be used when studying competencies within the context of real life situations for groups outside mainstream America. Employing this approach would allow us to account for how race and gender function in influencing life choices and opportunities. This would also force us to move beyond the moralistic approach which is weaved into the discourse of family, race and poverty. Policy makers make a decision, conscious or unconscious, to use certain symbols and images in the framing of social issues (see Gee 1999; Quasthoff 1987). The choice results in some issues being brought to the forefront while others are allowed to remain hidden (Stone 1989). In the call for “daddies” and “husbands,” decision makers have paid scant attention to the impact of other policies that are either racially motivated or have racial impacts on the ability of these men to function in a “normal” patriarchal role. Incarceration has often been highlighted as one of the policies that limit black men’s “patriarchal” functioning. Western, Lopoo and McLanahan (2002) inform us that incarceration tends to have long term implications for the functioning of fathers.


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Because incarceration is concentrated among young poorly-educated minority men, penal system growth over the last twenty years emerges as a prime suspect in explaining the growing number of single-parent families in disadvantaged communities. Incarceration is likely to influence the formation of single-parent families directly, by separating children from fathers who are serving time in prison or jail. Incarceration also contributes to marital strain and makes men unattractive partners for unmarried women, weakening bonds among parents after release. (2002: 12) Failure to consider the functioning of race, beyond family formation, seems designed more to discourage nonmarital childbearing, as opposed to poverty, by imposing economic sanctions on both the mother and the father especially for children born out of wedlock (Mink 2001). One possible outcome of following this approach is the exacerbation of inequality experienced by black women and their families. For example, TANF denies a mother government assistance if she fails to identify the father of her child. To encourage a more traditional family structure, recent legislation, couched in titles such as “Responsible Fatherhood,” contains measures that enforce child support payments and establish paternity. These measures included the call for “new hire” registries to facilitate wage garnishing, the state option to suspend licenses of delinquent parents; withholding passports from parents owing more than $5,000; and a state option to prosecute grandparents. States attempting to discourage, indirectly, adult non-marital childbearing have established fi nancial consequences for nonmarital births. In 1993, 43 states reported that they attempted to reduce non-marital childbearing through paternity-establishment programs, and 42 states reported operating child-support enforcement programs for the same purpose. In 1999, three states—Georgia, North Dakota and Tennessee—instituted programs to encourage expecting parents to marry. Arkansas adjusted its tax code to encourage marriage. The goal of these policies is to encourage more traditional parenting. Again, what is suggested is that (black) female-headed households are somehow pathological; here, we see elements of Sapphire, Matriarch, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother. One element that binds these women is their emasculation of the black man. Many of these women are perceived as having a misplaced sense of independence (thereby violating gender and race norms). Thus, there is a quest to impose the dominant (white) culture’s expectation of a male breadwinner without stopping to ask why these (black) women and men are poor and jobless in the fi rst place. The underlying symbol used to defi ne the problem of child support is typically a young, black, unmarried man who refuses to take responsibility for raising his child because AFDC is available and because of the immoral behavior of black women. Usually, the man is portrayed as lazy and as having been emasculated by black women. Framing the issue in such a manner points to the origin of welfare dependency in part on “dead-beat dads,”

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thus, creating groups of “us” and “them” (Handler and Hasenfield 1991). The mobilization of citizens into these polar identities helps to perpetuate the policy treatment of specific groups. In this case, it justifies punishing the “bad” guys while highlighting the attributes of the “good” ones (who are married and earn enough to support their families adequately). Using the “dead-beat dad” symbol allows for the rationalization of policy proposals such as the denial of aid to women and children, while the dwindling economic opportunities confronted by these men and women are swept under the rug. In reality, enforcing child support has limited potential for reducing poverty. Under the current means-tested assistance program, child support is more likely to replace income received by families than to add to it. Child support is limited in its effect in reducing poverty because many non-custodial parents have either no income or low incomes. In 1992, it was estimated that approximately 29 percent of absent fathers between the ages of 23 and 31 have subpoverty-level incomes (U. S. General Accounting Office 1993). In 1990, between 13 percent and 26 percent of all non-custodial fathers either lived in a poor family or had personal incomes below the poverty level for an individual. Black non-custodial fathers experienced even higher poverty rates (Sorensen 1995). In addition, there are many more non-custodial parents who are near poor. One analysis found that 40 percent of black non-custodial parents and 11 percent of white non-custodial parents had incomes less than 150 percent of the poverty level (NicholsCasebolt 1992). More current research in the post PRWORA era suggests that the reality confronted by poor black men have undergone minimum change (see Sorensen and Zibman 2000, 2001). Framing the issue of welfare use in terms of “parental-responsibility” and “child support enforcement” ignores the high poverty rates among these individuals (see Primus 2006). Their ability to contribute is transformed into an unwillingness, which is then used as evidence of their inherent degeneracy. This approach leaves us with the question: why follow this particular policy prescriptive? Based on the claims used to frame the issue, what emerges is that policy is designed to restore a particular race and gender order. Policy seems designed to control Jezebel and the Urban Teen Mother’s sexuality. They also appear to be designed to “feminize” the Matriarch and Sapphire by making men assume the role of the leader (fi nancial) of the house. While striving to right these misplaced gender roles, such a frame fails to address issues of resource differentials, including but not limited to job discrimination, excessive incarceration and poverty. However, the image of a degenerate black man, coupled with the image of a degenerate black woman, allows for continued state domination of black and other poor and minority communities. As I argued earlier, while African Americans appear to be the targets of this policy, I believe that the targeted policy group is much wider. Euro-Americans, particularly women, are sent the message, via the Matriarch, of how society will treat them if


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they fail to follow certain sanctioned norms. Control is exercised by sending the message that if individuals fail to conform to societal norms, they will be treated like “them”⎯that is, black women.

“ . . . Make the Black Man a Man” The Fatherhood Initiative is an extension of child-support enforcement and paternity establishment in that it seeks to “reconnect” the bond between father and child. According to President George W. Bush, he is determined To make committed, responsible fatherhood a national priority. . . . [The] presence of two committed, involved parents contributes directly to better school performance, reduced substance abuse, less crime and delinquency, fewer emotional and other behavioral problems, less risk of abuse or neglect, and lower risk of teen suicide. The research is clear: fathers factor significantly in the lives of their children. There is simply no substitute for the love, involvement, and commitment of a responsible father. (2001a) This fatherhood initiative appears to be targeting inner-city males (the accepted euphemism for black and brown men). It is designed in part to “improve the job skills of low income fathers; promote marriage among parents; help low-income fathers establish positive relationships with their children” (Bush 2001a). The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives would direct the programs of the Fatherhood Initiative. This organization was directed to develop Resource materials to guide urban congregations and other community groups in fi nding role models for young men who have been raised without fathers. And we will be working with the Office of National Drug Control Policy to enlist dads in our national campaign against drug use. (Bush 2001a, emphasis added) Couching the fatherhood initiatives in terms of how much money it would “save” the public allowed President Bush and other supporters to employ a race and gender neutral approach in their promotion of racialized patriarchy. This approach hides the functioning of race and gender in the policy making process. However, a deeper analysis highlights (a) who is being targeted, and (b) the projected cause of the problem used to justify the proposals. According to George W. Bush, his effort to reinstate the male in his rightful place is born out of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s suggestions. George W. Bush informs us: “The intellectual roots of the fatherhood movement reach back to one exceptional public servant who spoke about the importance of fathers earlier, more often and more eloquently than any

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other public figure—former United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of New York” (2001b). President Bush was clear in specifying the type of woman who helped to create this situation of “fatherlessness”⎯black women, the Matriarch and Sapphire in particular. Bush, like Moynihan, targets black women as the source of many of the problems faced by solo mothers. Implicitly employing the image of the black Matriarch allowed President Bush to suggest a causal relationship between the poverty experienced by blacks and the value system of black women. Not only is this woman responsible for the failure of the black man (Sapphire), she is also responsible for the failure of black children (Matriarch). It is only when this woman is supervised that there is any hope of saving the black community. Similar to other policy initiatives, the fatherhood initiative appears to be an effort to reverse the effects of the “bad” black woman—who has emasculated the black man. Employing a racing–gender perspective allows us to recognize the use of race-coded and gender-coded language embedded in President Bush’s construction of this policy issue. Through CDA and a grounded theory approach, I am able to move beyond the codes and ask what meanings are embedded in these codes. Codes, depending on the context, can send different messages. To understand the different messages, it is important to consider the cultural and historical context that gave rise to the code. Discourse often uses stereotypes to transmit meanings to the receiving public. According to Quasthoff (1987: 786), typically, a stereotype is an element of common knowledge that is shared to a high degree in a particular culture. Some “common knowledge” is used to transmit a particular understanding of racial and gender hierarchies. In terms of gender, President George W. Bush suggests that the presence of a man is needed to ensure that children are saved from a life of the culture of poverty and violence. He suggests that parenting at the hands of poor women is faulty and that the mechanism to fi x it involves creating “strong” fathers. President George W. Bush’s desire to promote and establish “positive relations” between father and child further suggests that already existing relationships are broken. Such a frame pays little attention to the various means in which fathers can be involved in a child’s life, and minimal attention to whether or not this would be a healthy relationship for the child and the mother. In addition, there is the continuation of the supposed causal link between poverty and drug use. Why is it necessary to link the proposals for making strong fathers and men to the Office of National Drug Control Policy? As discussed in Chapter 3, there seems to be an assumed correlation between poverty, race, drug use and criminality in general. It is further argued that society needs to be saved from these individuals. Interestingly, the proposal to offer them role models is made. I ask what better role model might exist than the mother and other females who are being incarcerated at alarming rates (see Chapter 3)? If these women are some how “cracked” in their ability to parent morally upstanding citizens, as suggested by President Bush and other


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supporters of the movement, then their access to their children should be limited. So, similar to the War on Drugs, which sought to minimize contact between mother and child, these fatherhood initiatives also seem designed to accomplish this. Policy makers have apparently prioritized getting poor (black) women to marry, and in the event that this is not possible, to persuade fathers to be responsible for their children. In essence, policy makers appear to be targeting children in families that do not conform to the hegemonic nuclear family formation model. Thus, policy is directed at eliminating the Matriarch by reestablishing a male head of the household. However, it is not enough to simply enforce marriage among poor African Americans. Because of the Matriarch’s independent behavior, the “nuclear family” would look dangerously similar to a solo-mothering household with the husband or father as another “dependent.” Consequently, the Matriarch must be destroyed and the only way to accomplish this task is to un-emasculate the man/ husband—figuratively giving him back his penis/power through various “tools.” Thus, fatherhood initiatives appear to be another form of controlling the “damaged” and “parasitic” black woman.

CONCLUSION Dorothy Roberts (1997) identifies at least three roles served by the images of the degenerate black woman. This imagery facilitates the perpetual domination of blacks because it suggests that they are morally inferior and irresponsible and it ignores the social structures and processes that limit the choices of poor black women. Another reason for employing such a construction is that it works to provide the rationale and justification of racially-motivated, eugenics-like state policy that seeks to control black women’s childbearing in an attempt to maintain the control of the black community. Additionally, the negative construction of black womanhood serves as a vehicle for white racist sentiment, which conceptualizes whites as superior and blacks as inferior. In essence, the image of the degenerate black woman facilitates and perpetuates the racing–gendering process of policy making that often leads to the inequitable treatment of black women. The combined impact of these roles, served by the image of “bad” black women, is to prohibit the formation of political coalitions across gender, sexuality, class and racial boundaries that would work to challenge black women’s inequitable positions. Fatherhood and marriage promotion is being embraced across ideological lines. “These bipartisan majorities,” Gwendolyn Mink argues, “have not been accidental. They reflect the fact that policymakers and policy experts who travel in more liberal circles also endorse the use of social policy to teach, encourage, cajole, and reward marriage” (2002: 71).

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When Moynihan fi rst suggested the damage caused by the black Matriarch, there was much uproar and attempts to discredit the validity of his thesis—particularly by the black community. Several years later, it appears that Moynihan’s suggestions are being embraced. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (a black male) lends his support to promoting the ideology espoused in fatherhood initiatives. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s 2000 Responsible Fatherhood Bill (H. R. 4671) incorporated much of the racially-coded and sexist discourse and mythology employed in the PRWORA. Similar to the PRWORA, Jackson offers a preamble that states that “violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers and the best predictor of crime in a community is the percentage of absent father households” (U. S. Congress, House 2000). There appears to be wide support among African American lawmakers for policies targeting black men. Twenty-nine of the 39 members of the Congressional Black Caucus supported the Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001. Alexander-Floyd explains why there appears to be overwhelming black support of policies such as fatherhood initiatives and faith based initiatives. As argued, it is the “cult of wounded masculinity to which black and white nationalist have responded” (Alexander-Floyd 2007: 78) that gives rise to support, across racial lines, of such policies. By focusing on the internal dynamics of the black family, such as how the Welfare Queen endangers the black man, it becomes difficult for Black Nationalists and others to confront these policies that do little to challenge the structural factors that promote and foster inequalities. According to Leith Mullings, “contemporary events provide us with perhaps the clearest demonstration to date that ‘family’ is the prism through which ideological battles are waged” (1992: 72). Analyzing family policy through a Black feminist and womanist lens reveals the ideological battle over the supremacy of values and therefore can show how the use and manipulation of negative images of black womanhood can hinder their quest for social justice. By analyzing poverty and other problems in the black community through a “moral failings” lens, as opposed to concentrating on the impact of demographic, economic and sociological factors, prohibits the public and policy makers from exploring policy tools that might begin to address inequalities. Relying on a specific causal relation—one that blames various social ills on the decline of marriage—means that other plausible explanations and variables are ignored. Female-headed households are not peculiar to the United States; this phenomenon is occurring throughout Western industrial countries. However, what is peculiar is that the violence and other social problems attributed to the increase in female-headed households in the United States are absent in other countries (Burbridge 1995). It must also be recognized that the level of violence recorded in these communities did not previously exist in similar communities where solo-mothering occurred (Burbridge 1995). Additionally, comparisons of


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different communities within the United States show that solo-mothering is not limited to urban communities, but is, in fact, occurring among various social classes and all races. The current discourse on family formation and poverty is centered on assigning moral blame and reducing the population of poor African Americans rather than recognizing and dealing with complex realities that lead to economic distress and solo-parenting among all Americans. When policy is based on symbols that represent its clients as the source of their own problems, it loses its potential to deal with issues of resource inequality. Various forms of family policy, welfare reform and paternity establishment are heavily concentrated in behavior modifications at the expense of racial and gender equality. Policy makers fail to consider issues such as pay equity— between men and women and between blacks and whites⎯sexism, racism and other exclusionary practices. Instead, the policy objectives go beyond encouraging self-sufficiency and instead seek to promote a whole range of desired behaviors, such as individual responsibility and marriage. When morally-based symbols are used to formulate policy, the success of the policy is jeopardized. When poverty and resource inequality are defi ned as inherent character flaws, other significant factors, such as the lack of employment opportunities, go unanalyzed. Policy makers rely on deeply entrenched beliefs and myths such as the centrality of black mothers in keeping black people poor. While it is virtually impossible to not rely on symbols in the policy-making process, policy makers must be cautious of the types of symbols deployed in their decision making. Symbols should be grounded in reality, not myth. Until policy makers stop relying on mythical images of black womanhood to inform social policy, the policies are destined to fail. In highlighting how policy makers can engage in such behaviors through their employment of certain images, we can begin to address issues of inequality. Then we can look to a different set of images and symbols to inform the policy process.

6

For Us By Us Redefining Black Womanhood It is the understanding of how cultural imagery operates as an essential component of ideological hegemony that propels and serves as a catalyst for changing cultural images, policies, law and practices that benefit some and adversely affect others. —Jewell (1994: 194)

If I didn’t defi ne myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. —Lorde (1984: 45)

I opened with the tale of President Clinton and his use of two black women in the ceremonial signing of the PRWORA. As President Clinton sat, these two women stood on either side of him while encircled by a group of (white) men and one woman. This image is symbolic of the various policies targeting poor black women. I asked why was it necessary for President Clinton to use these women. The grinning black women, I argue, represent the image of Mammy, and more specifically signified black support for the legislation that in actuality disempowers poor black women. However, because of the desire to send the message that the legislation benefitted and empowered these women, President Clinton needed to surround himself with them. These women signaled a sign of inclusiveness even though their voices were excluded from the policy-making process. I argue that these women represented Mammy as opposed to Welfare Queen or the other sinister image of the Urban Teen Mother because of the ceremonial smile they wore during the PRWORA signing. The Mammy was a “yes” woman who liked and protected white people. She is the image associated with an idyllic view of slavery in which blacks and whites work together for the care and support of everyone. Mammy is a hard worker who succeeds as a result of white supervision. Over time, Mammy has been transformed into the Welfare Queen, which is exactly the figure that the PRWORA is designed to force back into work and personal responsibility. In the context of this “scene,” the similarity between the Mammy and the Welfare Queen is astonishing. Although the Welfare Queen eclipsed or replaced the Mammy in the last couple of decades of welfare history, with the signing of the PRWORA the Mammy is back on the scene. The difference here is the grin.

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Mammy is back, is willing to work and is thankful for (white) direction and supervision (in the form of the legislation being signed) that will allow her to work successfully and productively, protecting white society’s assets (money/fiscal, cultural, social and political and morals)—in other words, their culturally perceived superiority. Mammy has come out to witness the signing (notice that she is not doing the signing—a symbol of her lack of relative power) because she is happy that the white slave-owner/President has restored a proper patriarchal and racist structure, which will ensure her protection and care in return for deference and work (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). The image left by President Clinton and the women is that everything is peaceful, and the lazy, good-for-nothing Welfare Queen is off the scene. The use of these women allowed Clinton and supporters of the PRWORA to send multiple messages to the American public. It highlighted that racial and gender hierarchies were intact. Additionally, it said that people in power were willing to continue to control black women to protect white America. Another message conveyed suggested to the public that the current distribution of societal resources would remain unchanged, thus sending a message of white supremacy. Finally, it signaled to white women their proper place in society⎯in the home and dependent on a man. In essence, the use of these images allowed for the continuation of the racing–gendering process that informs and is shaped by public policy. I engaged in this exercise to explore the racing–gendering process of policy making by analyzing the use of cultural symbols, myths and images, with the goal of showing how relations of power and forms of inequality are constructed and the impact of these constructions on the lives of African American women. I demonstrate that in the framing of an issue, cultural images and symbols are used to convey particular meanings, ideologies and values. A decision, conscious or unconscious, is made to use a particular image(s) or symbol(s) in a policy discourse. The use of symbols and images are important to the policy process because they help to organize “reality” as they signify recognizable and often specific social identities (Gee 1999). Reified images are used in policy discourses to categorize problems, people and solutions (see Maynard-Moody and Kelly 1993). Through the use of Black feminism and womanism in conjunction with critical discourse analysis (CDA), I argue that embedded in discourse are codes which tell specific stories of the policy targeted group(s) and the policy issue. These codes are used to transmit and perpetuate racial and gender hierarchies and are employed to maintain existing power structures. In this case these codes tell specific stories of black womanhood and crime, welfare and family policies. My focus is not to determine the intent of the policy decision maker but to unmask the often hidden power structures used to frame policy issues. I argue that policy decision makers are able to call upon specific images of black womanhood without being explicit. In the analysis of the various quotes never did I see for example an explicit reference to the Matriarch image. This is

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possible because the understanding of the codes relies on the existence of a social memory—the collectively shared beliefs of society that provide the cognitive basis of our information processing about those considered as “other” (Van Dijk 1985, 1991). The social iconography of black womanhood reflects power relations— between class, racial and gender categories. Public policy embodies these power relations because it represents “the authoritative allocation and legitimation of values and is concerned with regulating relationships to achieve particular social and economic goals” (Prunty 1984: 140). Interestingly, images and symbols of black women play a prominent role in this process because they are used to send various messages, often hidden in language, to the dominant and subordinate groups. The hegemonic construction of womanhood is based on an either/or dichotomy. Presenting black women as the negative component of this dichotomy sends messages that white women are superior and therefore, more valued. It also implies to white women that if they engage in certain behaviors—particularly those behaviors associated with black women—that they will be punished and ostracized. As suggested by Mendelberg (2001) these types of messaged can be received relatively safely since the recipient does not interpret them as racist. In a race and gender equity era, racial and gender ideologies are now couched in neutral language such as “the American way of life” or “American values.” Consequently race and gender power relations remain hidden and often unchallenged by the wider society. Charles V. Hamilton aptly argues that the struggles faced by African Americans will undergo a dramatic shift away from struggles for rights to struggles for resources (1986). African Americans are engaged in a struggle over the allocation of resources that while seemingly discrete are actually conjoined and will have a detrimental impact on their quest for freedom. There is a constellation of public policies that African Americans should be concerned about. These include, for example, policies on crime, welfare, family, education and health. As part of the struggle over the distribution of resources the African American community is engaged in a different type of civil rights fight. The new fight is one waged over words and images and how they influence public policies. This new fight must challenge both race and gender hierarchies. A Black feminist and womanist praxis provides a foundation on which to mount our new civil rights challenge—a challenge over resource distribution. Policy frames, steeped in race and gender images, are used to highlight some issues while simultaneously excluding others (see Rein and Schoen 1993; Yanow 1996). A common theme of both Black feminist and womanist theory tells us that we must constantly engage in activities— scholarly, protest, and so on—to debunk “social myths so as to undermine the black woman’s acceptance of sexist oppression, the black man’s acceptance of patriarchal privilege, and the white woman’s acceptance of white racist privilege” (Riggs 1994). In essence, Black feminism and womanism

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begin to illuminate and formulate the means of challenging the racing–gendering process of policy making. Both Black feminists and womanists are concerned with debunking the negative construction of black womanhood and with challenging patriarchy and other oppressive structures that limit their choices, and the choices of black men and all women. Black women engaged in this struggle have long recognized the value of inclusiveness. For example, in 1977 at the National Women’s Conference in Houston, astute black women were instrumental in formulating the term, “women of color” (Ross 1999: 338). As such, one of the guiding principles of Black feminism and womanism is collective solidarity for collective action. Collective action(s) will at times need to involve coalition building with black men and women of different races and ethnicities and should focus on challenging and replacing the social conditions used by the dominant group to manufacture and disseminate the various oppressive stereotypes of black womanhood. While recognizing that the pernicious images of black women are difficult to debunk, I assert that African Americans should not shy away from exposing the fallacies of these images. This is also a call for those who follow a CDA school of thought. This is necessary, in the words of Audre Lorde, to avoid being “crunched into other people’s fantasies . . . and eaten alive” (1984: 45). The degenerate, socially-constructed black woman represents a narrative in which race, gender and class are intricately webbed. Deeply embedded in our political discourse are the various images, myths and metaphors captured in the iconography of the Mammy, Matriarch, Jezebel, Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother. These images are often directed at blacks; however, they serve a bigger societal role with their either/or construction, which is used to direct and control those in “mainstream” America. In prescribing and dictating the virtues of a “good” woman (particularly to white women), for instance, the cult of true womanhood prohibits them from fighting against racist patriarchal structures and seeking their independence because it tells them that if they do so they (symbolically) will become black (the Matriarch). Given the dual role of the often-negative construction of black women, it is important to expose the fallacies of these images to further legitimize our civil rights claims. This analysis is designed to allow me to engage both aspects of Black feminist and womanist theories and CDA, which suggest that we not only unmask power relations, but also engage in efforts to debunk such relations. In Chapters 3 through 5, I strive to unmask the often hidden power relations that are embedded in policy discourse. The second aspect in building a black feminist politics involves formulating an approach for challenging existing power structures. This is the purpose of this chapter. This work set out to analyze how social policy, via the use of cultural images and symbols, maintain the often inequitable position of black women. To explore the relationship between issue framing—which uses race and gender images—and power distribution, I asked two questions.

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The fi rst question asks: How can social policy be viewed as an outgrowth of symbolic manipulation in which images, myths and stories create “identities” and “realities”? Next, I ask: What relationship exists between said “identities” and “realities” and the meaning of the cultural values of freedom and rights as they relate to African American’s quest to improve their socioeconomic and political status? My goal in posing these questions was to demonstrate the racing–gendering process of policy making. The remainder of this chapter lays out a plan of action in the struggle against race and gender hierarchies and their use in the policy making process. I suggest four strategies that would allow black women to mount a campaign against many of the pernicious images used to inform raced and gendered policy making. These strategies include: 1. Challenging and reformulating policy-making decision models; 2. Recognizing and limiting the juxtaposition of black men and black women; 3. Utilizing the social location as outsider within to counter many of the damaging images; and 4. Organizing for social transformation via institutional change and individual consciousness. My concluding remarks offer a view of Black feminist and womanist politics that seeks to liberate not only black women, but also black men and women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Before I delve into these strategies, I fi rst want to discus the use of language as a transmitter of a particular ideology in the policy process.

LANGUAGE OF VALUE/VALUE OF LANGUAGE Using a “constructivist-interpretive” approach (Yanow 2003) I explored the rhetorical and policy elements used to frame the discourses on crime, welfare and family policies. My analysis shows that across the policy domains black women were constructed as “other” and the belief system of “us” versus “them” was used to justify policy choices (see Chapter 1 for the rhetorical and policy analytic categories). The synergy in the framing of these policy issues reflects the context in which they were discussed and debated. The political context was one of an ideology of conservatism, free market, limited government intervention and the racialization of public policies (see Chapter 1). From this context policies tend to focus on the issue of morality and responsibility and are paternalistic in nature. Many of the images and symbols used in the discourses across policy areas are similar and share many traits. The caricatures of black womanhood, ranging from Mammy to Urban Teen Mother (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1), are employed in policy discourse to suggest that black women are

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in need of monitoring and control. Although the image and tag we eventually bestow on these caricatures might change, the underlying tenets are intrinsically connected to the sexuality, race and class of the targeted group of women. In Chapter 2, I argue that at the foundation of the symbolic construction of black womanhood is the hegemonic construction of womanhood. In opposition to the cult of true womanhood, black women have been constructed as “other” and as the “enemy” of society, suggesting that they must be controlled and supervised at all costs. This view of black womanhood is heavily ingrained in the “norms” and “facts” of society and is manifested through the institutions, including courts, legislatures and the media, that make and influence social policy. These “norms” and “facts” are represented through the images of Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, Matriarch, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother, and become a part of the racing–gendering process. Applying these images across policy areas exposes African American women’s inequitable position. These images serve as the discursive practices and statements used to construct discourse and allow us to process the information embedded in race and gender codes. Those in power use cultural images and symbols to maintain and strengthen their power base, which in turn helps to maintain and perpetuate race and gender hierarchies. Thus, it is important to recognize and integrate symbolic devices into our analyses of policy formulation and selection because “they locate the burdens of reform very differently” (Stone 1989: 282−283). My analysis of the racing–gendering of policy shows how similar discursive elements are used across three policy domains to create the “identity” of the corrupt black woman and the “reality” that she is in need of fi xing. I challenge this reality by suggesting that the stories offered to the public were not the only stories available to policy decision makers. Take, for example, the issue of solo-mothering. Solo-mothering is not unique to the black community, or, for that matter, to the United States. Yet the stories were often raced and classed. The phenomenon of solo-mothering can be found in other Western industrial countries and domestically across racial and social categories (Burbridge 1995). However, the phenomenon of solo-mothering has been constructed as primarily an urban (read: black) social problem that is linked to violence and other destructive behaviors. If, indeed, solomothering crosses racial and class lines, why use the dichotomous image of the “bad” black mother to tell this story? It is easier for policy makers to tell the story when the central character is black simply because it resonates with previously existing conceptions of black women. Mammy, a long-standing figure in America’s cultural landscape, has been viewed as being unable and often unwilling to care for her own children and responsible for rearing violent prodigy. As such, violence, over time, seems to have become synonymous with African Americans. Consequently, family policy designed to limit the fertility rights of this population are often based on the premise of the Mammy and the “violent” black race. This story is also

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used as a warning to white women to tell them not to act like their black counterparts because they will be ostracized from society. An analysis of the racing–gendering process of policy making shows how value-laden language has proven helpful in the continual repeal of African American civil rights gains and the conservative backlash against social welfare programs. Employing negative images of black womanhood allows those in power to maintain power structures⎯a central feature of the racing–gendering process. Why should we care about how images and myths influence public policy? It is important to ask this question, because it directly impacts African Americans’ quest for freedom and as such has implications for American democracy. This brings me to the following question: What is the relationship between said “identities” and “realities” and the meaning of the cultural values of freedom and rights as they relate to African Americans’ quest to improve their socioeconomic and political status? As Patricia Hill Collins states: From the mammies, Jezebels, and breeder women of slavery to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes, ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary popular culture, the nexus of negative stereotypical images applied to African American women has been fundamental to Black women’s oppression. (1991: 7) The process of policy making involves not only the characterization of the group, but it also sets the boundaries that differentiate the targeted group from others. Most important, the process makes inferences available about causes and motivations for the group’s behaviors. The denigration of black women, accomplished by denying her the title of lady, for example, leads to policies that not only punish these women and their children, but also limit their attempts to seek social and political equality. The analysis of the various policy domains offer numerous examples of symbols used in the policymaking process to create boundaries and polarize groups, which in turn works to determine who gets what, when, and how (see Laswell 1936). Many of the arguments made in the three policy domains were framed in either moral (individual responsibility/parental responsibility) or economic (cost of programs or cost of behaviors to society) terms; excluded were issues of social justice (see Appendix B, Tables B.2, B.3 and B.4). These frames were instrumental in creating dichotomies between different members of society. The dichotomies then served to determine societal worth and the distribution of societal resources. My CDA shows that it was seldom asked why these women were forced to operate in a social location that was less than viable. Had such questions been allowed to surface, I would like to believe that the racing–gendering process of policy decision making would have been more vigorously challenged. Throughout this body of research, I document the many ways that the civil rights of black women are systematically denied when there is a failure to construct issues around the theme

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of social justice. Instead, I show how policy makers, as a result of their choices of images and symbols, opted to use the “social-disorganization approach,” which stressed perceived individual failings (Jackson 1972). The analysis shows how black women have been constructed perpetually as negligent mothers. For example, the image of the crack-abusing mother supplants the image of women as the loving protectors of their unborn children. Black mothers are portrayed as “negligent mother[s] whose willingness to support her fetus must be enforced by medical and legal professionals” (Beckett 1995: 597). The stories of the women who were charged for endangering their fetus by ingesting illegal drugs illustrates that some of them did actively try to protect their fetus by seeking medical help during pregnancy for substance abuse or by informing the care provider after birth that she abused drugs while pregnant. However, as Dorothy Roberts explains “[they] are the least likely to obtain adequate prenatal care, the most vulnerable to government monitoring, and the least able to conform to the white, middle-class standard of motherhood. They are therefore the primary targets of government control” (1991a: 1414, 1422). Resulting from this construction is the use of control and monitoring policy tools that can at times include sterilization and incarceration without being charged for a crime. Connecting fetal rights to black motherhood allows government to punish these women for not subscribing to some ideal of what it means to be a “good” woman. As a result, the black community is left with motherless children, increasing poverty and political isolation resulting in part through disenfranchisement. In constructing their policy proposals, the policy elite often emphasize that they were being strict with these black mothers in an effort to “save” their children by enforcing parental/individual responsibility. However, there is mounting evidence to challenge this claim. For example, Hill (1977) shows that black children, until approximately the 1930s, were systematically categorized as ineligible for most child welfare services. Current budgetary cuts to social service programs that benefit these children, minimal public attention paid to the high infant mortality rates among African Americans, the lip service paid to the school systems that systematically fail these children, the apparent government oversight to the high rate of poverty and police brutality among this population are just some indicators of the state’s continual disregard for black children. African American children have been the recipients of “overwhelming state neglect,” thus challenging the state’s claims that it is only looking out for their best interests in prosecuting their mothers (Roberts 1991a). Framing black children and their mothers as predatory, criminal and abusers of society allows the government to appear concerned about their welfare “without having to spend any money, change any priorities, or challenge any vested interests” (Pollitt 1990: 410−411). As a result of these practices, issues of social justice are supplanted by the government’s need to monitor and control black communities.

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The use of the Mammy, Matriarch, Jezebel, Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother work to disguise the political and social inequalities that result from racism, sexism and poverty (Collins 1991: 68). Embedded in the discourse of crime, welfare and family policy are racist, classist and sexist presumptions. However, this is not to suggest that policy targeting the African American community is simply shaped by racist ideology since policy is in fact ideology (Roberts 1997). Policy becomes ideological because “the stereotype does not justify practices; rather, practices justify stereotypes” (Cruikshank 1997: 113). Demonizing black women and their offspring via narratives that construct them as “other” blames this population for their condition, thereby allowing and often providing absolution of “mainstream” America to address their calls for social justice. Additionally, such a process of demonizing black women allows America to escape taking responsibility for creating institutions and systems that perpetuate and maintain such an inequitable society. The negative constructions of black womanhood play a critical role in promoting and maintaining negative attitudes toward blacks. Policy stories that rely on this type of construction hide power relations and render invisible the role of capitalism, racism and sexism as operating forces of domination in the lives of these women, thus promoting the general sentiment of indifference towards them and the belief that “they are pushing too hard” to achieve equality. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. writes, race is “the ultimate trope of difference” because of its arbitrariness as social category and in its application. Consequently, our challenge with race and racial discourse “is [to] deconstruct . . . the ideas of difference inscribed in the trope of race, to explicate itself in order to reveal the hidden relations of power and knowledge inherent in popular and academic usages of ‘race’” (1993: 590−591). A similar exercise should also be undertaken for gender and its intersection with race, because it too serves as a “trope of difference.”

BLACK WOMEN’S RESPONSE TO “OTHERING”: A BLACK FEMINIST POLITICS As previously noted, the intersection of race, class and gender has positioned the black woman as the opposite of the “good” woman. The social construction of black womanhood is ripe with contradictions. Firstly, she is portrayed as a “strong” woman, while at other times she is viewed as unable to function without supervision. The black woman is viewed as being good at taking care of white children, while neglecting her own. On the surface, these various constructions of black womanhood might appear contradictory (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). However, when the various images of black womanhood are connected to the broader goal of social control these contradictions disappear. Central to the racing–gendering process is the goal of maintaining power relations. Thus, images will “change” to achieve this goal. In my analysis, I

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illustrate that although images have “evolved,” the underlying assumption— and the rationale for the employment of these images—has remained static. African American women are constructed as “other” and in need of control. For centuries, black women have fought against the racing–gendering process that renders them simultaneously hypervisible and invisible. They have challenged the Western dualistic or binary frame that determines what it means to be woman in an attempt to have their concerns and issues recognized by the majority and by members of their community. African American women have petitioned to be recognized as both women and as blacks instead of being forced to rank order their gender and race concerns. On September 21, 1832, Maria Stewart, a contemporary of David Walker, declared: “Methinks I heard a spiritual interrogation—‘Who shall go forward, and take of the reproach that is cast upon the people of color? Shall it be a woman?’ And my heart made this reply—‘If it is thy will, be it even so, Lord Jesus!’” (quoted in Richardson 1987: 45). Stewart, like many of her black female contemporaries, articulated a critique of difference and challenged the functioning of race and gender, what we now call intersectionality. Sojourner Truth, Ida Wells-Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer and Anna Julia Copper are among several black women who have fought for the recognition of the intricacies of the intersection of race, class and gender. In more recent times, the writings by Patricia Hill Collins (1991), Kimberle Crenshaw (2000), Angela Y. Davis (1997), Paula Giddings (1984), Beverly Guy-Sheftall (1990), bell hooks (1981), Joy James (1999), Leith Mullings (1997) to name a few, continue to address the intersection of race, class and gender. The underlying assumption of hegemonic feminist theory, born out of Euro-American culture, is that all women and their experiences are basically the same and stems from gender categorizations. Such theorizing includes only white women and only those of a certain economic class.1 Consequently, descriptions of women’s experience by hegemonic feminist theory often overlook the role of race, class and sexuality (see Higginbotham 1996). While hegemonic feminist theory analyzes and criticizes patriarchy and sexuality, it fails to analyze the impact of these variables when race and class are added to the dynamics. Additionally, they fail to examine how the results of these combinations can have varying impacts on women of different races or classes. It is for this reason that I, along with many others, was forced to move beyond traditional feminist theory. I sought an alternative theory to analyze the impact of the racing–gendering process of social policy on the lives of African American women. In response to the oversight of traditional feminism, African Americans (both men and women) fostered a distinct feminist theory.2 Black feminist and womanist theories were born out of black women’s shared experiences of oppression and their shared efforts to resist it. Epistemological and political issues influence black feminist/womanist thought. Their struggle against class, gender and race oppressions for selfdefinition and autonomy has created some distinguishing features of black

154 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy feminist consciousness. Black women’s attempts to fight against the exploitation of their labor, sexual abuse and sterilization abuse, in the words of Beverly Guy-Sheftall (1986), has stimulated and fostered a black feminist sensibility. As such, the movement represents the efforts of black women (and those concerned with this community) to define and determine their interpretations of black women’s experiences through alternative lenses of knowledge. Black feminism and womanism are the products of black women’s recognition of the matrix of race, gender and class oppression. This matrix of oppression is both fluid and relational in nature. Thus, an analysis of black women’s experiences have recognized the “simultaneity” (Anderson and Collins 1995: ii) and the “multiplicative” (King 1988: 42) nature of the “multiple oppressions” (Brewer 1993: 13) confronted by these women. This type of analysis recognizes that the experiences of black women situate the lives of these women as not simply different from that of white women but as relational. Walker indicates that the term Womanist [is] from womanish (opposite of ‘girlish,’ i.e., frivolous, ‘irresponsible, not serious’). A black feminist or feminist of color. Among other things, she loves women and men, is committed to the survival of her people and their culture, and loves herself. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. (1983: xi–xii) What Walker suggests is that the either/or dichotomous thinking and objectification of both black and white women makes their oppression (although experienced separately) interrelated. Walker and Ogunyami, according to Elsa Brown, conceptualize womanism as a Consciousness that incorporates racial, cultural, sexual, national, economic and political considerations. As Ogunyami explains “black womanism is a philosophy” that concerns itself both with the sexual equality in the black community and “with the world power structure that subjugates” both blacks and women. “Its ideal is for black unity where every black person has a modicum of power and so can be a brother or a sister or a father or a mother to the other. . . . [Its] aim is the dynamism of wholeness and self-healing.” (1989: 613–614) Calling for a specific conceptualization of African American women’s experience has, via Black feminism and womanism, fermented in a concrete perspective aimed at liberating black women from oppressions, race, class and gender. The womanist agenda includes: 1. Propagating an understanding of the black women’s experience as inextricably bound with the struggle of black people for liberation from race, gender, and class oppression in the United States;

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2. A principle of collective solidarity as a fundamental guiding premise. This means that black women understand their individual autonomy to be interdependent with the collective position of blacks in this country; and 3. Engaging in at least four tasks: (a) uncovering the roots of a womanist tradition through examination and reintegration of black women’s experience into black history in particular, and American history in general; (b) debunking social myths so as to undermine the black woman’s acceptance of sexist oppression, the black man’s acceptance of patriarchal privilege, and the white woman’s acceptance of white racist privilege; (c) constructing black womanist theology and religious ethics in light of the fi rst two tasks and broadening these disciplines to include nontraditional bases and sources of theological and ethical reflection; and (d) envisioning human liberation (not solely racial/ethnic-group or gender-group liberation) under God; that is, black womanists are proposing a decidedly inclusive perspective that is acutely aware of the need for the simultaneous liberation from all oppression. (Riggs 1994: 1–2)

INFLUENCING PUBLIC POLICY FROM A BLACK WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE Given the centrality of black women in policy making, I am amazed at how often she is overlooked in public-policy analyses. The omission of black women in policy analysis is attributed, in part, to her raced and gendered positioning relative to the dominant group and within her racial group. Some policy makers, recognizing the dominant role of patriarchy in the black community, have seized on black women as a means of hindering the life choices of the black community. They have fostered and benefited from a climate in the black community that allows for a woman to be categorized as a “race traitor” if she centers the importance of gender in the civil rights quests of African Americans (see Alexander-Floyd 2007; Cade 1970; Cole and Guy-Sheftall 2003; Giddings 1984; Springer 1999; White 1999). However, African Americans must recognize that the social construction of womanhood and manhood situates women and men on different social, political and economic planes. The social construction of race (black, white, brown, other, etc.) also means that African American women and men are situated differently on the social, political and economic plane. Recognizing this difference does not have to result in the “supremacy” of one group of blacks over another. Instead, it highlights our need for a different form of organizing that becomes relevant when groups are competing for societal goods and services. Black feminism and womanism supply us with a theory that explains the nature of black women’s experiences, and they also provide us with a course

156 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy of action for addressing the system of oppression resulting from class, race and gender hierarchies. Patricia Hill Collins identifies four core themes in black feminism. These core themes are: “the legacy of struggle, the search for voice, the interdependence of thought and action, and the significance of empowerment in everyday life” (Collins 1999: 742). My work is born out of these four core themes of Black feminist thought. It continues the struggle against oppression by analyzing the controlling role of pernicious symbols and images of African American women. This analysis continues to search for voice by challenging the negative images of Mammy, Matriarch, Jezebel, Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother, as they are used to justify policy choices that continually oppress black women. In addition, this body of work is both thought and action. It serves as the initial stage of developing a strategy to fight many of the social policies that serve to locate blacks in a category of “other.” I attempt to continue in the spirit of Black feminism and womanism by striving to empower black women and the black community through the provision of an alternative insight into the policy-making process. Over the years, I have collected a number of works that offer suggestions for addressing the pernicious images of black women. I rely on these works to challenge the process and outcomes of race and gender hierarchies. Some of these suggestions, borrowed and expanded upon, are detailed below. This section represents my attempt to apply the ideas contributed by both Black feminists and womanists and CDA theorists with the ultimate goal of achieving freedom for black women and black communities. Below, I lay out the four-pronged approach to accomplish such. 3

Reconceptualizing the Policy-Making Process The Black feminist and womanist approach suggests that knowledge should be challenged in an attempt to debunk the various myths of black womanhood. One means of applying this idea is to challenge the policy-making process. There is an extensive body of literature on a range of policy decision-making models. However, given this wealth of literature, there is a noticeable lack of supporting case studies regarding the role of race and gender in influencing policy makers’ decisions. It is time to move beyond dominant models of policy making, for example, the rational comprehensive model and the crisis-theory model, to better ascertain the complete ramifications of public policy on the black community. Rosenthal (1986: 103−104) argues that policy decision making within a crisis context is characterized by “a serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental norms of a social system, which under time pressure and uncertain circumstances necessitates making critical decisions.” The rational comprehensive approach views decision making as a linear and technical problem-solving process (see Stone 1997). My analysis suggests that this model cannot adequately and completely explain policy making when

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the policy-targeted group is portrayed/defi ned as African American women and/or African Americans in general. Central to the analytic framework employed in this study is the belief that symbols—embodied in race and gender codes—as manipulated over time and in varying social and organizational contexts shape policy decision making in a non-linear and sometimes illogical manner. The iconography of black womanhood, as captured in Mammy, Sapphire, Jezebel, Matriarch, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother, specifically the social memory these images represent, influenced decision making in the policy areas of crime, welfare and family. In Chapters 3 through 5, I offer “snapshots” of the relevant phenomena specific to each policy domain. For example, in Chapter 3, which detailed the creation and metamorphosis of the female bogeyman, the “crack” mother, I illustrate that substance abuse among pregnant women is not peculiar to the black population. However, policy and its implementation seems to single out this population. This suggests that policy might be following a model different than the rational comprehensive approach. In addition, policy makers will often cite a “crisis” as justification for their actions. In the case of welfare, they cited the fi nancial and social costs to society; in the area of crime and substance abuse, they cited the fi nancial and moral costs of the over-zealously constructed “crack” baby and the predatory “crack” mother. With family formation, the crisis was constructed around the dangers of absentee fathers. As mentioned, many of the published stories of “crack” babies were later recanted. We have since learned that indeed there was no “crisis” but rather, much exaggeration regarding the belief that these infants would never thrive. Research suggests that the real crisis, which receives little public attention, is in the area of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Tobacco Syndrome and the effects of lead paint on children. In an attempt to justify family policy proposals that treat similar populations differently, another crisis situation has gone unattended. The common thread linking these various crises, although not often explicitly mentioned, is black women’s sexuality. The crisis of white America, as articulated via public policy, seems to be the ability of the black woman to procreate. African American women are proportionately over-represented in many of the identified ills of society. However, they are also proportionately over-represented among the poor and the unemployed, even in booming economic times. These problems combined—as opposed to their sexuality—might represent the birthplace of many of the ills of this community. In addition, policy is constructed based on the perceived “shortcomings” of the black community. However, policy suggestions appear to be designed not to address these shortcomings, but to benefit other groups. We are often told of what is wrong with the black community in relation to its impact on white, middle-class America. There seems to be more attention given to the problems in black America not necessarily to help this community, but to protect the majority white community⎯thus, they are

158 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy the true targets of the policy. As long as this approach is followed, African Americans will more than likely be the recipients of punitive policies. Public policy analyses that fail to recognize that policy is not necessarily targeted at the publicly-mentioned population, but is instead implicitly targeting a different group, will not show the limitation of either the rational comprehensive model or the crisis theory model. According to Fischer (2003: 61) “although conventional policy analysis is devoted to uncovering and deciding objective facts, policy turns less on the facts of a controversy than on the meanings that it generates.” We need to expand our approaches to policy analysis in ways that allow us to analyze the “meanings” generated in policy discourses. This is where the work of critical race and gender scholars can play a pivotal role. Such scholars should pay particular attention to policy decision making process because it represents an important area for not only disenfranchising the black community, but also for creating a situation for self-fulfi lling prophesies. Our current theoretical frameworks and methodologies do not allow us to expose the racist and sexist assumptions of the policy-making process. We, as students of this process, must formulate alternative theoretical and methodological approaches used for policy analyses. Scott (1982: 89) suggests that, “this would entail the development of theoretical frameworks that are not based upon patriarchal sentiments that view both blacks and women as deviants or outsiders to the American experience.” We must also be very careful not to downplay the simultaneous impact of sexism, racism and classism on the lives of black women. Black feminism and womanism begin to point us in the direction of how to analyze policy decision making and, ultimately, how to influence these decisions. Central to both theories is the call to deconstruct the Eurocentric conceptualization of black women. Not only must these images be deconstructed, but alternatives must also be offered. This is not simply to change Euro-American perceptions of black women, but rather to influence the distribution of resources and address the inequalities and patriarchal oppression in the black community. In this process, we have to be careful of replacing existing images with ones that do not realistically and accurately capture the lives of black women (see Higginbotham 1982). These images must reflect the diversity of black women’s lives. We also cannot shy away from reporting our less-than positive-research findings. It is only when we recognize both the good and bad that we can fully build on our strengths. To engage in this exercise will help us develop a body of black-women-centered public policy.

Recognizing the Connectedness of Gender, Class and Race The policy making process is both raced and gendered because (a) genders are raced, (b) institutional norms and practices are both raced and gendered, and (c) political institutions are a critical component in producing, maintaining, and reproducing raced and gendered cultural images and

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symbols through their organizational practices and routines (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995). Although race and gender hierarchies both individually and simultaneously influence the policy making process, there is often a failure to recognize how these hierarchies work together. Kimberle Crenshaw observes that: The failure of feminism to interrogate race means that the resistance strategies of feminism will often replicate and reinforce the subordination of people of color, and the failure of anti-racism to interrogate patriarchy means that anti-racism will frequently reproduce the subordination of women. This mutual elision presents a particularly difficult political dilemma for women of color. (1991: 1244) The traditional sexual distinction within the context of racial categorization has created some serious problems for the black community. Thus “mutual elision,” as discussed by the likes of Crenshaw and others, has been exploited by Euro-American policy makers and has allowed them to design and implement policy to the detriment of the community. For one, they have exploited traditional feminist theory/approaches to gender issues that ignore race. White feminists fought for fertility rights, primarily abortion rights, which tended to focus on guaranteeing constitutional protections. Black women, on the other hand, were fighting against sterilization. Failure to construct a feminist movement along race and gender planes explains why there was limited outcry by traditional feminist groups to the incarceration of pregnant substance-abusing women. In addition, white feminists have concerned themselves with “winning” the right to participate in the paid labor force. However, black women have historically been a part of the labor force, often times working under substandard conditions. White feminists have often ignored this issue. Consequently, Black feminists and their white counterparts must now work to counteract the oppressive policies of the 1990s and 2000s that not only affect African American women, but also impact white female-headed households that are living in poverty or that are on the margin. Fractures within the anti-racism movement, similarly to the women’s movement, are also exploited by policy decision makers. Relying on the Black Nationalist/anti-racism movement alone is not enough, for it has historically not included the concerns of black women. Consequently, black women have not been able to address sexual harassment and other forms of patriarchal oppression resulting from the relations between black men and women (see Alexander-Floyd 2007; Crenshaw 2000). Sonia Sanchez poignantly describes this division in the black community when she declares that black men and women are too entrapped in calling: Each other matriarchs or no good bums cuz the cracker done identified us as such. (1970: 11)

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Juxtaposing the African American male and female has been particularly useful in the conservative morality platform. Policy makers have been able to tap into the “rule” of the black community that black women will support black men at all costs. This suggests that racial issues supersede those of gender. Consequently, black women, so as not to jeopardize the push for civil rights, have buried their gender concerns. One only has to look at the various fatherhood initiatives to get a sense of how this fissure is employed in policy making. Recent policy episodes involving the African American community illustrate the prominence of the degenerate construction of black womanhood. In attempts to justify training black men in how to manage budgets, policy makers used Moynihan’s predictions regarding the black Matriarch. Similar to the policies designed and sold to the public in terms of protecting black children, this approach absolves the state from engaging in action that would begin to address inequality. The goals of many of these policies are suspect because they do not begin to address institutional racism and sexism and the barriers they impose on the life choices of African Americans. Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon state: “In current debates, the expression of welfare dependency evokes the image of ‘the welfare mother,’ often figured as a young, unmarried black woman (perhaps even a teenager) of uncontrolled sexuality” (1994: 311–312). While these scholars have appropriately highlighted the role of black women in welfare discourse, they have ignored another component of welfare-dependency imagery⎯that of the emasculated black man. Using the image of the emasculated black man (especially in a social, political and economic system that is based in patriarchy) allows for policy to punish the black women under claims that she has failed to conform to societal norms. Constructing the discourse around the image of the emasculating black woman preempts black women’s right to highlight the inequalities of patriarchy because to do such would suggest that they are traitors to the race. As such, the image of the emasculated black man leads to policies that make these women disclose their sexual histories and forces them to be dependent on the state or a man despite the potential danger of the relationship. Additionally, such a policy approach forces black women to live in poverty and to work for non-livable wages. Using a lens that considers multiple forms of oppression provides the black community a way to dismantle Euro-Americans’ exploitation of the tensions between Black feminism and black liberation movements. These theories also provide us with the means of addressing the tensions between white and Black feminists. Womanism, according to Alice Walker (1983: xi) is “committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.” What Walker suggests is that the various “isms” cannot and should not be rank ordered. While it was important to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to require black women to organize around race as opposed to gender, this tactic is no longer beneficial. For the African American freedom movement to be successful, we need to recognize that

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domination varies in its articulation and its modes based on race, gender and class, thus making it connected and relational. Integrating Black feminism and womanism into a new social movement would highlight and “call out” those in power by removing the mutual elisions that makes organizing for black women and the black community so difficult.

Harnessing the Power of the “Outsider within” Location A part of creating a new movement, to engage in what Hamilton (1986) describes as a new struggle for resources, critical race and gender theorists must challenge race and gender ideologies used in the framing of policy discourse. As Patricia Hill Collins (1991: 11) states: “as outsiders within, black women have a distinct view of the contradictions between the dominant group’s actions and ideologies.” African American women can benefit from this outsider-within perspective because it allows them to analyze and critique oppressive forces from multiple levels of race, class and gender. As such, this position of black women as an outsider/insider can serve as a vehicle for power. The black woman must harness this power to continually reject the monolithic explanation of poverty, paternalism and oppression to construct a different view of “reality”⎯one that represents her diverse social location. Racial and gendered hegemonies that give birth to ideologies such as the “cult of true womanhood” and the cult of single (black) motherhood, not only limit the life choices of African American women, but also those of all other women. Because this construction is based on the binary system of Western philosophic thought, it therefore tells Euro-American women how they should behave and constrains their choices by claiming that a woman’s place is in the home, dependent on a man. An example of this notion can be found in the image of the Matriarch, which defi nes the independence of African American women as negative. In her critique of the usage of such imagery as the Matriarch, Cheryl Gilkes (1983: 294) shows how it works to transform “the model of insurgency”—the independent actions of African American women—into a “model of pathology.” Gilkes further argues that this “model of pathology” not only stigmatizes independent African American women, but that it also functions to constrain women of the dominant group, thereby keeping them in their “place.” As I show, symbols, myths and images transmit race and gender ideologies (see Chapter 1). While many policy proposals have suggested that they are designed to “improve” the lives of African American women, the underlying ideology says differently. For example, fatherhood initiatives are designed ostensibly to encourage men to be “active” participants in the lives of their children. In reality, what is being advocated by these initiatives is fi nancial support, often with little concern paid to the minimal employment opportunities available to these men. In addition, in the efforts to reduce government expenditure on social welfare policy, those in power

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have decided that “the man” should be replaced by “a man” although they also are making claims that women need to become “self-sufficient.” This is but one example of a contradiction between action, as expressed via language and ideology. Welfare-reform, family-policy and even crime-policy discourses are often one of “liberation” either of the individual or the offspring. However, the ideology underlying much of the discourse is one of patriarchy that suggests that women should remain dependent on men (and that black women should remain fi nancially dependent on black men). Black women’s social location offers them an opportunity to integrate their intersectionality (race, class and gender) into political and policy analyses that would expand our knowledge of marginalized groups such as women of color.4 Black feminism encourages women, by centering their experiences, to not only interpret their reality, but also to defi ne their objectives. Kay Lindsey says: What we truly are as women or as Black women or human beings or groups is an unknown quantity insofar as we have not determined our own destiny. We have an obligation as Black women to project ourselves into the revolution to destroy these institutions that not only oppress Blacks but women as well. (quoted in Lattimore 1970: 89) To engage in such an activity is critically necessary for debunking/dethroning many of the negative myths of black womanhood.

Social Transformation: Individual and Institutional Pearl Cleage (1993: 28), a Black feminist theorist and activist, defi nes feminism as “the belief that women are full human beings capable of participation and leadership in the full range of human activities⎯intellectual, political, social, sexual, spiritual and economic.” It is time for black women to use our capabilities to achieve social transformation not only of institutions, but also of individual consciousness. Black women must not allow ourselves To be intimidated any longer with this nonsense about the “Matriarchy” of black women. Black women are not matriarchs, but we have been forced to live in abandonment and been used and abused. The myth of the matriarchy must stop, and we must not allow ourselves to be sledgehammered by it any longer—not if we are serious about change and ridding ourselves of the wickedness of this alien culture. (Weathers 1995: 159) Weathers is placing a call for black women to organize and foster an authentic black female self-defi nition and self-valuation in an attempt to debunk the images that create and foster the many oppressions we face.

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An authentic self-defi nition would reject Eurocentric representations and constructions of black womanhood. One method of ridding ourselves of the labels of Matriarch, Welfare Queen, Jezebel, Sapphire, Welfare Queen and Urban Teen Mother is to address the public policies that continue to inflict these negative stereotypes even in the face of contradictory evidence. This involves a process that must simultaneously engage individuals as well as institutions (Collins 1991). Throughout this analysis, I focus on how elite decision makers (who are overwhelmingly Euro-Americans) tend to employ negative images of black womanhood. My focus on this group is not to suggest that African Americans do not employ many of these images themselves. There are instances when images of black women are inverted and used to suggest a position of strength. The image of the Matriarch, for example, can be viewed as the backbone of black America and the one who keeps the community functioning in spite of racist institutions and practices. Black communities have also participated in the promulgation of negative images of black womanhood. Sometimes, the images of black womanhood within the black community are used in a derogatory fashion. The image of the strong, black woman, the Matriarch, is viewed as an emasculator or sometimes, a lesbian. Hip-hop, while it is not the only source, is often cited as one medium that is complicit in the functioning of controlling and damaging images of black womanhood. bell hooks (1994: 26) suggests that hip-hop and gansta rap are “expressive of the cultural crossing, mixing, and engagement of black youth culture with the values, attitudes, and concerns of the white majority” and its “misogynist, patriarchal ways of thinking.” What hooks and others suggest is that this genre of music (this is not to suggest that all of hip-hop functions this way) fails to distance itself from gender hierarchies and power structures and thus perpetuates patriarchal American cultural values of black womanhood (see Dyson 2001; Kitwana 1994; Perkins 1996; Powell 2000). The challenge confronting the black community involves moving away from the notion that having a discussion on the degradation of black women in our own communities is tantamount to airing our dirty laundry. Instead, we must determine how to engage in actions designed to change our behavior. Audre Lorde tells us that: If there is one thing we can learn from the 60s, it is how infinitely complex any move for liberation must be. For we must move against not only those forces which dehumanize us from outside, but also against those oppressive values which we have been forced to take into ourselves (1984: 135). Audre Lorde challenges us to engage in what has been and will be a rather complex and difficult process. She encourages us to consider our own internalization of many of the negative cultural, social, economic and political oppressive forces.

164 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy Black women must work to change the consciousness not only of other black females, but also of black men and Euro-American individuals. “In the process of consciousness raising, actually life-sharing, we begin to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from that sharing, and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression” (Guy-Sheftal 1995: 233). Part of this involves offering alternative depictions of African American women that are not grounded in the historical relations of racism and sexism. This would allow African American women to engage in activities, whether scholarly, writing, teaching, the arts or protest, to challenge what is offered to the public as truth and also the process at arriving at that truth. The strategies and views on how to achieve this state will and should vary; however, they do not need to be conflictual. Community building, which stresses power relations, should be the center of all actions to avoid leaving “masses of black women doing the dry cleaning, cooking the fast food, and dusting the computer of the sister who has just written the newest theoretical treatise on black women” (Collins 2001). History provides us with various models of organizing for institutional and individual consciousness raising. According to Smith (1999: 228) “the first line of struggle and resistance against the targeting of Blacks by the criminal justice system comes from the thousands upon thousands of Black women who are the sole caretakers of Black children.” Black women have engaged in organizing protests, lobbying to change sentencing policies such as mandatory minimums and forming self-help groups to offer support to those caught in the prison crisis. In addition, we see such organizational efforts among those fighting for human rights in the area of welfare. “Work Experience Program (WEP) workers are contesting the dominant conservative discourse around welfare reform and, at the same time, are reshaping notions of who is a worker” (Tait 1999: 298). Tait further informs us that the WEP workers are organizing across racial groups and uniting with workers by using language such as workers’ rights and human rights. Finally, there are events such as the M. I. T. Conference: Final Resolution⎯Black Women in the Academy (Springer 1999) that show that African American women of middle class backgrounds are willing to seek justice for their economically disadvantaged sisters and to champion causes such as health care. Katie Cannon observes: Throughout the history of the United States, the interrelationship of white supremacy and male superiority has characterized the Black woman’s reality as a situation of struggle—a struggle to survive in two contradictory worlds simultaneously, one white, privileged, and oppressive, the other black, exploited and oppressed. (1985: 30) Black women’s construction of womanhood and personhood represents one area of their continual struggle. The images, myths, stories and symbols resonating from ideologies concerning gender, class and race have

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placed black women in a precarious position⎯a position in which black women must fight for justice and freedom. It is against this historical, socioeconomic and moral backdrop that a new black woman’s collective must emerge and grow.

CONCLUSION I argue that embedded in policy discourse are power relations that when left unchallenged continue the subjugation of black women. Using three policy domains, crime, welfare and family, I show how the racing–gendering process of policy making utilizes images to frame social issues. Policy makers pick and choose (consciously or unconsciously) from an available set of symbols—highlighting some, rejecting, combining and emphasizing others to achieve the right mix to convince the public that their depiction is “true.” Policy makers are active as symbol makers even though they do not start the process from scratch. The extensive literature on the impact of framing/social construction of reality consistently demonstrates that relatively small differences in framing/construction of an issue can strongly impact the social perception and policy preferences. Iyengar (1991) is one such researcher that demonstrates the impact of framing on social perception and policy preferences. Using a number of news reports⎯with a focus on inequality, poverty and unemployment⎯Iyengar manipulated a number of features in the reports that are believed to affect the assignment of blame and responsibility. Using thematic framing, which is associated with structural explanations of poverty and other social ills as well as episodic framing, which is associated with a tendency to blame the victim for their condition, Iyengar illustrates how seemingly non-racial issues become racialized. His analysis demonstrates that the identification of the victims of poverty as black, almost without regard to whether an episodic or thematic frame was used, resulted in a belief that the individual is responsible for their own condition. Martin Gilens’s (1999), Franklin Gilliam, Jr.’s (1999) and Ange-Marie Hancock’s (2004) fi ndings are also consistent with those of Iyengar. The participants of these studies rely on a particular social memory that is influenced by race, class and gender ideologies. Thus, these fi ndings, when placed in the historical context of black/white relations, are not particularly surprising because they emanate from an ideological belief that situates blacks as “other” in order to maintain white superiority. Traditionally, black women have been viewed as “deviant” and “other,” especially in comparison to white women. In terms of black female offenders, the perception is that they are stepping out of the stereotypical female role boundaries. However, they are perceived as living up to the stereotype that constructs them as being inherently “criminal.” As a result, the “deviant” conduct of African American females is now viewed as becoming

166 Black Women, Cultural Images, and Social Policy more similar to that of black males (Smith and Visher 1980: 698). This, in part, helps explain the ever-increasing incarceration of black women. Additionally, Moynihan’s construction of the Matriarch, to which policy seems to be responding, presents black women as masculinized, since they tend to work outside of the home. Also there is the belief that blacks as a group are prone to “evil” and “wrong doing” (see Kirby 1972). The Welfare Queen image, among others, helps to transmit such beliefs. This comparison of black and white women is also used in the depiction of criminality among black women. Family formation is also based on preconceived notions of the “traditional” family that is again rooted in a comparison of black and white women’s behavior. Many old stereotypes, myths and images of African Americans, and African American women in particular, serve as the discursive elements and statements used in policy frames, and persistently shape policy discussions and choices. Symbols, stereotypes and myths in their role of providing the discursive practices and statements, are used to defi ne various social ills and shape policy targeted at the African American community. In other words, it is the characteristics of these images (which are grounded in history and culture) that allow us to understand the meanings used in race and gender codes. Policy makers primarily constructed African American women as pathological and dysfunctional because of their perceived variation from the expected norm either in terms of family formation, work patterns, poverty rates or criminal activity. Although these negative images of black womanhood are pervasive, we have the power and a duty to counter them. African American women must organize to resist oppression in all of its forms. We must recognize that black women are not monolithic and use this realization as empowerment, as opposed to a shackle, to fight against oppression. We must unshackle black womanhood by fostering collective action and challenging existing knowledge. But most importantly, we have to be willing to offer new defi nitions of black womanhood that are not based on someone else’s construction of us. We as black women must continue the tradition of defi ning ourselves.

Appendix A

To show how race and gender symbols and images are employed in the policy making process, I employ critical discourse analysis (CDA), a somewhat unconventional policy analysis. This is not to suggest that conventional policy analysis approaches are not valuable, for indeed they are. Using a CDA allows me to capture the values and ideology conveyed in the framing of the policy issue. This is a necessary step in building a Black feminist and womanist politics that is helpful in analyzing public policies targeting African American women and their communities. Using CDA I identify patterns and themes, determined through category analysis, which emerge through an examination of the texts, to determine the language that was used to frame the discourses on crime, welfare and family policies. “The analysis of discursive practices involves, among other things, an examination of which types of discourses are employed in particular contexts, especially which discourses are privileged in particular areas of policy making and which are excluded” (Fischer 2003: 74). I employ Linder’s (1995) framework of categories (the rhetorical analytic elements and the policy discourse elements) to identify organize and analyze the relevant discourses.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS My goal is to unmask the (written) words of policy decision makers with the hope of bringing about a different perspective and deeper understanding of power relations. To understand how language is used to maintain and perpetuate power relations, I borrow from Huckin’s strategies for reading text. Huckin (1997) suggests that text should fi rst be read in an uncritical manner and then it should be approached in a critical manner. Then, according to Huckin, the text should be read to determine what perspective is being presented—this is referred to as framing the details. For my analysis, I considered how words were connected to prior presentations and constructions of black womanhood and also the context in which they were used. It is through the connection of words that power

168

Appendix A

relations are depicted and maintained. To get to the basic question of what is the meaning of a text, I took a multi-pronged and interdisciplinary approach (see Figure 1).

DATA IDENTIFICATION Identifying the relevant pieces of legislation was not a particularly easy task. The policy making process of the United States made this task somewhat cumbersome since bills are often times hidden and buried in other policy documents, for example, the various omnibus legislation, which can hold a number of bills on various policy issues. In an attempt to make this identification process manageable, I turned again to already existing scholarship (this also allowed me a chance to employ techniques advocated by Black feminist and womanist theories). The various bodies of work allowed me to identify major pieces of legislation that results in drastic (this term is loosely employed, as most legislation tends to be more incremental) changes. As used here, I am referring to legislation that represents major adjustments to (a) policy tools used to change behavior (b) and or major changes in the characterization of the targeted population. After reading a vast number of articles and books, I then turned to the Congressional Information Service Index, (CIS) for the period from 1988 to 2007, to identify all legislation pertaining to welfare, drugs and family. The discovery of the legislation was carried out via the Lexis-Nexus Congressional universe database, except in the case of the Crack Cocaine Meaningful Penalties Act of 1986, when I relied on the paper copy. After downloading the legislation, they were carefully read to determine if in fact they were relevant to the population, black women, being studied. The reading of the legislation was carried out through a two-step process. First, I utilized a qualitative analysis program, HyperResearch, to help me identify policy provisions that target the populations of concern to this research. Second, I read the various pieces of legislation to ensure that they were indeed relevant. Through this process, I located the following pieces of legislation: 1. Crime Policy The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (U. S. P. L. 99–570) is designed to: strengthen Federal efforts to encourage foreign cooperation and eradication illicit drug crops and in halting international drug traffic, to improve enforcement of Federal drug laws and enhance interdiction of illicit drug shipments, to provide strong Federal leadership in establishing effective drug abuse prevention and education programs, to expand Federal support for drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation efforts, and for other purposes.

Appendix A 169 Subtitle B, the Drug Possession Penalty Act of 1986, revises the penalty for simple possession. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (U. S. P. L. 100–690) was designed to “prevent the manufacturing, distribution, and use of illegal drugs, and for other purposes”. This legislation founded the “drug czar.” It amended the U. S. Housing Act of 1937 to provide that drug-related criminal activity shall be grounds for termination of tenancy in public housing and authorized courts to deny federal benefits to individuals convicted of possessing or trafficking in illegal drugs. The intent of the Sentencing Guidelines Disapproval Act of 1995 (U. S. P. L. 104–38) was to disapprove of amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines relating to lowering crack related sentences and sentences for money laundering and transactions in property derived from unlawful activity. 2. Welfare Policy The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 (U. S. P. L. 104–193), as described in CIS, is designed to amend the Social Security Act and numerous other acts to provide for comprehensive reform of the welfare system. As such it includes provisions to restrict welfare eligibility for unwed mothers, age 18, families that have been on welfare for more than 5 years, and additional children born while families are on welfare, for example. 3. Family Policy The primary purpose of the Family Support Act of 1988 (U. S. P. L. 100– 485) was to revise the AFDC program to emphasize work, child support and family benefits. . . . Additionally, it was designed to assist needy children and parents under the new program to obtain the education, training and employment needed to avoid long-term welfare dependence. Title 1: Child support and establishment of paternity establish performance standards for states in establishment of paternity for child born to unmarried mothers. Establish commission on interstate child support to recommend improvements in interstate enforcement and require HHS collection and reporting of child support enforcement data. Replaced WIN with JOBS (Title III). The Fathers Count Act of 1999 (H. R. 3073) identifies restoring marriage as a primary goal. As such, its purpose was to amend part A of title IV of the Social Security Act to provide for grants for projects designed to promote responsible fatherhood, and for other purposes. The Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 (S. 653) sought to amend part D of title IV of the Social Security Act by providing grants to states to encourage media campaigns to promote responsible fatherhood skills, and for other purposes. The Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002 (H. R. 4737) replaces the current “illegitimacy” Reduction Bonus with a

170 Appendix A new $200 million per year Healthy Marriage Promotion grant program. Such funds could be used for pre-marital counseling, marriage skills training, teen pregnancy prevention programs and the development of best practices for addressing domestic and sexual violence. The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 (S. 1626 and H. R. 3395) seeks in part to amend Title IV of the Social Security Act to ensure funding for grants to promote responsible fatherhood and to strengthen low-income families. A central goal of this Act is to reduce barriers to responsible fatherhood. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, as specified in the Marriage and Fatherhood provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, allows states and private entities to use TANF funds to encourage and promote marriage and fatherhood. After the legislation was identified, I again used CIS to locate the debates, hearings and reports relevant to the individual policy areas. This process yielded a total 469 Congressional level documents (See Table A.1).

Table A.1

Number of Congressional Documents

Legislation

Documents Analyzed Welfare Policy

Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (P. L. 104-193)

171 Crime Policy

Anti-Drug Abuse Ac Of 1986 (P. L. 99-570) Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P. L. 100-690) Sentencing Guidelines Disapproval Act of 1995 (P. L. 104-38)

73 138 8

Family Policy Family Support Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-485) The Fathers Count Act of 1999 Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001 The Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002 The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109–171) The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 Total Source: Congressional Record, various years

41 6 7 15 7 3 469

Appendix A 171 Finally, there was the analysis of presidential speeches. Much of the data were gathered from the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents or the Presidential Papers for the respective presidents. The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents provides a central depository of the relevant sources from witch to gather the data. This compilation includes all presidential activities for one week, including addresses and remarks, executive orders, letters and press releases. The index of the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents and the Presidential Papers were used to locate speeches, etc., concerning the three policy areas analyzed in this work. I used the index to locate a total of 398 documents (see Table A.2). These documents were located by the use of the following subject headings: welfare reform, drug abuse and traffi cking (this general heading directed me to sub-headings of law enforcement and crime and mandatory sentencing), fatherhood and marriage.

Table A.2

Presidential Documents President Reagan

Legislation

President President Clinton G. W. Bush*

Welfare Policy Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act

149

Crime Policy Crack Cocaine Meaningful Penalties Act

111

Sentencing Guidelines Disapproval Act

2

Anti-Drug Abuse Act

72 Family Policy

Family Support Act

14

Marriage and Fatherhood Promotion* Total

50 197

151

50

*President Bush’s statements are compiled under the general category of Marriage and Fatherhood Promotion since he did not always explicitly refer to any specific legislation. Source: Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, various years

172 Appendix A CATEGORIZING AND CODING THE DATA This is primarily an interpretive analysis, specifically a “constructivist-interpretive” approach (Yanow 2003). Since there were no preexisting categorizations I was left with the task of developing a systematic means of interpreting the meaning(s) of the text. To analyze the data I employ (a) category analysis and (b) grounded theory. Combined, these methods of analysis allowed me to categorize and interpret the patterns of the discourse on social policy targeting African American women. To facilitate this interpretive and analysis process; the reading of the legislation was carried out through a three-step process. First I utilized a qualitative analysis program, HyperResearch, to identify policy provisions that target the population of concern to this research. Second, I read the various pieces of legislation to ensure that they were indeed relevant. Third, I employed an assistant to categorize a sample of text from each of the policy domains to determine if there was any “agreement” in my reading of the text. In instances where there was disagreement we would discuss how we read/interpreted the meaning of the text to determine if there was a possibility for agreement. After the texts were read, I relied on a theory-driven approach to assess how race and gender symbols are used, implicitly or explicitly, in the policy making process. This theory-driven approach allows me to generate “categories for understanding human phenomena and the investigation of the interpretation and meaning that people give to events they experience” (Polkinghorne 1991: 112). Open coding (Strauss and Corbin 1990, 1998) helped me to analyze the text and develop the categories. To interpret and explain the racing–gendering process of policy making, I relied on the work of Black feminists and womanist theorists (primarily), political scientists, policy analysts, social constructivists and sociolinguists, among others. The key was to determine and explicate common thematic properties of the policy discourses (see Benoit, et al. 2002). This interdisciplinary approach allowed me to determine the historical and cultural knowledge that would be useful in understanding the meanings conveyed in the race and gender codes used in the discourses. It is through my use of existing theories and analyses, on the construction of African American women and the poor, that I was then able to understand the discursive practices, statements and referential elements used in the discourses. General understandings of black womanhood are captured in the five dominant symbols discussed in Chapter 2. These analyses and theories provided me with a way of understanding how black women are talked about. The thematic properties of the discourses were identified by asking: (a) what was being said about the policy-targeted groups, and (b) what was being said about the issue. I also consider the politcal context in which the discourse took place. The analysis of the discourse resulted in the following fi ndings, which were applicable across the policy domains. The fi ndings are presented based on Linder’s rhetorical analytic categories:

Appendix A 173 1. The nature of the argumentative appeals and warrants: A Moralistic and paternalistic appeals; 2. The image of the public underlying the rhetoric: The policy-targeted group tended to be constructed as suffering from personal/moral failings and as threats to the moral fiber and fabric of society; and 3. The image of the existing or lack of social programs: Existing programs were often deemed as promoting unhealthy behaviors by suggesting that they allowed policy recipients to engage in detrimental behaviors. Again, turning to the work of Linder, I analyzed the policy analytic elements embedded in the each of the rhetorical constructions. The policy analytic elements discovered included: 1. The policy objectives: Teaching values; 2. The type of policy intervention: Social control; and 3. The policy instrument: Tools designed to punish individuals for noncompliance such as increased sentencing and denial of benefits. The benefit of this research is that it systematically describes the politics of the situation of black women. This will help us develop a plan of action to fight the pernicious use of the often-negative construction of black womanhood.

Appendix B Rhetorical Elements and Images

To understand the racing–gendering of public policy my analysis relies on unmasking the hidden meanings of discourse. I assume that language is an instrument of power. Those in power use language to construct social reality and determine normative behavior and practices. It is not necessary for those in power to explicitly reference race and gender images of the policy targeted group. Instead, they can rely on codes to transmit their views and to organize how social issues should be addressed. As argued in this analysis, these codes only work to frame an issue because they have resonance—there is a social, cultural and political history and memory connected to the codes. These codes provide the unspoken theories/understanding about the nature of things (see Foucault 1972). Various researchers have discussed the use of race and gender codes in the policy making process (see Chapters 1 and 2). However, I believe that it is not enough to leave the analysis in this abstract realm. Instead we should ask, what story is being told when a code is used. There are multiple images of black womanhood, although they are connected around the issues of sexuality and morality, that tell slightly different stories. These are nuances that should be explicated if power (race, class and gender) ideologies are to be challenged. This is not an easy task as there are multiple meanings to any one text. Below, I offer you samples of discourses from the three policy areas. In addition, I show what symbol of black womanhood they draw on and offer an explanation for why I think the particular symbols are “called” upon in the discourse.

176 Appendix B Table B.1 Statement

Rhetorical Element

Image Conveyed

“Now, look closely at our Moralistic—Explicitly states Jezebel world. People say the probthat the problem of illegal Mammy lem is crack or crimes or drug use is the lack of morbabies having babies. Those als. I believe that these images are are only symptoms. The being invoked via the notions problem is a moral emptiPaternalistic—As president, of lack of morals and the ness. And if, as President, I his role would be to provide suggesting that these women had the power to give just moral direction. Suggests (due to how family roles are one thing to this Nation, that these individuals cangendered) are responsible for it would be the return of not find morals on their the morality of the children. an inner moral compass, own. nurtured by the family and valued by society” (Bush, 1992c: 683). “One need look no farther Exhibiting behaviors of than the tragedy of the the underclass—Draws on crack baby epidemic which the ideology that suggests rages every day in the that these individuals seek hospital delivery rooms of instant gratification and America. Far more quickly subscribe to a culture and to a far greater extent of crime. than either alcohol or tobacco, illegal drugs like crack cocaine form addictions that cripple the drug user-physically, mentally, and spiritually. Many of those in the throes of a drug addiction can think of nothing but how they will satisfy an insatiable need for another ‘hit’ of their drug of choice. Mothers desert their toddlers, children kill their parents, young men and women throw away futures—all because of a degrading obsession. Indeed, the Office of National Drug Control Policy reported this year that the crack epidemic tripled the number of New York City's child abuse and neglect cases in the late 1980's” (Senator Christopher Bond—R-MO, 1994: S6155).

Jezebel—The inherent selfishness of this image is used to discuss mothers’ abandonment of their children all for another “hit.” Matriarch—Her failure to protect her children. Welfare Queen—Her failure to protect her children.

(continued)

Appendix B 177 Table B.1 (continued) Statement

Rhetorical Element

Image Conveyed

“Americans deserve a lot of “Soft” or ineffective policy— Mammy credit for their individual and To argument that policy has Welfare Queen collective efforts. But we still not effectively worked at have much to do. There are eliminating the problem. I suggest that these images are being used because of casualties in this war. We live in an age when tens of thouthe reference to morals and sands of drug-affected babies the belief that the “crack” are born each year. Therein baby would pose a threat is the real tragedy. Hold to society. This suggests in your arms one of those that Mammy has failed in babies, and you just can't her role. Additionally, there help but have a broken heart. are elements of the Welfare We live in an age when one Queen that are used to out of every 4,000 American describe the “crack” mother, teens dies by his own hand which was on the scene about or at someone else's, and the same time as the welfare too often drugs play a part, queen, in the suggestion a fundamental part, in these that these women possess tragedies. We live in an age a false sense of entitlement when the scourge of drugs has that allowed them to behave cheapened life and threatens in a rather dangerous way to erode the moral fabric of towards their children and this great Nation of ours” society. (George Bush, 1992a: 72). “The administration’s impact on crime gets an incomplete grade because drug policy failures in other areas cannot yet be fully evaluated” (Representative Benjamin Gilman— R-NY, 1994: H5178). “It is time that our social Moralistic and paternalistic institutions and our nation as in nature a whole return to the teaching of the moral obligations: These elements are explicitly self-sacrifice, social conformentioned in the discourse. mity, and abstinence. They are truly virtues to be upheld, and society appreciates them” (Senator Charles Grassley— R-IA, 1995: S11822).

Mammy Matriarch Welfare Queen Urban Teen Mother The reference to the notions of self-sacrifice, social conformity and abstinence brought to mind the above referenced images. Combined these images suggest that black women embody the antitheses of the implied good qualities.

(continued)

178 Appendix B Table B.1 (continued) Statement

Rhetorical Element

[Sign reading: DON’T Dependent FEED THE ALLIGATORS] “We post these warnLazy ings because unnatural feeding and artificial care Lacking a work ethic create dependency. When and morals dependency sets in, these otherwise able alligators can no longer survive on their own” (Representative John Mica—R-FL, 1995: H3766). “The federal government introduced wolves into the state of Wyoming, and they put them in pens, and they brought elk and venison to them every day. That is what I call the wolf welfare program. The federal government provided everything that the wolves need for their existence. But guess what? They opened the gates and let the wolves out, and now the wolves won’t go. Just like any animal in the species, any mammal, when you take away their freedom and their dignity and their ability, they can’t provide for themselves (Representative Barbara Cubin—R-WY, 1995: H3772).

“And for the past 30 years the government has subsidized and thus promoted self-destructive behavior like illegitimacy and family disintegration” (Senator Duncan Faircloth—R-NC, 1996: S13508).

Dependent Lazy

Image Conveyed Welfare Queen Urban Teen Mother There is an implied suggestion that welfare causes intergenerational poverty and a culture of dependency—thus invoking the image of the Welfare Queen who then births the Urban Teen Mother.

Welfare Queen Urban Teen Mother (see above)

Lacking a work ethic and morals

A failed policy Referenced is the belief the current approach to addressing poverty has encouraged a negative behavioral pattern while failing to change the economic situation of the targeted group.

Urban Teen Mother Welfare Queen (see above)

(continued)


Rhetorical Element

Image Conveyed

“The system actually encourages minors to have children as a way to get out on their own and set up a separate household. At the very least, the subsidy removes the financial barrier to minors having children and makes it possible to consider such an option” (Representative Thomas Petri—R-WI, 1994: E1504). “Will send a clear message that those who are able to work will work to support themselves and their families. Those who can work but will not will no longer get a free ride at the expense of those who have traditionally footed the bill” (Representative Steve Chabot—R-OH, 1995: 2992). “It is the children we must help Moralistic and paternalfirst. By assisting, and insisting istic that the parents find work, we teach the children that self The role of government sufficiency is both possible and is to “teach” children respectable” (Representative about a work ethic. This Douglas Owens—D-Utah, suggests that the parents 1988: H9211). are incapable/unwilling to do so. “Our policy in this area should be based on one simple premise: We should help the less fortunate in our society receive the education, training and services they need to work their way out of poverty, and we will expect in return that they will take responsibility for their own plight. Unfortunately, our current system of welfare meets neither goal of empowerment or responsibility” (Senator Joseph Biden—D-DE, 1988: S13653).

Jezebel Mammy Matriarch Welfare Queen This text draws on a number of images that are combined to suggest that black mothers are failing. In determining which symbols were employed I try to find out what is being said about these women. I determined that the women were constructed as: lacking morals and personal responsibility. Thus they were “bad” mothers. All of the above symbols can be used to suggest that black women are bad mothers, but they have “individual” elements which makes them bad.

(continued)

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Appendix B

Table B.1 (continued) Statement

Rhetorical Element

“. . . we have seen and Subscribing to an underheard a lot about poverty class culture in . . . the CBS documentary, ‘The Vanishing Family A “life of welfare” sugCrisis in Black America.’ It gests a particular group has focused national attenof people—poor, yes. tion on a very disturbing But it also speaks to a trend. The fastest growing specific type of poor—the type of black family today underclass—which has is that headed by single assumed a black face. teenage mothers. Typically, pregnancy results in the teenage mother dropping out of school, never to return, and beginning a life on welfare” (Representative Harold Ford—D-TN, 1986: H312).

Image Conveyed Sapphire Urban Teen Mother Welfare Queen Matriarch The use of “fatherlessness” suggests to me a particular type of black woman— Sapphire—who emasculated her (black) man and the Matriarch—with her misplaced sense of independence. These women gave way to the 1980s Welfare Queen who then gave way to the 1990s image of the Urban Teen Mother.

“The greatest cause of poverty in this Nation is fatherlessness. Children without fathers are five times more likely to live in poverty. They are five times more likely to depend on welfare. The greatest cause of dysfunction among young people is fatherlessness. Fatherless children are three times more likely to have behavioral problems, two times more likely to commit a crime, and much more likely to be involved in teen pregnancy, drugs, suicide and dropout from school” (Rep. Thomas Osborne—R-NE, 2002b: H2494). “As a matter of fact, I talked to a young person who had a couple of kids and found out that, yes, she had been on welfare for a few years and her mother had also been on welfare for several years. (continued)


Rhetorical Element

I was thinking, we have to Subscribing to an underclass break this cycle. What about culture the kids? I looked at her kids, (see above) and I really felt sorry for them, and they were growing up, now the third generation of a welfare family. (Senator Donald Nickels—R-OK, 1996: S9356).

Image Conveyed Sapphire Urban Teen Mother Welfare Queen (see above)

“But I have to tell you something. I believe that it is a fundamentally flawed premise that if you simply stop giving people assistance, if you stop helping them with their subsistence, they will go to work and stop having babies” (Senator Carol Mosely-Braun—D-Il, 1996: S9365). “This bill cracks down on the so-called deadbeat dad by requiring the father to pay child support, and it mandates that welfare applicants must assist in establishing the paternity of their children in order to qualify for their benefits. What is wrong with that? That is responsibility” (Senator Robert Smith— R-NH, 1996: S9354). “The Federal Government spends billions of dollars to address social ills, and very little to promote responsible fatherhood. . . . It is important for the United States Congress as a body to promote responsible fatherhood and to encourage loving and healthy relationships between parents and their children” (Representative Julia Carson—D-IN, 2002: H3488).

The state plays the role of the man. In my estimation this was explicitly stated.

Sapphire The availability of welfare allows for women to emasculate (black) men.

Notes

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. Although I use the terms black and African American interchangeably, I recognize that there is a difference. Black is used to refer to those of African descent regardless of where they are situated in the African Diaspora. African American is used to refer to American of African descent. 2. There are many different factors, such as interest groups, the economy, the institutional structure of government and the election cycle, that influence and shape policy proposals. This works focuses on but one piece of the puzzle, the symbolic construction of the policy issue and the policy-targeted group. This is not to suggest that other factors are negligible. 3. Not all black women are viewed and constructed via the same lens. For example, some black women are constructed as “quota queens.” These tend to be more upwardly mobile and educated black women. Such a construction was applied to Lani Guinier who was nominated by President Clinton for assistant attorney general in 1993 (see Bowers 1996; Fogg Davis 1996; Holloway 1995). 4. See Williams (1977) Marxism and Literature, which contains a section on “ideology” that traces the various historical understandings of that term, and argues for a more progressive notion of ideology as a productive force. 5. Linder’s (1995) original analytic categories include: the nature of the argumentative appeals and warrants (for example, as moralist or paternalistic premises); how scientific claims are treated in the controversy (for example, as decisive evidence or partisan advocacy); the image of the public underlying the rhetoric (for example, as victims or potential issue activists); and the image of the electro and magnetic fields (for example, as toxin hazard or socially perceived risk). 6. The four policy-analytic elements originally presented by Linder (1995) include: the policy objective (for example, health protection or the public’s right-to-know); the type of policy intervention (for example, regulatory control or research support); the policy instrument (for example, limits on exposures or a public information campaign); and the objectionable errors (for example, false negatives or false positives).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 1. An earlier version of this chapter was published in Sage Race Relations Abstract, 2001, v. 3, pp. 5–24.

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Notes

2. Ward Connerly was instrumental to the success of Proposition 209, which eliminated affi rmative action in the state of California. He has launched a national campaign aimed at eliminating affi rmative action. 3. Although I present the social construction of African American women through a Eurocentric lens, it is not to suggest that Euro-Americans are the only cultural group who use these images. African Americans employ some of these same images. Sometimes, they are employed in the same manner as suggested in this analysis—negatively. Other times, African Americans coopt many of the images and invoke more positive connotations. 4. The Welfare Queen was conjured up via stories such as the Chicago Welfare Queen, Linda Taylor, who according to Reagan had “80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and a tax-free income of over $15,000.” See Zucchino (1997) for an analysis of the myth of the welfare queen.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 1. An earlier version of this chapter was published in Souls, 2003, 5(2), 42–61. 2. In 1989, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, launched a partnership with the police department, the prosecutor’s office and a state hospital⎯the Medical University of South Carolina. The primary goal of this partnership was to seek out and punish pregnant women and new mothers who tested positive for cocaine use. Between 1989 and 1994, prior to the suspension of the program, 42 women were arrested for illicit drug use while pregnant. Fortyone of these women were black. It should be noted that all 42 women tested positive for cocaine use (Alan Guttmacher Institute 2001). The women were tested for the presence of cocaine without their consent and without being served a search warrant, a violation of the Fourth Amendment as argued before, and accepted by, the Supreme Court on October 4, 2001. 3. These claims are indeed not exhaustive of all claims made. Instead, from the prominently made claims (which for me represented a usage of 50 percent or greater); I randomly selected a number of claims that best capture the diversity of the values and premises asserted. 4. I should note also that there is a wealth of state-level policy, which, while interesting, is beyond the scope of this analysis. For an overview of various state-level statues relating to pregnant substance abusers, see Paltrow, Cohen and Carey (2001). 5. The data presented in this chapter are representative of the data that would have been available to policy decision makers during their deliberations. 6. Cocaine powder is derived from coca paste, which is in turn derived from the leaves of the coca plant. Crack cocaine, a derivative of cocaine, is manufactured by cooking cocaine powder with baking soda and water until it forms a hard substance, commonly referred to as “rock.” These “rocks” can then be broken into pieces and sold in small quantities. Each gram of powder produces approximately 0.89 grams of crack cocaine. 7. In 1993, 44 percent of the federal caseload involved drug offenses. Fraud, representing 13 percent, was the next most common offense in these federal cases (Miller 1995). 8. Unless otherwise stated, the dialogue/exchange presented in the text is taken from the Senate Hearings on Crack Cocaine Sentencing, August 10, 1995. 9. Although the United States Sentencing Commission has the power to promulgate amendments to the sentencing guidelines, it must submit the proposed amendments to Congress for at least a 180-day review period. Sentencing guideline amendments take effect no later than November 1 of the calendar year in which

Notes

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they are submitted, “except to the extent that . . . the amendment is otherwise modified or disapproved by an Act of Congress” (28 U. S. C. Sec. 994). 10. In 1994, the racial breakdown of defendants convicted of crack possession reveals that 84.5 percent were black, 10.3 were percent white and 5.2 percent were Hispanic. The breakdown of trafficking offenders revealed that 4.1 percent were white, 88.3 percent were black and 7.1 percent were Hispanic. With regard to powder cocaine results were more racially mixed; 58 percent of the defendants convicted of simple possession of cocaine powder were white, 26.7 percent were black and 15 percent were Hispanic. The breakdown of powder trafficking offenders revealed that 32 percent were white, 27.4 percent were black and 39.3 percent were Hispanic (U. S. Sentencing Commission 1995).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 1. Using the “illegitimacy ratio,” states are awarded a 5 percent increase for a 1 percent reduction of the 1995 figures and a 10 percent increase for a 2 percent reduction. In addition, there is a $20 million annual grant for four years for the states with the greatest reduction in “illegitimacy ratios.” 2. The amount of the grant is based on the state’s previous spending. States will receive funding equal to the amount spent in the highest of: fiscal year (FY) 1994, FY 1995 or the average spending of FYs 1992–1995. 3. William Bennett played a vital role in understanding the Republican welfare ideology since he, in addition to Vin Webber, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, headed Empower America. Empower America is a Republican think tank that proposed the outright abolition of AFDC and Food Stamps to unwed mothers (see Principles for real welfare reform. Empower America Issue Briefi ng, Washington, D. C.) 4. The data offered in this section of the analysis was selected to reflect the data that were available to decision makers. 5. Excluded from the computation of the decline in benefits are non-cash benefits that include, for example, Food Stamps and Medicaid. 6. Such an approach is not limited to the majority community. As argued by Alexander-Floyd (2007) and Cathy Cohen (1999), the black community also employs such tactics—through rhetoric and other means—to police its own. 7. Family caps represent another technique to constrain black women’s childbearing. Other methods include sterilization, often forced, the federal government’s refusal to pay for abortions through Medicaid as well as more subtle techniques like the extended incarceration of black women of child-bearing age, accomplished through the crime policy discussed in Chapter 3. 8. Donna Shalala served for eight years as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton Administration. 9. EITC according to Clinton would lift recipients above the poverty line, provided they work a 40-hour week.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5 1. The title of this chapter is taken from E. C. Scott’s “Make a Man Kit.” This song was released in 2000 as part of her Blues album Masterpiece. 2. Gavanas (2004) suggests that there are two distinct camps in what she conceptualizes as fatherhood responsibility movement. One camp, the

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Notes

pro-marriage proponents as discussed by Gavanas, is made-up of a myriad of groups and tends to be dominated by white men. Included in this group would be the National Center for Fathering and the Institute for Responsible Fatherhood and Family Revitalization. Second are the Fragile Families groups that focus on the needs of poor communities, particularly communities of color. Included in this group are the Partners for Fragile Families. Central to Fragile Families groups is the employability of men, which they argue is the foundation of responsible fatherhood. 3. My focus on black women by no means suggests that other women are not subjected to these types of policies. However, over time, poverty has been racialized (see Bobo and Kleugel, 1991; Gilens, 1999) and many of the inequalities faced by the African American community has also become gendered (see Lorde, 1984). Black single mothers are singled out because the public perception is that black women are the primary users of social welfare. 4. There were additional policy proposals, such as The Responsible Fatherhood act of 2003 and the Strengthening Families Act of 2003, which were not included in the analysis. These acts were excluded because there was either no related floor discussion and/or no further action, beyond the introduction. It should also be noted that there has been a number of initiatives, taken on behalf of the White House, for example, that are also not included in this analysis. It is not that these initiatives do not warrant investigation, they are simply beyond the scope of this analysis. 5. This quote on the surface appears to be gender and race neutral; however, when one considers the policy-targeted population, it becomes apparent that the concerns expressed by President Reagan are neither gender nor race neutral. President Reagan’s claims are gendered since much of the targeted group of welfare reform is solo–mothers. Referenced in this quote is the notion of responsible parenting, which is a direct reference to a particular type of family formation (non-traditional). It also speaks to the type of woman. Because U. S. society is based on gender and racial hierarchies, this type of women is further racialized which means that President Reagan is referencing a black woman, or to use his language, the Welfare Queen (see Chapter 2).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6 1. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) is often cited as the bedrock of the modern feminist movement. While recognizing the value of this work, we must also recognize that it is very specific in terms of the type of woman the movement embraces. Friedan says: “We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my house’” (1963: 32). This statement suggests that Friedan is speaking exclusively to wealthy white, heterosexual women. It ignores black women who were part of the labor force at rates unsurpassed by white women. 2. This is not to suggest that all black women within the United States and beyond its borders universally accept Black feminist and womanist theory. The Combahee River Collective’s A Black Feminist Statement (dated April 1977, reprinted in James and Sharpley-Whiting 2000: 261–270) lays out many of the difficulties in organizing black feminism. In addition, I am not suggesting that all women experience black feminism or womanism in the same way. I do recognize that social class and sexuality, among other variables, will influence an individual’s identification with Black feminist theory.

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3. I believe that the black freedom struggle should be multi-pronged and should simultaneously challenge the number of oppressive structures, practices, and processes. Challenging the policy making process is simply one element of the multi-pronged approach. 4. Women Transforming Politics, an edited volume by Cohen, Jones and Tronto (1997), is an example of the employment of the intersectionality of race, class and gender in policy and political analyses.

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Index

A Abramovitz, M 114, 135 Adams, K 92 Adoption and Safe Families Act 74 Ajzen, I 12 Alan Guttmacher Institute 45, 184 Alexander, C 63 Alexander-Floyd, N 13, 111, 116, 129, 142, 155, 159 Allard, P 84 Amini, J 47, 67 Amott, T 100 Anderson, M 154 Ani, M 26 Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986) 20, 63, 64 Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1988) 20, 63, 64, 168-169 Armour, J 58 Aunt Jemima, 59 Ayres, L 32

B Bane, M 159, 161, 169, 170 Bardach, E 19 Barthes, R 49 Bean, R 65 Beck, A, 41 Becker, H 22 Beckett, K 234 Bellah, R 38 Bennett,W 141, 142, 147 Benoit, W 37 Berger, L 18 Best, J, 4, 18 Billingsley, A 178 Black feminism, 6, 8, 9, 17, 25, 26, 33 42, 78, 227, 238, 240, 241, 242, 245, 251

Black feminist, 2, 8, 9, 14, 23, 37, 42, 59, 100, 225, 227, 228, 229, 238, 242 Black feminist politics 2, 23 black mothers 41, 46, 47, 74, 76, 77, 78, 84, 114, 120, 124, 126, 133, 134, 143, 149, 151 black womanhood see womanhood Blank, R 158 Bobo, L 4, 135 Bonilla-Silva, E 58 Bosk, C 4 Bower, L 79 Brewer, R 239 “bridefare” program 116 Brittan, A 56 Brown, E 239 Bruce, P 64 Burbridge, L 221, 231 Bureau of Justice Statistics 111, 112 Bush, G. W. 118, 133, 139, 140, 171 Bush, G. H. W 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65, 176, 177 Bush-Baskette, S 86 Byerly, V 45

C Cade, T 241 Campbell, R 95 Cannon, K 254 Carby, H 43, 58 Carlson, K 103 Carmines, E 38 Carson, J 206 Casper, L 143 category analysis 33, 35, 89, 187, 259, 266 Cazenave, N 7, 13, 133, 144, 146, 183, 196, 209, 210

212 Index Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 85 Chabot, S 151 Chapman, J 113 Chasnoff, I, 81, 82, 86 Chesney-Lind, M 101 Christian, B 47, 58, 62, 68 civilrights.org 112, 113 Clarke, C 64 class viii, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 23, 25, 27, 28, 32, 34, 43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 58, 61, 66, 69, 71, 73, 80, 87, 89, 92, 94, 97, 103, 105, 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 130, 136, 141, 146, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 164, 165, 175 class structures and systems 13–14 Clawson, R 145 Cleage, P 251 Clinton, W 1 4, 9, 34, 89, 105, 106, 107, 108, 141, 142, 146, 147, 150, 151, 158, 161, 166, 167, 190, 223, 224 Cobb, R 19, 20 Cocca, C 71 code14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 35, 58, 104, 140, 145, 146, 175; language 14, 23, 31; race and gender 14, 16, 22, 85, 91, 100, 126, 140, 142, 149, 157, 166, 172; words 47 Cochran, W 198, 199 Cohen, C 22, 70, 114 Cohen, D 114 Coleman, C 82 Collins, P H 9, 22, 25, 59, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 90, 98, 122, 183, 192, 232, 235, 237, 239, 241, 249, 252, 254 Combahee River Collective 2 Community Safety and Conservation Division 104 Congressional Black Caucus 142 Congressional Record 20 constructivist-interpretive approach 32, 230, 266 Corbin, J 33, 39 cost-benefit calculus: see rational choice theory crack see crack-cocaine crack-cocaine 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 74, 168, 171, 176, 184

crack baby, 81, 82, 99, 117, 244, 272 Crack Cocaine Meaningful Penalties Act (1986) 168, 171 crack mother, 47, 76, 80, 82, 95, 128, 172, 243, Crenshaw, K 13, 36, 153, 159 crisis theory 156, 158 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), 2, 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 25, 29, 37, 55, 66, 71, 76, 88, 118, 119, 130, 140, 145, 147, 150, 156, 167 Cruikshank, B 152 Cubin, B 81, 178 Cult of True Womanhood see womanhood culture 9,10, 15, 31, 40, 41, 44, 47, 58, 133, 137, 140, 150, 154, 162, 166; dominant 41, 58; EuroAmerican 153; Western 33 culture of poverty 44, 59, 86, 92, 95, 119, 140 culture of single (black) motherhood 80, 82, 83, 90, 125 culture of violence 61, 65, 66, 75, 127 Curtis, R 51

D Davis, A 22, 27, 33, 35, 40, 71, 116, 153, 183 de Lauretis, T 29 Decter, M 101 Dershowitz, A 63 Dey, I 20 Dill, B 5 Dillard, A 28 discourse: viii, 2; definition 2-3; Edelman and 16; Fairclough and 16; Foucault and 10, 16; relation to CDA 10; Talja and 10; discursive elements 20, 22, 25, 86, 93, 94, 127, 149, 166 discursive practices 4, 11, 16, 18, 19, 27, 28, 55, 58, 61, 62, 76, 81, 87, 94, 122, 149, 166, 167, 172 Dodd, C 122 Du Cille, A 15 Duerst-Lahti, G 3, 159 Duncan, G 102, 178 Dye, T 8 Dyson, M 163

E Earn Income Tax Credit 107, 109

Index Edelman, M 3, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 29, 35, 99 Edin, K 74, 77 Edsall, M 57 Edsall, T 57 education 30, 43, 47, 57, 89, 96, 106, 107, 108, 113, 116, 131, 146, 168, 169, 179 Edwards, M 71 Eisenstein, Z 99, 116 either/or dichotomies: black/white 59, 165; ghetto/suburb 59; good woman/bad woman 28; male/ female 28 Eitzen, D 111, 118 Elder and Cobb, 1, 9 Ellwood, D 102, 107, 108 Elmore, R 12 Ensink, T 49 Epistemology, and African American women 15 Esping-Anderson, G 8 Eugenics 141 Euro-American women 6, 13, 17, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43, 52, 53, 54, 70, 72, 73, 74, 78, 84, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 100, 110, 116, 117, 129, 145, 146, 145, 150, 153, 154, 155, 159, 161 165, 166; feminist 92, 159; working class 27

F Fairclough, N 3, 15, 16, 56 family cap 87, 98, 102, 103, 104, 134, 185 family stability 73, 79 Family Support Act (1988) 20, 115, 169, 170 family values 28, 56, 57, 110, 122, father 30, 61, 74, 77, 82, 90, 112, 113, 118, 121, 123, 124, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 154, 181; absent 138, 157; fatherlessness 126, 132, 140, 180; responsible 134, 135, 139, 169, 170; non-custodial 138 fatherhood initiatives 25, 37, 111, 115, 131, 133, 135, 139, 141, 142, 160, 161 Feagin, J 36 Federal Bureau of Investigation 69 Federal News Service 102

213

female prisoners 54, 69-71, 72 Ferguson, A 39 Field, P 19 Fields, J 90 Fischer, C 22 Fischer, F, 16, 29, 35, 158, 167 Fishbein, M 12 Fiske, J, 2, 10 Foucault, M 10, 56, 128, 175 Fox Piven, F 8 Fox-Genovese, E 39 Frank, D 51 fragile families 76, 12, 113 Fraser, N 94, 112, 160 Frazier, E 42 Frohmann, B 11

G Galanter, E 71 Gallman, V 67 Galston, W 121 Gamson, W 3 Gans, H 80, 81, 97 Garfinkel, I 77 Gates, H 152 Gavanas, A 113 Gee, J 16, 27, 136, 145 gender equity 15, 146 Geronimus, A 102 Gibson, C 77 Giddings, P 39, 153, 155 Gilens, M 35, 85, 91, 126, 135, 165 Gilkes, C 13, 35, 43, 161 Gilliam, F 17, 18, 22, 29, 37, 85, 165 Glazer, N 30 Gordon, L 29, 84, 94, 160 Gramm, W 87, 90, 127, 128 Grassley, C 90, 177 Greenfield, L 70, 71 Greider, K 50, 51 grounded theory 19, 20, 23, 37, 55, 62, 119, 140, 172, Gusfield, J 11 Gutknecht, G 93 Guy-Sheftall, B ix, 39,41, 42, 153, 154, 155

H Hagler, D 27 Hall, P 7 Hall, S 14 Hallam E 17, Halliday, M 34 Hamilton, C 146, 161

214 Index Hancock, A-M 4, 85, 90, 96, 126, 135, 165 Handler, J 80 92, 94, 138 Haney Lopez I 3 Harrington, M 92 Harris, K 74 Harris, M 17 Harrison, P 24 Hasenfeld, Y 80, 92, 94 Hawkesworth, M 7, 9, 10 Hebdige, D 31 Heritage Foundation 44, 99, 118 Herring, C 3 Higginbotham, E 32, 116, 153, 158 Hilgartner, S 3` Hill, R 13, 15, 76, 150, 153, 156, 161, hip-hop 163 Hoffman, S 102 Hoke, M 93 Holzer, H 75, 103 hooks, b 38, 39, 40, 56, 153, 163 Horgan, J 64 Horn, W, 133, 135 Huckin, T 167 Huling, T, 6, 24, 53, 69, 70 Humphries, D, 52 Hurwitz, J, 3, 49

I illegitimacy 30, 45, 80, 82, 84, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 97, 99, 100, 112, 125, 127, 134, 169, 178, 185 Inciardi, J 58 Ingram, H 3, 4, 9, 12 institutionalism 7 interpretive approach 19, 23, 148, 172, intersectionality 1, 7, 9, 36, 58, 61, 94, 99, 116, 153, 162, 187 Iyengar, S 165

J Jackson, J 97, 118, 142, 151 Jackson-Lee, S 125 James, J 71, 153 Jencks, C 56 Jewell, S 6, 36, 97, 144 jezebel,viii, 6, 16, 24, 28, 31, 37, 39-41, 43, 45, 46, 50, 52, 59, 61, 62, 74, 76, 77, 78, 88, 92, 94, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 109, 120, 123, 125, 126, 127, 133, 134, 135, 138, 147, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 163, 176, 179

Johnson, N 39, 132, Johnson, P 3, 9, 52, 63 Johnston, D 75 Jordan-Zachery, J 45

K Karenga, M 9 Kavanaugh K 19 Kelly, M 12, 145 Kelly, R 3, 159 Kennelly, B 122 Kinder, D 12 King, D 154 King, M 6, 36 Kingfish 41, 134 Kirby, J 46, 166 Kitsuse, J 11 Kitwana, B 163 Kleugel, J 85, 186 Knafl, K 189, 19 Korenman, S 102 Kovel, J40

L Ladd, E 87 language 1, 2, 3, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 30, 31, 34, 35, 48, 54, 55, 56, 58, 90, 95, 103, 110, 119, 123, 132, 140, 146, 148, 150, 162, 164, 167, 175 Laswell, H 150 Latham, E 8 Lattimore, J 162 Lerner, G 39 Lester, P 17 Levine, H 49 Linder, S 12, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29, 86, 98, 130, 167, 172, 173, 183 Lopoo, L 136 Lorde, A 35, 51, 97, 144, 147, 163 Loury, G 104 Lubiano, W 44, 120 Luckman, T 11 Luke, A 19

M Maguire K 73 Maher, L 51 Majone, G 30 mammy 2, 4, 6, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 36, 37-39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 69, 71, 72, 74, 78, 79, 81, 94, 102, 103, 109, 117, 126, 134,

Index 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 156, 157, 176, 177, 179 mandatory minimum: sentences 63, 63; sentencing 62, 69, 76 Manlove, J 90, 123 Mann, C 71 Manuel, T 7 Marinelli, K 7 marriage, barriers to 113; promotion of 25, 103, 111, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 141, 169, 170 Massing, M 64 maternal substance abuse use, see pregnant/parenting substanc abuse Mathias, R 51, 52 matriarch 2, 24, 28, 30, 40, 42-43, 44, 46, 50, 52, 59, 61, 65, 66, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 86, 88, 90, 98, 99, 100, 102, 107, 109, 115, 117, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 141, 145, 147, 149, 152, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 176, 177, 179, 180 Mauer, M 6, 24, 53, 69, 70 Mayes, L 51 Maynard-Moody, S 12, 145f McCaskill, B 15 McDonald, D 64 McDonnell, L 12 McGee, Z 74 McLanahan, S 77, 113, 136 Mead, L 91, 99 Mendelberg, T 17, 18, 22, 146 Messerschmidt, J, 53 Mica, J 81, 178 Miller, B 112 Miller, M 64 Miller, S 78 Millet, K 6, 36 Mink, G xi, 4, 84, 104, 131, 137, 141 “M. I. T. Conference: Final Resolution (Black Womn in the Academy: Defending Our Name)” 164 Mitchell, G 60 Mitchell-Kernan, C 114 Modigliani, A 3 Moen, P 123 Moffit, R 100 Moi, T 34 Moore, K 90, 112, 123

215

Morris, M 95 Morse, J 19 Morton, P 61, 69, 70 mother. see Motherhood motherhood, 41, 51, 53, 54, 55, 68, 83, 94, 95, 98, 115, 122, 129, 131, 132, 139, 142, 150, 156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 180, 182, 184, 188, 190, 192, 194, 196, 203, 234, 249; black motherhood, 139; culture of single (black) motherhood, 127, 130, 131, 196 Moynihan, D 30, 42, 76, 80, 111, 121, 126, 130, 139, 140, 142, 160, 166; Moynihan Report 42, 76, 109 Mozes, A 78 Mullings, L 6, 9, 27, 36, 43, 123, 142, 153 multiple forms of oppression. see intersectionality Mumola, C 73, 74, 75 Murray, C 11, 30, 45, 99, 109, 114, 130 Myers, K 14 myth 5, 9, 11, 15, 19, 25, 26, 34, 35, 36, 42, 47, 48, 51, 52, 56, 83, 87, 109, 110, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 155, 156, 161, 162, 164, 166; definition, 29-32

N National Poverty Center 111 Neerhof, M 51 Nelson, B 112 Neubeck, K 4, 8, 84, 91, 92, 117, 126, 134, 135 Ng, S 54 Nickels, D 181 Nichols-Casebolt, A 138 Nobels, W 9, 10 Northcott, H 11 Nuccio, K 123

O O’Connor, J 8 Obama, B 118, 126, 128 Office of National Drug Control Policy 64, 139, 140, 176 Offner, P 75, 103 Ogbu, J 136 Olds, M 47 Orloff, A 112 Osborne, T 121, 180

216 Index other-mothering 74 Owens, D 179

P Palmer, P 6, 27, 36 Paltrow, L 52, 53, 71, 184 Parisi, P 87 Pastroe, A 73 patriarchy, 7, 13, 33, 43, 94, 99, 103, 113, 114, 115, 116, 121, 125, 129, 130, 133, 135, 139, 147, 153, 155, 159, 160, 162; racialized patriarchy 94, 99, 115-116, 125, 129, 133, 139 Pavetti, L 107, 108 Peffley, M 3, 49 Pence, M 126 Perkins, W 163 Perot, R 60 personal responsibility 55, 92, 95, 119, 122, 144, 179 Peters, B 12, Peterson, P 56 Petitti, D 51 Petri, T 179 Phillips, L 15 Pines, A 71 policy frame 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 18, 19, 22, 29, 35, 58, 82, 83, 95, 99, 112, 119, 124, 146, 166 policy targeted group 76, 119, 145, 157, 172, 173, 175, 183 Polkinghorne, D 172 Pollitt, K 151 poor, the 8, 24, 28, 29, 41, 44, 45, 47, 52, 57, 58, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 75, 87, 96, 100, 112, 113, 116, 118, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 157, 172, 180; black women 72, 81, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 115, 116, 122, 123, 134, 141, 144; racialized images 56; single mothers 107; welfare reliant 85, 86, 93, 103, 104, 109, 126; women of color 92, 98, 119 positivism, 23 Potter, J 14 poverty 24, 29, 30, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 54, 57, 58, 59, 61, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 108,

109, 111, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 125, 127, 128, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 143, 151, 152, 159, 160, 161, 165, 166, 178, 179, 180, 185, 186; feminization of 82 Powell, K 39, 163 power relations 2, 4, 14, 16, 21, 26, 48, 50, 62, 81, 91, 103, 113, 114, 116, 118, 146, 147, 152, 164, 165, 167 Primus, W 138 pregnant/parenting substance abusers 53, 61, 73, 151, 157; maternal substance 51, 99 Presidential Papers 171 production process, 6 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) 1, 3, 5, 7, 25, 30, 37, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 92, 93, 97, 104, 106, 115, 119, 124, 128, 131, 134, 135, 138, 142, 144, 145 rape 33, 39, 40, 46 Public Housing Drug Elimination Program 64

Q Quadagno, J 84 Quasthoff, U 136, 140

R race neutral 22, 68, 70 racing-gendering,1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22, 24, 26, 35, 36, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 69, 80, 81, 82, 86, 97, 102, 113, 114, 177, 122, 124, 141, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 165, 172, 175 racism 4, 8, 14, 15, 17, 52, 78, 99, 100, 103, 116, 134, 135, 143, 152, 158, 159, 160, 164 rational choice theory 2, 156, 157, 158; cost-benefit calculus 2 Radanovich, G 87 Raphael, S 75 Reagan, R 36, 43, 44, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 64, 65, 87, 88, 120, 121, 126, 128, 171, 184, 186 Reekie, G 112 Reeves, J 58 Reid, S 54 Rein, M 35, 146

Index Reinarman, C 49 rhetorical elements 21, 47, 55, 56, 60, 61, 71, 84, 86, 97, 119, 130, 175 Richardson, M 153 Riggs, F 89, 92 Riggs, M 146, 155 Roberts, D 3, 4, 9, 35, 39, 44, 47, 51, 52, 62, 63, 75, 76, 98, 123, 124, 131, 141, 151, 152 Rochefort, D 12 Rosenthal, U 156 Ross, L 147 Ross, S 17 Roukema, M 101

S Saltus, R 44 Sanchez, S 159 Sanders, L 12, 102 Sands, R 123 sapphire 6, 16, 17, 22, 24, 28, 31, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 92, 98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 115, 117, 120, 123, 125, 126, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 147, 149, 152, 156, 157, 163, 180, 181, Sarri, R, 70 Sauer, C 49 Schattschneider, E 30 Schiff, S 68 Schlesinger, B 123 Schneider, A 3, 9, 12, 30 Schoen, D 35, 146 Schorr, A 123 Schram, S, 2, 35,108 Schwartz, B, 33 Scott, D, 3 Scott, P, 158 Sedlak, M, 128 self-sufficiency 21, 95, 105, 108, 143 Sentencing Commission 68, 69 Sentencing Guidelines Disapproval Act (1995) 20, 169, 170 Sentencing Guidelines Meaningful Penalties (1995) 63, 64 Shapiro T, 115 Shaw, E 106, 124 Sheyholislami, J 10 Sikes, M 36 Silbert, M 71 Sims-Wood, J 38 single-parent see solo-parent

217

Skocpol, T 8 slavery 24, 28, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 43, 46, 87, 88, 93, 98, 111, 116, 117, 129, 144, 150 Smith, A 122 Smith, D 117, 134 Smith, D A 166 Smith, J 164 Smith, N 87 Smith, R 93, 18 Snell, T 69, 70, 71 social construction viii, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 21, 26, 28, 36, 48, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 61, 68, 71, 79, 99, 101, 119, 152, 155, 165, 184 social knowledge. see social memory social memory, 22, 28, 48, 58, 146, 157, 165 Solinger, R 4, 101, 112, 123, 131 Solomon, G 100 solo-mothering. see solo-parent solo-parent 30, 45, 82, 90, 98, 99, 108, 115, 116, 121, 125, 128, 129, 137, 143; teens 102 Sorensen, E 138 Spader, D 63 Sparks, H 4 Specter, A 125, 126 Spector, M 11 Springer, K155, 164 Steinberg, S, 3 sterlization 24, 76, 115, 116, 131, 151, 154, 159 Stinson, J 22 Stoll, M 75 Stone, D 4, 12, 35, 36, 136, 149, 156 Strauss, A 19, 20, 172 Street, B 17 substance abuse 55, 75, 106, 139, 157; women and 53, 62, 78 Sundquist, A 38 symbol:definition 29-32; functioning 11; link to discourse and power relations14-19; symbolization of black womanhood 39-46

T Tait, V 164 Talja, S 10 target populations 12, 85 Terry-Humen, E 90, 123 text 1, 4, 6, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 34, 58, 91, 104, 119, 167, 168, 172, 175

218 Index The Sentencing Project 6, 70, 84 Thomas, S 3, 113 Thomas, W 11 Thompson, M 4 Tiffany, S 92 Time 75 Tonry, M 3, 54, 75 Townes, E 15 Transitional Assistance to Needy Families, 83, 84, 97, 103, 104, 133, 137, 170 Trice, R 92 Tucker, M 114

U U.S. Congress 82; House 83, 88, 96, 109, 128, 132, 136, 142; Senate 136 U. S. Department of Health and Human Services 36, 85, 88 U. S. General Accounting Office 96, 97, 101, 107, 138 U.S. Bureau of the Census 36 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 36, 37, 49, 85, 88 U.S. Sentencing Commission 49, 64, 65, 67, 69 underclass 49, 55, 56-57, 120, 176, 180, 181; urban (black) 49, 54, 55, 56, 57, 75 University of Michigan 100 urban communities 56, 57, f66, 67, 71, 143, residesidents of 56, 57, 60 urban teen mother 6, 24, 27, 28, 31, 37, 43, 45, 46, 83, 80, 92, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 107, 108, 120, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 134, 137, 138, 144, 147, 148, 149, 152, 156, 157, 163, 177, 178, 180, 181; unwed 102

V Vance, C 51, 97 Visher, C 166

W Wacquant, L 49, 57, 62 Walker, A 36, 154, 160 Walters, R 3 War on Drugs 24, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 73, 75, 78, 109, 122, 125, 141 Wasson, R 111 Weathers, M, 162

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 20, 171 Wehner, P 89, 90, 92 Weinberg, D 107 welfare queen 2, 4, 6, 17, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31, 37, 43-45, 46, 50, 52, 59, 61, 66, 74, 77, 81, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 95, 98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 137, 142, 144, 145, 147, 149, 152, 156, 157, 163, 166, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181 Welter, B 32 Wenner, J 66 Western philosophic thought 32, 161 Western, B, 136 Wetherell, M 14 white: culture 40, 41, 44, 137, 153; domination 117; interest 59, 71; middle-class norms 136, 151; racial oppression 117; racists sentiment 141; supervision 38, 39, 42, 44, 46, 58, 78, 144; supremacy 145, 164 white women. see Euro-American women White, D 33, 38, 39, 40, 87, 97, 99, 155 White, F 26 Williams, P 1119 Williams, R 9 Williamson, J 95 Wisensale, S 131 Wodak, R 128 Wolfe, N 70 womanhood 5, 27, 28, 29, 34, 50, 51, 81, 146, 155; black womanhood vii, viii, 2, 4, 6, 13, 14, 15, 16-17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34-37, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 61, 72, 74, 78, 82, 86, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 104, 115, 116, 127, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 172, 173, 175; cult of true womanhood 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 72, 83, 94, 100, 105, 120, 129, 147, 149, 161 womanist 1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 22, 25, 36, 37, 62, 73, 142, 146, 147, 148, 153, 154, 155, 156, 167, 168, 172

Index womanism 4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 25, 48, 145, 146, 147, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161 Wynn, A 127, 128

Y Yanow, D 3, 19, 20, 23, 146, 148, 172 Young, C 60

Z Zaller, J 12 Zaretsky, E 114 Zeigler, L 8 Zibman, C 138 Zinn, M 5, 61, 111, 118 Zucchino, D 43, 88, 126 Zuckerman, B 51 Zunshine, L 112, 116

219

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