Newt Gingrich and the Racialization of Povery

I'm sick and tired of your Welfare Queens!

Well, it’s that time of the year again folks. Yes. The time when you begin to hear the bullshit spewing from your nice flat screen television sets in the form of political campaign advertisements. Although, this will be my third presidential election as a registered voter in this great country we call the United States of America, I loathe the circus that accompanies presidential campaigns and it really gets on my damn nerves. Every election year I get the privilege of hearing some presidential candidate or their political asshole counterparts disparage African-Americans in their presidential speeches, debates, or interviews. In every presidential election (or any other election for that matter) to no avail, some politician puts his foot in his mouth. I’ve always appreciated a little honesty in my politicians so it disheartens me when they recant or try to re-conceptualize any racist and/or ignorant remarks they are confronted about.

One politician who has been very truthful this past week is our good ole friend, Republican presidential frontrunner, Newt Gingrich. Although, the label of Republican should have been enough of a harbinger to warn me of the ignorance to come I believe in giving all people the benefit of the doubt. Newt Gingrich informed America (and he’s not the first or the last) of just how little he views Blacks, in the form of productive employed citizens who contribute to the prosperity of America, by his comments from two days ago. Gingrich stated:

"And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span."

Translation of Newty's words: “I want to talk to the NAACP (because this is somehow the only Black organization in the U.S. which addresses the concerns of Blacks) about why Blacks don’t get up off their lazy asses and work and not be content with draining the American economy by settling for food stamps.” Sigh. Oh, Newty Newt Newt Newt, your poor feeble ill-informed and adulterated mind needs some refreshment of the facts. I’m so sick of Republican presidential candidates placating the racial stereotypes of white Americans at the expense of Blacks to get elected or re-elected. They do it in every presidential election but then turn around and wonder why Black people won’t vote for their racist asses and they are completely comfortable with it because it allows them to continue to be racist since they can pretty much count on not getting Black votes.

To set the record straight White people receive more food stamps than Blacks in this country so I’m confused (not really) as to why Gingrich chose to single out Blacks, implying that we somehow value food stamps over paychecks. In fact, there are more poor Whites in this country than poor Blacks but of course Newty would not dare challenge the reigning racial narrative of poverty being linked with minorities, specifically Blacks, by stating the truth because he wouldn’t get elected. Also, Newty would never address the discrimination, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, the slow economic recovery in Black communities and the elimination of public sector jobs that allowed a middle-class existence for Blacks as crucial elements in the high Black unemployment rate.

The racialization of poverty and public aid has given politicians the luxury of denying Blacks the benefits of citizenship, a citizenry whose needs should be addressed, by implying that we are complicit in bringing about the circumstances which cause our unemployment or impoverished status. It’s because Blacks are lazy, incompetent and content with being leeches of society as reasons why we are unemployed and on food stamps; it is never because of the laws put in place by a fucked up Congress for the past 30+ years that allowed for lax business practices, corporate tax loopholes, and fickle banking and financial institutions that caused an economic recession. Nope, those reasons are only reserved for White people because it’s the government’s fault whenever unemployment is high for Whites, as the members of the Tea Party so kindly reminded us. Newty is a very desperate man at this point in the race, maybe someone will throw him the lifesaver of truth but if not I'm content with watching him and his draconian views of poverty drown.