Welfare Woes

Many Americans depend on governmental assistance but it is often not talked about publically, that assistance is welfare. After reading Sandra Golden’s "Black and on Welfare: What You Don't Know About Single-Parent Women", I realize that welfare can be used as a stability for people who get caught in a dilemma in their lives such as Golden who tells about her situation of being a young, single mother and not having the ends to provide her and her child. She decides to get assistance from the welfare system. Welfare is a government based assistant to help those who are in need. I am not or was not aware of how welfare worked but honestly when I hear that term I think of poor black families even though that is not the case. Golden says she "felt dehumanized and humiliated." This was because she was categorized as a "typical" black woman on welfare: had a child, no husband and couldn't get a job due to laziness or lack of education. These stereotypes unfortunately are placed on many black women, young and older, who are on welfare. Welfare is not talked about but is often joked about in movies and television shows depict the people being on it as embarrassed therefore putting a negative connotation on it as to say that being on welfare is a bad thing and that it shouldn’t be. If a person has a tough circumstance that leads them to opt for welfare, it shouldn’t be looked down on. I have an older cousin who has three children and she is 24. She is not married and she doesn’t have a job and or a house of her own so she stays with different family members time to time. She needed welfare because it was hard for her to find a job. Welfare can be helpful to those in need so I think that the negativity it gets doesn’t do it justice for the help it provides for many.
-Candice Frazier