Abstract
In The Price of Progressive Politics: The Welfare Rights Movement in an Era of Colorblind Racism, Rose Ernst uses theories of identity politics, intersectionality, and social movement theory to discuss the tenuous position of the contemporary welfare rights movement in the United States. Ernst begins with a look at the 1966 creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and the National Organization for Women (NOW). Referencing the intersection between gender, class, and race that marginalizes the welfare population, she argues that the different constituencies and strategies of these two women’s groups affected the success of welfare rights advocates in the 1970s, and that these differences continue to disadvantage the welfare rights movement. For example, NOW represented predominantly middle-class, white women, while NWRO represented predominantly poor, African American women. These differences affected things like the two groups’ divergent definitions of “dependence.” While NOW sought employment reforms to create opportunities for women to gain economic independence from men, it was hard for NWRO’s poor women of color to imagine empowerment from their most common employment opportunities: cleaning, doing laundry, or watching other women’s children. Those in NWRO recognized their marginalization at the intersection of gender, poverty, and race, but these were not the issues on the agenda of NOW, and in fact, the successes enjoyed by NOW would continue to leave welfare mothers behind.
Against this backdrop, Ernst explains two concepts of colorblindness that frame discussions of welfare. First is traditional colorblindness, in which human problems like poverty are imagined to transcend race and systemic racism. Second, Ernst introduces the concept of cosmetic colorblindness in which race is taken into account but is simply considered one among many traits and not an important impediment to social justice in its own right. The problem with cosmetic colorblindness is that those in welfare rights groups, especially white women in these groups, see race but not racism; rather, they minimize the importance of race as a key factor affecting the structure and implementation of the welfare system. Ernst argues that a more deliberate race consciousness frame is required of those seeking social justice on issues of poverty and welfare.
Using a series of 49 in-depth interviews with leaders of welfare rights organizations in eight states across the nation, Ernst investigates the differences in welfare/poverty frames used by those of different races and in different states/regions. Her interviews expose the problem of both traditional and cosmetic colorblindness among welfare rights leaders, particularly white leaders, that ignores the intersectional nature of marginalization among welfare parents. For example, for many of her white interviewees, gender is the reference point, while for others, class is the reference point. Although the intersection of gender, class, and race is identified as an important barrier to social justice by women of color interviewees, white women rarely frame the problem with the same level of race and class consiousness. In fact, with one exception, intersectionality is only identified by white women in a single welfare rights organization in Minneapolis; further, all of the white women in the Minneapolis organization use the frame of intersecting points of marginalization. This finding leads Ernst to look more deeply into the structure and culture of this unique welfare rights organization. Not surprisingly, she finds that it differs from the other seven groups in her study: the Minneapolis organization has a flat, almost leaderless structure in which women of multiple racial backgrounds form the core; the organization’s culture facilitates the honest reflections about race, class, and gender that Ernst argues are required to generate social change over time.
One important criticism of The Price of Progressive Politics is its lack of context and detail about the contemporary welfare rights movement. Ernst spends less than two pages discussing the contemporary movement in Chapter One; a more thorough discussion of when these organizations were formed, what are their strategies, and what are their goals was needed. Further, the short discussion she includes is a bit confusing. For example, she dates the contemporary movement at 2006 on page 11, but in her concluding chapter refers to the national Welfare Rights Coalition beginning in 1996 with the end of Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It is not until the final chapter that she discusses the 1996 welfare system reforms, including the important switch from a fairly unified, federal entitlement program to a block granted program, essentially implemented as 50 separate state programs. As Ernst notes, these changes have important implications for the efforts of welfare rights organizations, especially at the national level. Readers without a good deal of prior knowledge about the welfare system will be at a disadvantage in understanding the full scope of her argument.
Rose Ernst has undertaken this study in a period of welfare rights movement abeyance—when issues of welfare and poverty are not on government agendas and these groups can do little more than seek to protect existing programs and rights. It is, however, an important time to bring to light the intersectionality that marginalizes welfare populations, because the fallout from the Great Recession is quite likely to put issues of poverty and the welfare system back on the radar of both politicians and the public. Those interested in issues of social justice and poverty policy should use Ernst’s findings to better understand these problems and conceptualize workable solutions to this complex system.
Throughout the book, Ernst uses Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” trope as the perfect incarnation of the welfare system’s intersectionality: in the public conscience, a welfare recipient is a poor, African American woman dependent on society’s largesse. The enduring nature of this image speaks to the veracity of Ernst’s argument.