Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ welfare ad featuring a white man sparked outrage, but isn’t that accurate?
TheGrio...
Conservatives are outraged by Sarah Huckabee Sanders making a white man the face of welfare, but data shows there may be some truth to her ad.
This week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) is facing waves of criticism after releasing a new advertisement spotlighting her new anti-welfare initiative. The advertisement spotlights a white man named Brad, a fictional character intended to illustrate welfare abuse.
“Brad has turned relaxing into a full-time profession, but you? You actually work hard. You pay taxes to cover welfare for guys like Brad, who just choose not to work. That’s why I launched a welfare-to-work requirement,” Huckabee Sanders is heard saying in the commercial.
And while the video showcases Brad getting a job and no longer needing government assistance, a number of right-wing conservatives raised issues with the Arkansas governor’s advertisements, specifically her choice to use a white man to be the face of welfare.
“Terrible ad that is so dishonest and insulting that it will entirely overshadow the genuinely great policy,” journalist Sean Davis wrote on X.
While conservatives are outraged by the choice to use young white men as a “punching bag,” U.S. data shows that her portrayal may be more accurate than the traditional Black welfare queen stereotype that has persisted for years.
Recently published data revealed that white Americans made up 61.1% of SNAP recipients, while Black Americans only made up 28.7% of recipients. Similarly, Census data from 2022 found that White communities made up 62.8% of SNAP recipients and Black recipients 28.1%. Despite white demographics making up the majority of recipients of government aid programs, for years, Black and minority communities have been the face of these programs. As previously reported by theGrio’s Kay Wicker, the term “welfare queen” first emerged during Reagan’s presidential campaign. Despite being inspired by a real woman who identified as white and only checked herself as Black when it benefited her, the term “welfare queen” has long held racial undertones, often portrayed as a Black woman milking the system to sustain a lavish lifestyle.
While Huckabee Sanders’ choice to use a white character to depict someone on welfare is accurate in the context of the United States, in Arkansas, Black communities are the primary recipients of SNAP benefits (22%) according to a study by Aspire Arkansas.
However, the wave of outrage does not point to the data, but rather what they deem to be an attack of on the conservative manosphere, which is known to follow toxic masculinity beliefs, oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion, and more, that has grown throughout President Trump’s second term. Some critics said outright who they believed should have been cast instead. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh suggested a Black woman would have been a more “accurate portrayal of the problem at hand.” That is exactly the stereotype the data contradicts.
Huckabee Sanders, for her part, hasn’t backed down. In a follow-up post on X, she wrote, “Some critics online don’t like my welfare work requirement ad,” and kept promoting the policy.
Decades after Reagan popularized the “welfare queen,” the backlash to Brad shows how durable that image remains. For some on the right, the problem wasn’t the message about welfare. It was who was pictured receiving it.