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Policy: The Bible and Welfare Reform
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for their children, since they are believed to be guilty of immorality the
moment that they are born poor and black.
The tone of this analysis patronizingly treats these mothers like chil
dren who can perhaps be taught to do better. “We,” the good people, pre
sumably the middle-class people, who are repeatedly juxtaposed to the
“welfare mothers,” can try to teach them better values by saying “no” to
them. Stripping “AFDC mothers” of the same human proclivities that
uwe” have in relation to mothering and morality in the ways noted above
solidifies their inferior status. Therefore, it is taken for granted that the
t ights and privileges of “our” superiority to “welfare mothers” include
exerting control over them. “We” have the right and even the responsi
bility to tell them how to behave. Who is this “we”? It is those who have
umiddle-class values” to teach, those who in no way resemble that black
silhouette with the Afro hairstyle and wide nose.
These ideas about poor black mothers confound a common stereo
typed notion of women that Christianity has reinforced. Feminist social
critics often comment that Western cultures, steeped in Christian influ
ences, cast women in one of two categories: madonna or whore. This
ippraisal is based upon the rigid cultural distinction between women who
.ire preoccupied with motherhood (usually revered) and those who are
preoccupied with being sexually active in exchange for financial reward
(usually scorned). Expressed in the terms of more popular Christian inter
pretations of the gospels, there is a significant difference between sinless
Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the sinner Mary Magdalene, who many
(
Christian legends describe as a reformed prostitute.27 However, in the
de rogatory characterizations of poor women in welfare reform debates,
motherhood and prostitution are meshed together for poor women. This
merger could have something to do with the way in which the Christian-
I>;ised, sexist dichotomy has been altered when referring to black women.
Instead of madonna or whore, black women have had to contend with
being labeled stereotypically either as mammy or Jezebel. “Mammy” is a
Libel derived from slavery, referring to enslaved black women who cared
lor the white children of slave masters. Could it be that when poor black
women care for their own children, they lose their eligibility for the cat
egory of mammy and automatically fall into the category of Jezebel/
whore/prostitute?
Ii) create momentum for welfare reform in the 1990s, some proponents
<>1regulating poor women asserted that single, poor women and girls become
mothers for the purpose of attaining welfare money Representative Tom