In her book “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that elites undermined the civil rights agenda by portraying the poverty and unrest in black inner-city communities in the 1960s as the product of inferior black culture (p. 45). Alexander has a very different idea about the cause, blaming it on globalization and suburbanization, which moved jobs out of cities (p. 50-51). Conservatives, however, succeed in what Birkland (2015) calls social construction, or “selling a broad population on the definition” of a particular problem (p. 188). In building this social construction, Ronald Reagan appealed to white audiences with terms such as “welfare queens” and “predators” (Alexander, 2010, p. 48). Reagan’s terms were symbols, which Cochran and Malone (2010) note are often ambiguous, making it possible to broaden an idea by “appealing to people with diverse motivations and values” (p.
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So, while Reagan did not identify welfare queens and predators specifically as blacks, the white public made the leap from blacks to welfare cheats and criminals. Instead of the job programs Alexander (2010) would have prescribed (p. 218), the conservative elite created a justification to shift resources from welfare that served “undeserving” blacks to fighting drug crime in black communities (p. 48-49). Alexander argues that the War on Drugs led to a surge in the prison population that was disproportionately black (p. 6). A Pew study supports her claim, finding that 1 in 100 adults was incarcerated in 2008 and that “while one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine” (Pew Center on the States, 2008, p. 3). Those labeled felons are denied jobs and other means to improve their economic condition (Alexander, 2010, pp. 149-150). Even by 1984, black unemployment was higher in than it was before civil
So, while Reagan did not identify welfare queens and predators specifically as blacks, the white public made the leap from blacks to welfare cheats and criminals. Instead of the job programs Alexander (2010) would have prescribed (p. 218), the conservative elite created a justification to shift resources from welfare that served “undeserving” blacks to fighting drug crime in black communities (p. 48-49). Alexander argues that the War on Drugs led to a surge in the prison population that was disproportionately black (p. 6). A Pew study supports her claim, finding that 1 in 100 adults was incarcerated in 2008 and that “while one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine” (Pew Center on the States, 2008, p. 3). Those labeled felons are denied jobs and other means to improve their economic condition (Alexander, 2010, pp. 149-150). Even by 1984, black unemployment was higher in than it was before civil