Left Coast Reparations Committee Wants Apology for Reagan saying "Welfare Queen"

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California's reparations task force is calling on the Golden State to issue a formal apology for former Gov. Ronald Reagan coining the term "welfare queen"

The task force says Reagan deployed the remark when he served as the governor of California from January 1967 to January 1975. However, the term "welfare queen" became popularized when Reagan used it during the 1976 presidential campaign after he left the governor's mansion.

The so-called "welfare queen" referred to a mixed-race woman named Linda Taylor, according to a 2019 biography that portrayed her as a con artist and criminal. While Taylor was prosecuted for welfare fraud and reportedly abused the system, critics argue she wasn't a good example of a typical welfare rule breaker and her story was used to fuel stereotypes. The task force argues that "welfare queen" is a racist term to denigrate primarily single Black women who live on government benefits.

"This terminology conjures stereotypes of single Black women as hypersexualized, aggressive, and dependent on government income with frivolous spending habits," the report states. "Despite that the majority of welfare recipients are white, this racist label blamed African American women for shortfalls in the United States' social safety net and suggested they were more responsible for their poverty than others."

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