Black and on Welfare: What You Don't Know About Single Parent Women

The introduction to this chapter reflects on a personal experience of a 20 year old black woman taking her first trip to the welfare office. The welfare system belittled this woman the moment she walked out of the office to a feeling of dehumanization and humiliation. Although the welfare building built as an aid from the government given to those who need extra help, I feel that it is similar to charity. The welfare system allows many young women to get over on society because they will choose not to work and instead sit at home and wait for checks. They do not realize that the money that is being handed to them is being taken out of a hard working individuals check. Some women do not even us the money or assisstance they are being given to better themselves and their family, but instead expect it as a way to get by, some even sell food stamps. There are many women who do take welfare as an advantage because of the absence of their spouse. They are either in the process of looking for a job or have one but it does not pay that much. Welfare often times does not acknowledge black womens ability. Their history in school and functional literacy may be grade A, but they have been automatically degraded because of thier need of assisstance.
I have the greatest amount of honor and respect for single parent black women especially with all of the statistics that are going around today. It is very rare to see families together let alone married now a days, and if they are the household is often times "disfuntional". This means that the kids are out of control or there is step father taking the place of the father that has abandoned his children. Although the stpe father may care for the children, a lot of black women carry too much pride where they just feel like they don't need a man to do anything for this. In this article it talked about how black women place a strong value on church involvement. Independent mothers relationship with God is a sense of hope maybe even relief, but is generally a cry for guidance. Their connection to the church helps to build their confidence to be strong leaders and role models in our society.