2026-10-06T06:30:00-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
2026年10月6日 / 美国东部时间早上6:30 / 美联社
_阿肯色州小石城——阿肯色州州长莎拉·哈克比·桑德斯发布的一段新视频，本是推广该州针对医疗补助计划参保者更严格规则的标准共和党宣传内容。她表示，身强力壮的人不能一边领取纳税人资助的医保，一边无所事事——他们必须工作。
但这段视频将一名失业的“吃白食者”塑造成名为布拉德的年轻白人、狂吃芝士汉堡的游戏玩家，这一设定上周激怒了一些保守派评论员。罗纳德·里根在50年前普及了“福利女王”这一刻板印象，将不工作却过着奢侈生活的人妖魔化，如今这些评论人士不禁质疑，为何视频里的反派不是黑人女性。
“共和党人没胆子用‘莎妮夸’当反派拍这种广告，”保守派作家马特·沃尔什发帖称，“尽管这才是对当下问题的准确刻画。”
联邦党网站联合创始人肖恩·戴维斯写道：“几十年来，我们的政府一直在系统性歧视白人男性，如今却竟敢不诚实地将年轻白人男性嘲讽为‘福利女王’。”
暂且不提这段视频针对的是医疗补助计划而非福利，也暂且不提阿肯色州大多数医疗补助计划参保者都是白人。《厌恶政治与“福利女王”的公共身份》一书作者安吉-玛丽·汉考克表示，这场愤怒提醒人们，旧刻板印象在部分选民心中仍是“长期挥之不去”的形象。
她认为，阿肯色州的这段视频本想吸引家中有失业成年子女的老年选民。但汉考克说，保守派只能将焦点放在种族问题上，因为将黑人塑造成福利滥用者的说法，几十年来一直对他们奏效。
“种族与性别化历史长久以来都在强化一种观念，即非洲裔美国人懒惰，行事不当，”她说。
在社交媒体上发酵的这场辩论，是保守派近期纠结于种族主义观点的最新例证。上个月，得克萨斯州一名名为博·弗伦奇的政治候选人发帖称，得克萨斯大学橄榄球比赛上欢呼的非白人学生“问题显然比任何人想象的都要严重得多”。一些共和党人谴责弗伦奇的帖子，而那些担忧美国人口结构变化的人则对此表示支持。
桑德斯的竞选经理乔丹·鲍威尔表示，今年将寻求连任的桑德斯“为这段广告辩护”。
“我们绝不应该从辛勤工作的阿肯色州民众手中没收钱财，转交给那些根本就选择不工作的人，”鲍威尔在发给美联社的电子邮件声明中说道。
对援助项目的误解依然存在
“福利女王”刻板印象常被用于推动限制公共援助项目的政策。
1976年里根竞选总统期间，曾抱怨芝加哥有一名女性用“80个姓名、30个地址、12张社会保障卡”钻制度空子。这个故事经过了美化，但里根在1980年入主白宫后，确实推动了公共援助项目的改革。
《性别评判：流行文化中女性如何被聚焦与沉默》一书作者艾莉森·巴特勒表示，这场辩论延续了一个强大的神话，即少数族裔女性正在骗取政府援助。
“当你拆解这个叙事，试图找到其源头时……根本不存在那种不肯找工作、拥有多台电视和奔驰车的少数族裔女性，”巴特勒说。
全国有色人种协进会阿肯色州分会主席巴里·杰斐逊谴责桑德斯的广告，称其将低收入人群贬低为刻板印象，将贫困视为一种缺陷。他说，这忽略了无论种族如何，低收入人群都面临着诸多复杂因素，这些因素让他们更难自给自足。
“我们绝不应该因为那些寻求帮助却未达到你们标准的人，就背弃他们，”杰斐逊说道。
数据揭示了部分人眼中出人意料的实情
医疗补助计划于1965年作为联邦与州联合医保项目启动，为收入有限的人群提供免费或低成本医保覆盖，包括老年人、儿童或无法工作的残疾成年人。根据医疗补助计划官网数据，截至今年6月，已有近6600万人参保。
根据研究机构KFF2024年的数据，0至64岁的参保者中，超过38%为白人，近19%为黑人。
今年，根据特朗普总统2025年大规模减税与政策法案，美国多地开始为部分医疗补助计划参保者增设工作要求。包括阿肯色州在内的几个共和党领导的州，正在超出法律要求的范围打击欺诈行为，例如要求那些因身体过于虚弱无法工作的人提供更多证明材料。
今年7月，桑德斯软启动了一项强制规定：19至64岁的健康人群，每月至少需工作、志愿服务或上学80小时，才能继续留在阿肯色州医疗与机会计划（简称ARHOME）的参保名单中。
阿肯色州政治咨询与民意调查机构Impact Management Group的管理合伙人罗伯特·库恩表示，福利工作要求政策在阿肯色州普遍受到支持。
但他说，建议广告中的人物应该是黑人，是“公然的种族主义”且“不符合事实”。
根据阿肯色州人类服务部最近的数据，ARHOME的参保者中约60%为白人，约18%为黑人。
右翼关于美国黑人和公共援助的言论，往往忽略了几代结构性种族主义如何造成了经济差距，进而导致少数族裔在这些项目中的参与比例过高。
总体而言，使用医疗补助计划和补充营养援助计划（即食品券）等社会服务项目的黑人人数少于白人。但黑人占美国总人口的比例约为13%，却是所有种族群体中代表性过度最严重的。他们分别占医疗补助计划和食品券参保者的18.5%和25%。
这些数据反映了贫困黑人社区摆脱贫困、积累代际财富的道路极为艰难。
阿肯色州民主党国会候选人克里斯·琼斯是黑人，他在依靠食品券的家庭中长大。他在发给美联社的声明中表示，福利领取者不是“在寻找逃避工作的办法”，而是“在寻找前进的道路”。
琼斯说，更大的问题不在于种族，而在于“为何如此多辛勤工作的人仍在挣扎，难以负担食品、住房、医疗保健和生活基本必需品”。
Campaign ad showing lazy welfare recipient as White sparks conservative backlash
2026-10-06T06:30:00-0400 / CBS News
October 6, 2026 / 6:30 AM EDT / AP
Little Rock, Ark.— A new video from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was standard issue Republican messaging for promoting her state’s stricter rules for people on Medicaid. No more could able-bodied people lounge around while receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare, she said — they needed to work.
But the decision to portray an unemployed moocher as a young, White, cheeseball-chomping gamer named Brad upset some conservative commentators last week. Five decades after Ronald Reagan popularized the “welfare queen” trope about people living luxuriously while not working, they wanted to know why the video wasn’t featuring a Black woman instead.
“Republicans don’t have the balls to do this ad with ‘Shaniqua’ as the villain,” posted Matt Walsh, a conservative writer. “Even though that would actually be an accurate portrayal of the problem at hand.”
Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist website, wrote that “our government has systematically discriminated against White men for decades now, and yet now has the audacity to dishonestly mock young White men as welfare queens.”
Never mind that the video was about Medicaid and not welfare, or that most Medicaid recipients in Arkansas are White. The outrage was a reminder of how old tropes are “chronically accessible” images in some voters’ minds, said Ange-Marie Hancock, author of “The Politics of Disgust and the Public Identity of the ‘Welfare Queen.’”
She thinks the Arkansas video was supposed to appeal to older voters living with unemployed adult children. But conservatives could only focus on race, Hancock said, because the idea of a Black welfare abuser has worked for them for decades.
“The longer race and gendered history really points to ideas that African Americans are lazy, they don’t do the right thing,” she said.
The debate that streaked across social media was the latest example of how conservatives have recently wrestled with racist views. Last month, a Texas political candidate named Bo French posted a picture of nonWhite students cheering at a University of Texas football game, saying “the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Some Republicans denounced French’s post, while it was embraced by those who fear the country’s changing demographics.
Sanders, who is running for reelection this year, “stands by the ad,” said Jordan Powell, her campaign manager.
“We should never confiscate money from hard-working Arkansans to give it away to those who simply choose not to work at all,” Powell told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.
Misconceptions about assistance programs persist
The “welfare queen” trope is often used to advance restrictions on public assistance programs.
While unsuccessfully running for president in 1976, Reagan complained about a woman in Chicago who was using “80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards” to game the system. The story was embellished, but Reagan worked to reshape public assistance programs after winning the White House in 1980.
Allison Butler, author of “The Judgment of Gender: How Women are Centered and Silenced in Pop Culture,” said the debate perpetuated a powerful myth that women of color were siphoning government assistance.
“When you deconstructed that narrative and actually tried to find the source of it … there was no woman of color who wouldn’t get a job and had multiple televisions and a Mercedes-Benz,” Butler said.
Barry Jefferson, president of the NAACP Arkansas State Conference, has condemned the Sanders ad for reducing low-income people to a stereotype where poverty is seen as a flaw. It ignores the complexities that make it harder for low-income people, regardless of race, to support themselves, he said.
“We shouldn’t betray anyone because they are asking for help and they don’t meet your standards,” Jefferson said.
The numbers tell what for some is an unexpected story
Created in 1965 as a joint federal and state health insurance program, Medicaid offers free or low-cost medical coverage to people with limited income including the elderly, children, or adults with disabilities who cannot work. Nearly 66 million people were enrolled in Medicaid as of June, according to the Medicaid.gov website.
Over 38% of beneficiaries between the ages of 0-64 are White, according to 2024 data from research organization KFF. Nearly 19% are Black.
More work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries kicked in across the U.S. this year under President Trump’s big 2025 tax cut and policy law. A handful of Republican-led states, including Arkansas, are going beyond what the law calls for to prevent fraud including demanding more documentation if someone is too medically frail to work.
In July, Sanders soft-launched mandating that healthy people ages 19 to 64 find work, volunteer or attend school at least 80 hours per month to stay in the Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me Medicaid program, or ARHOME.
Robert Coon, managing partner at Impact Management Group, a political consulting and public-opinion firm with an Arkansas office, said that welfare work requirement policy is generally favored in Arkansas.
But suggestions the person in the ad should be Black are “overtly racist” and “inaccurate,” Coon said.
About 60% of ARHOME recipients are White and around 18% are Black, according to recent data from the state Department of Human Services.
Right-wing rhetoric about Black Americans and public assistance often ignores how generations of structural racism have produced economic disparities that contribute to their disproportionate participation in these programs.
Fewer Black people than White people overall use social service programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. But at roughly 13% of the U.S. population, Black people make up the largest overrepresentation of any racial group. They are 18.5% and 25%, respectively, of Medicaid and SNAP recipients.
Those statistics reflect an extremely difficult road for poor Black communities looking to rise out of poverty and build generational wealth.
Arkansas Democratic congressional candidate Chris Jones, who is Black, grew up in a family relying on food stamps. A welfare recipient is not “looking for a way out of work,” but “for a way forward,” he told the AP in a statement.
The bigger question, Jones said, is not about race but “why so many people who are working hard still struggle to afford groceries, housing, healthcare and the basic necessities of life.”