Even though welfare was a sliver of the federal budget and served at least as many white people as black, the rhetorical weight of the welfare stereotype—the idea of a black person getting for free what white people had to work for—helped sink white support for all government. The idea tapped into an old stereotype of black laziness that was first trafficked in the antebellum era to excuse and minimize slavery and was then carried forward in minstrel shows, cartoons, and comedy to the present day.
