3
racism). These data are less useful suggesting that individual outcomes are attributable
race-neutral practices fail to account for pre-existing racial disadvantages and end up
reinforcing racial inequities (i.e., the “new” racism). It is not surprising that some data
about racial disparities under welfare reform lend themselves more to some
interpretations than others.
In addition, both the categories for data and the accompanying interpretations
affect and are affected by possibility of taking action (Stone 2000). For instance, the data
categories and interpretations for welfare policy are critically connected to assumptions
about the role of individual and collective responsibility in affecting the condition
described (O’Connor 2001). For example, findings about higher recidivism rates for
nonwhites who have left welfare can be interpreted as the result of actions primarily by
either recipients or policymakers depending upon how these outcomes are narrated. In the
extreme, interpretations will assume the best about policymakers and the worst about
recipients or vise versa, implying who should be held accountable for such disparities and
what should be done about them. Yet, the goal is not to be extremist in one’s use of
narrative interpretations of welfare policy, but instead to find those interpretations that
will best narrate how race works in welfare policy in ways that will enable us to most
effectively deal with its consequences.
In what follows, I review the burgeoning research regarding racial disparities in
contemporary welfare reform in light of the multiple interpretations that can be made of
these data. I systematically go through the data turning from one interpretive perspective
to another as appropriate. I note that some findings can be read as suggesting that neither
forms of the “old” or “new” racism are involved in creating disparities between blacks
Convention