![]() ![]() The family frequently lied about her race, as telling the truth could have made her mother guilty of a felony. She had been conceived in Alabama, where, at the time, sexual relations between white and black people were illegal and punishable by prison time. ![]() Linda Taylor was born in 1926 as Martha Louise White in Golddust, Tennessee to a white woman named Lydia Mooney White. By examining her reality, we can finally question the very concept of a welfare queen and deconstruct a myth spun out of selective details. The strength of The Queen lies in Levin’s meticulous scouring of the historical record to paint a picture of a woman who was infuriatingly difficult to pin down during her lifetime, resurrecting a biography of the person who would become the ur–welfare queen. Meanwhile, it ignored both the racism and sexism she faced throughout her life, as well as the far more horrific crimes she perpetrated-crimes that were simply of no political use to the men who wielded her story like a weapon. And it was all based on one arguably minor facet of an actual woman’s complex life: her use of fake names and fake sob stories to get public benefits. ![]()
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