MIM NOTES No. 190  July 15, 1999

Who was the welfare system made for?
by a South Carolina prisoner

Welfare is probably the biggest element since slavery that has 
held our people back. Welfare is a crutch: it makes people 
dependents. Welfare has a glass ceiling on it. You can only get 
this and further, all you can get is whatever they give you. There 
is no overtime. You canÕt pick up a second job and do a little 
better. You canÕt get married and have somebody to come in and 
bring in several incomes, and yÕall pool together yÕall resources 
and have a better [standard of] living. The only way you can 
increase your pay is when you increase your lay. You have to go 
out there and have anther baby. They got us so brain washed until 
[female welfare recipients] be saying, ÒWell Damn, I make $470 and 
Kiesha thinks sheÕs somethinÕ cause she makes $540. But when I 
have my baby, IÕm gonna be gettin $565.Ó ThatÕs the mentality, 
baby.

IÕm a product of welfare. I know what it did to my family. IÕm not 
just talking about my immediate family, but three generations. 
Welfare does not make you independent. You donÕt wanna get up off 
your behind and go get it. All you wanna do is sit around and have 
sex with different guys and wait for that check.

I would feel bad if you couldnÕt come up to me and say that I said 
something to save your life or I would love for a woman to write 
me saying that I inspired them to get off welfare and not depend 
on a man to earn a living. Some people would never understand 
life. Some people may think that itÕs all about welfare and not 
working, but its not. Because it takes two to raise a child, just 
like it takes two to make one. 

I have a child, and I know a lot of women out there who are single 
mothers. My point with this story was to give a lot of brothers 
out there something to think about. My understanding of the 
failure of the welfare system comes not from any particular 
political orientation, but from my experiences growing up as part 
of the welfare system. 

MIM responds: We agree with this writer that the welfare system in 
the u.s. is not set up to make people independent. This welfare 
system is one tool of national oppression of the internal semi-
colonies. Welfare pays just enough to keep recipients from openly 
protesting imperialism.

Welfare gains the imperialists the allegiance of some. But the 
huge growth in prisons targets the same population that is on 
welfare, as does the occupying army of police. Seeing these as 
unified elements of a semi-colonial system, many people in the 
oppressed nations within u.s. borders can be won over to the side 
of the international proletariat. 

While the white nation benefits with high wages other perks like 
cheap consumer goods, the government still has to deal with the 
oppressed nations who are disproportionately on welfare. By 
offering this redistribution of the superprofits stolen from the 
Third World, the u.s. government has successfully kept many 
potential revolutionaries off the streets and in the welfare line. 

MIMÕs answer to this problem with the welfare system is to call on 
people on welfare to use your time to organize for revolution. See 
MIMÕs essay ÒOn the internal class structures of the internal 
semi-coloniesÓ at 
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5973/internalclass3.ht
m or order a copy from MIM for more on the economic relations of 
the internal semi-colonies within u.$. borders.