2.5 ( )

In the 70s Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan began telling a story about a welfare queen out of Chicago who drove Cadillacs and scammed the system. The story he told was true, her name was Linda Taylor who could look white, African American, or Hispanic with a change of a wig.

The issue was Reagan kept enhancing this story and began painting a whole race (using dog whistles) as welfare recipients who were lazy and scamming the system.

This great book shares two stories- Linda Taylor we had several aliases and did indeed scam a system even to the point of murder.

The other story is Reagan’s story as he moved from governor to President by criticizing the welfare system while using and popularizing the idea of the welfare queen to encourage systemic racism.

I really loved this as Linda’s story is fascinating, but it was the first real negative picture of the Reagan Presidency in a long time. Some how he has become a sainted President, but he had some whammies. ( )

If you grew up in the US in the 1970s, you may remember Ronald Reagan’s first run for the presidency in 1976, during which he frequently referred to a “welfare queen” living in Chicago, who gamed the system such that she had numerous houses, cars, fur coats, etc., etc., all the proceeds of fraud on the federal welfare system. Well, “The Queen” is that woman’s story - going by the name Linda Taylor, she actually had some 10 or 12 aliases, not to mention numerous birth dates, parents, children, husbands, living situations and races. In reality, she was born in 1926 in the US South, the product of a white woman and black man (whose sexual union was literally illegal at the time). Because of her mixed race, her family largely rejected her, and she grew up all over the southern part of the country, with various family and non-family members and very little (if any) education. Her life of crime began long before the 1970s, when she was identified and prosecuted as a welfare cheat, charges that eventually led to her incarceration for a little over two years; but she may also have been a kidnapper, a bigamist, an “ordinary” thief (of other peoples’ property) and, not least, a murderer. Journalist Josh Levin has waded through thousands of documents, all meticulously laid out in the notes and bibliography sections of this book - indeed, in my Kindle edition I discovered that I still had some 20% of the book left to read when the story was done, that last 20% of the volume being devoted to sources and thank-yous. A really fascinating tale, rather heartbreaking when you think about this woman’s life, utterly impoverished in terms of human contact, love and acceptance - no wonder she felt entitled to take what she wanted, as she’d been deprived of so much. Recommended. ( )

Interesting but not at all what I was trying to read. ( )

She was born Martha Louise White in Arkansas. She became well-known as Linda Taylor, a grifter and a cheat, and the subject of Ronald Reagan’s oft-told story of “the welfare queen” of Chicago. At her death in Florida in 2002, she was called Constance Lloyd. She was a con artist, a kidnapper, perhaps even a murderer.

In The Queen Josh Levin tells the story of Martha / Linda / Constance, and there is a lot of story to tell. Levin first wrote about Linda Taylor in a 2013 article for Slate, the magazine for which he is editor. Six years later came this book. I am sure it took that long just to sift through publicly available information and piece together the life of a woman who changed names, ages, races, husbands, life stories and locations so often it boggles the mind.

At the same time, this book is also the story of how politicians, including Reagan, used the specter of "welfare fraud" as a career stepping stone from the 1970s through the 1990s. Levin sets off the true story and scope of Linda Taylor's crimes against the decimation of the welfare safety net that was accomplished through the political drumbeats of "welfare reform" in which a part of her life story became caught up. While Levin draws no overt conclusion in the book, it's clear he comes down on the side of believing that welfare reform has done more harm than good.

I rate this book 3 Stars - I liked this book. If your interests are similar to mine, you might like it too. ( )