Presenter: Dana Glasscock
Faculty Mentor: Sharon Luk, Jamie Bufalino
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Social Science
Major: History, English
The phenomenon of “crack babies” as a public concern addressed by state policies and media focus serves as an example of how intersections between racial ideology, women’s reproductive rights, and state policies frequently functions in a way that negatively and disproportionately affects African American women. Examining the specific historical backdrop of “crack babies” highlights how the issue and state-sanctioned response disproportionally targeted African American women’s reproduction, laying the foundation for understanding how this moment functioned as a concrete effect of negative racial ideology. In the 1980s and 1990s “crack epidemic,” media focused on crack as a danger to society and the new drug of criminals. Through state campaigns including Reagan’s “War on Drugs” and Clinton’s welfare reforms, crack was constructed as the drug of poor, inner-city, predominantly black populations, contributing to the narrative of social dangers and criminality built around the existence of black Americans. The issue of “crack babies” spotlighted black motherhood, portraying their reproduction as the result and continuation of criminality and addiction, where state action was positioned as the solution. Through examining the work of historians and theorists including Dorothy Roberts, Barbara Fields, and Ruth Gilmore examining race, law, and ideology, it can be seen how the issue of “crack babies” stands as an historical example of racial ideology with real repercussions both for the population involved, and in the public’s perception and condemnation of black motherhood.