Pandemic Eugenics

Abstract

While it has been well established that the pandemic has exacerbated racial inequalities in child and youth well-being and outcomes, these racial disparities have not been systematically examined and articulated. This chapter contextualizes, synthesizes, and critically examines emergent literature regarding the ways in which the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated and unmasked childhood racial inequality. Using a reproductive justice framework, we highlight racial inequality as impacted by the pandemic in three core childhood institutions—health, economics, and education. We argue that societal responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are stratified, thereby operating as mechanisms of eugenicide as they render “undesirable” children and youth socially obsolete and undermine routine reproductive tasks in ways that expose children of color to illness and premature death. We conclude that COVID-19 responses are a technomedical, racial capitalist project that further sorts and sediments children according to pre-established hierarchies and has profound implications for childhood inequality and children’s everyday lives. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Nazneen Khan;individual chapters, the contributors