{"title":"“19 kids found in filth”: how the Chicago Keystone Kids’ case became emblematic of deviant motherhood and the crack cocaine crisis, 1985-2004","authors":"M. McCoy","doi":"10.1080/00182370.2022.2145738","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT “Does society have the right to force pregnant drug addicts to abort their fetuses?” This was the question that Professor George Schendler from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale posed in his 1991 journal article. Schendler was not the only person to suggest criminalizing the behavior of pregnant people to prevent what were colloquially known as “crack babies.” This article analyzes how discursive narratives of an immediate and long-term crisis, framed through the diseased body of an innocent yet simultaneously dangerous infant, erroneously predicted the onslaught of dependent Black and Brown children who would supposedly cripple American society. By focusing on the infamous 1994 “Keystone Kids” case in Chicago, IL, I argue that the steps taken to eliminate “crack babies” instead criminalized Black and Brown women’s pregnancies and separated children from their parents.","PeriodicalId":44078,"journal":{"name":"HISTORIAN","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"HISTORIAN","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00182370.2022.2145738","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT “Does society have the right to force pregnant drug addicts to abort their fetuses?” This was the question that Professor George Schendler from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale posed in his 1991 journal article. Schendler was not the only person to suggest criminalizing the behavior of pregnant people to prevent what were colloquially known as “crack babies.” This article analyzes how discursive narratives of an immediate and long-term crisis, framed through the diseased body of an innocent yet simultaneously dangerous infant, erroneously predicted the onslaught of dependent Black and Brown children who would supposedly cripple American society. By focusing on the infamous 1994 “Keystone Kids” case in Chicago, IL, I argue that the steps taken to eliminate “crack babies” instead criminalized Black and Brown women’s pregnancies and separated children from their parents.
期刊介绍:
Founded in 1938, The Historian has one of the largest circulations of any scholarly journal in the US or Britain with over 13,000 paid subscribers, both individual and institutional. The Historian seeks to publish only the finest of contemporary and relevant historical scholarship. It is the commitment of The Historian to serve as an integrator for the historical profession, bringing together the many strands of historical analysis through the publication of a diverse collection of articles.