You're Wrong About

Crack Babies

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May 4, 2018
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ANECDOTE

Childhood TV Propaganda Image

  • Sarah recalls seeing a TV segment of a tiny, fragile baby used as anti-drug propaganda when she was a child.
  • That image shaped her childhood impression that crack babies were numerous and doomed.
INSIGHT

Medical Language Fueled Racial Fears

  • Medical elites described dramatic social deficits in exposed children, language that played directly into racial fears.
  • Those claims often lacked robust data and reflected racialized assumptions about humanity and socialization.
INSIGHT

Catastrophic Predictions Failed

  • Conservative commentators turned the panic into apocalyptic claims about a bio-underclass, escalating moral panic.
  • Those catastrophic predictions did not materialize in the 1990s.
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