Legislators can easily conjure up stories, with accompanying stereotypes, about crack-addicted babies and their mothers, but what’s really behind the antagonism toward moms?
Four more states passed laws banning the practice this legislative year, but the vast majority of state prisons still maintain the absurd idea that a woman in childbirth is a security risk.
Raquel Nelson’s shocking prosecution reveal a new caricature in the centuries-long demonization of black women. “The thread that joins them is the idea of total sexual immorality and irresponsible reproductive responsibility,” says scholar Dorothy Roberts.
“Black women are seen as harmful to their children and to society rather than as caregivers and as nurturers, except insofar as they do it as paid work, as nannies,” says UCLA scholar Sarah Haley.
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