Why All the Anger Over a Breast-Feeding Photo?

 

When breasts are propped high in Victoria’s Secret ads or the pages of King magazine, or an A-list star wears a dress cut to her navel or maybe a R-related movie shows women flashing them freely, few people seem to have a problem. Maybe some advocacy groups for teenage girls and their self-esteem, maybe some feminists. But overall, there’s rarely a peep about a set being flashed across a TV or movie screen or in a magazine ad. As a culture, we consider breasts tantalizing, alluring and sexy, and they are shown constantly in varying degrees of modesty to none at all.

But attracting attention, turning people on or serving as a backdrop to shilling products that rarely have anything to do with bras is not the primary function of boobs. A quick refresher: The biological purpose of breasts is to feed babies. That some find those same breasts alluring does not negate their primary purpose.

So why am I telling you this?

Because last week, a picture that was posted on Instagram by Ashley Nicole, a new mother and girlfriend of Miami Dolphins’ Phillip Wheeler, went viral. Nicole, a svelte model, posed for a picture with her baby latched to her nipple, breast-feeding. What was exposed of her breast was akin to what we’ve all seen in a lingerie ad. The caption read, “Was on the way out the door but then mommy duty called ...  Everything stops for him! #breastisbest #natureisbeautiful."

It was a sweet mother-child bonding moment and a nice endorsement for breast-feeding to black moms and would-be moms, especially when black mothers are underrepresented when it comes to breast-feeding. Research finds that just 54 percent of black mothers attempt breast-feeding, while the national average is 73 percent. Experts say that one of the reasons black women fall behind in breast-feeding is that women just don’t see women who look like them doing it.

“You don’t desire something you don’t see,” Micky Jones of La Leche League, an organization that encourages moms to breast-feed, told USA Today. “In the black community, you don’t see a lot of black women breast-feeding.”

Nicole, whether she intended to or not, could have been making a statement and a difference. But many found the picture “vulgar,” “attention-whoring,” “inappropriate” or “disgusting.” The backlash for the picture got so bad that Wheeler came to his girlfriend’s defense, telling TMZ, “I wish everybody would just leave it alone.”

He also noted how the reaction to his girlfriend’s picture was much different from the praise heaped on supermodel and NFL wife Gisele Bündchen when she posted a picture of herself breast-feeding her daughter as her glam squad pampered her. Wheeler didn’t understand why his girlfriend wasn’t receiving the same love.

To be fair, Mrs. Tom Brady did get her fair share of criticism. However, much of the negative feedback Bündchen received was about the lack or realism depicted in the photo—I mean, how many working mothers have a glam squad to make them more beautiful?—than the appropriateness of the image. Nicole’s criticism seems to be largely about decorum or the lack thereof.

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Lupita Nyong’o & What It Means to Be Black

When I posted a picture on my Instagram of newly minted Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o giving her acceptance speech at Sunday night’s awards ceremony, I didn’t know or even suspect that there was any question about whether she was black. The photo was of a beaming Nyong’o holding up her award in triumph. Her speech—especially the part where she said, “No matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid”—moved me.

I, like many, had been rooting for her to win an Oscar as soon as the credits rolled on 12 Years a Slave. To me, Nyong’o’s win—and she said as much in her speech—was a win for black girls, black women and women of all colors everywhere.

I like the actress so much, I started referring to her as “Our Lady Lupita.” And I said so in thatInstagram caption, which read, “Black Girl Magic! Get you some. Congrats to Our Lady @lupitanyongo on her Oscar win!” Innocent enough, right?

Promptly, a follower responded, “Actually, she’s Mexican.” It was said as if Nyong’o couldn’t be black and Mexican at the same time. For anyone who is confused by this, I point you toward two documentaries, The Forgotten Roots and African Blood, which show that the Diaspora extends to Mexico, too.

But back to Nyong’o. Her father was a Kenyan professor who was teaching in Mexico when she was born. She also returned to the country when she was a teenager. Calling her Mexican isn’t technically inaccurate. But it’s not the whole story. She’s also Kenyan because both her parents are and because she was raised in Kenya.

And she’s black because—and I can’t believe I have to explain this—look at her. The deep-brown complexion, the wonderfully kinky hair and the full lips all fit the phenotype of the people colloquially called “black.” For me, that makes Nyong’o unquestionably a black woman, even if she hasn’t always felt that way.

“Having come to the United States was the first time that I really had to consider myself as being black and to learn what my race meant,” Nyong’o told Vogue. “Because race is such an important part of understanding American society.”

Not everyone defines “black” the same way. For some, it’s a race that extends across nationalities—i.e., the African Diaspora. For others it’s a way to describe the unique experience of African Americans. The people who fall into the “Lupita’s not black” camp are usually thinking of culture.

Then there are those who place nationality above everything else, which make them consider her Mexican-ness or Kenya-ness only. Nyong’o claims both, saying on the red carpet, “I am Mexican and Kenyan at the same time. I have seen that they are fighting over my nationality, but I insist I am Mexican Kenyan, and I am fascinated by tacos with roasted meat.”

But perhaps there’s something else at the root of this drive to define what Nyong’o really is. It seems that whenever a black woman is recognized for her beauty in America, there’s often a clamor to make her “other” or “exotic,” as if being “just” black isn’t good enough. There always has to be something more that explains why she’s considered a “great beauty.”

Read more: here