"The racial breastfeeding gap has garnered tremendous popular and academic interest in recent years."
I'm reading "The Real Reason Black Mothers Are Being Pushed to Breastfeed/Efforts to close the racial breastfeeding gap are more complicated than they appear" (NY Magazine).
In 2005, New York State’s Department of Health declared obesity to be a significant problem plaguing the state’s citizens. And it found that it is Black people generally, and Black women specifically, who are most troublingly obese. In many ways, the racialization of obesity is unsurprising. Black women have long been culturally represented as too much, as unrestrained in their desires....
Ameliorating the racial breastfeeding gap, the report found, would increase breastfeeding rates and decrease obesity. Breastfeeding would help postpartum Black women lose weight and instruct Black infants on how to develop healthier relationships to satiety....
The state was explicitly targeting Black mothers and Black children as excessive bodies, offering breastfeeding as appetite-control training to treat food as filling merely physical needs, as opposed to social, cultural, and emotional needs....
The call to support lactating Black breasts and to educate Black breastfeeders has only intensified in a Black Lives Matter era where Black breast milk is described by Black feminist activists as physical and psychic nutrition....
We now find ourselves in a moment where efforts by the state, nonprofits, and Black feminist activists — often working in uncomfortable concert — work to recruit Black breasts to lactate....
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"The call to support lactating Black breasts and to educate Black breastfeeders has only intensified in a Black Lives Matter era where Black breast milk is described by Black feminist activists as physical and psychic nutrition...."
This sounds straight out of the Babylon Bee, but nope, they mean every word.
Like "Black bodies", this "black breasts" rhetoric is so creepy and dehumanizing!
But these same people don’t give a damn that our public education system creates a huge gap between racial groups. They are notoriously poor at actually teaching black kids. Why are teachers unions so racist?
Does the call to support black lactating breasts include better bras? Specifically designed to support black breasts?
Sorry, the wording of the article was just a bit odd.
John Henry
" Garnered" is the least strange phrase in that article.
"The call to support lactating Black breasts"
"work to recruit Black breasts to lactate.... "
Are you sure this isn't from the Babylon Bee? I'm always on the lookout for signs of the complete collapse of America and our self-anointed intellectual betters rarely fail to deliver but this just might take the cake. It's pure drivel, so I'm sure it earned someone a PhD.
“Garner” is your pet peeve, but I think “bodies” might be one of mine. I think the overuse of the term “bodies” comes from Foucault, and is in my opinion dehumanizing. The reference to “Black breasts” in this article seems similarly dehumanizing and objectifying.
I read the whole article and it can be condensed into -
The government and some activists are undertaking a public health initiative encouraging black women to breastfeed. Black women can be more than just mothers.
So many gaps to close, so many stereotypes to reinforce, so many fat people to shame. I'm thankful we have the government to guide us and inform us of our failings. If only we had unlimited government to make all of our choices for us.
Is the racial breastfeeding gap as alarming as a doomsday gap or a mine-shaft gap?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPh6TfK4iY
“ In February 2021, as Texas faced dangerous winter storms and a lack of potable water, Allers tweeted, “My heart breaks for all Texans. I pray that no mama is forced to consider BOILING SNOW to prepare infant formula for their baby. When we say #breastfeeding is critical emergency preparedness & must be supported & accessible, this is it!!” This is a vision of Black mothers as frontline responders to an emergency. It is also a vision that insists that Black women free themselves from any dependence on manufactured infant sustenance to ensure their survival.”
I wonder why people in rural Alaska think of this?
Black tits matter...
You know, it's not just women who can breastfeed!
Maybe the way to get more Black Women to breastfeed...
Would be to Stop Encouraging them to abort their babies?
Just Saying
"We now find ourselves in a moment where efforts by the state, nonprofits, and Black feminist activists — often working in uncomfortable concert — work to recruit Black breasts to lactate...."
The word "recruit" set me off. I'm thinking of various groups visiting 3rd trimester Black women, just as college coaches visit HS seniors:
"Where would you like your Black breasts to be a year from today? We are part of a large network & can help find what fits you most comfortably."
"Dept of Health receives funding from the State, so we can offer your Black breasts maximum support. Your classroom obligations will be minimal."
"If you go with State, they will run your life. We at Black Breasts Matter believe womyn control their own Black breasts."
I thought the word went out to describe it as chestfeeding, and the word "mothers" has to be wrong, right?
Now Kay has me thinking about pendulous breasts.
“ The state was explicitly targeting Black mothers and Black children as excessive bodies”
That’s the weirdest way I’ve ever seen to describe a grout of people as overweight.
What the actual...?
It's hard to know where to begin. Obesity in black women is caused by society's perceiving them as "too much," their appetites as "too unrestrained"? Is this some version of black girl magic?
Black breasts? Seconding the comment about this (and "whatever bodies" or "whatever body parts") as chillingly dehumanizing. Also - as a former lactating person, or breast milk feeding person, or whatever it is now, I'm here to tell you that although my breasts did occasionally attempt to lactate without my taking other important actions like holding a baby to one of them, I would have been VERY annoyed if they'd taken on that responsibility on their own recognizance generally.
Black breast milk? Is the contention, as is implied, that somehow black breast milk is different from other women's breast milk? I mean, aside from normal differences arising from the woman's diet? More magic, maybe? (I am also jarred by "black breast milk" as mine was always more or less whitish, but hey, it's not like I went around examining other women's breast milk.)
Often when scanning the TV listings or what's playing at the movies, I'll think, "They've run out of new ideas" Same with media. They have nothing new or interesting to say. Thus the NYT, WaPo, New York Magazine, et al are reduced to repackaging stale themes such as racism using increasingly esoterica framing, Black Breastrfeeding!!!
These stories no longer produce outrage, just amusement
Breast-feeding reduces breast cancer. In some Asian countries, women breast-feed their children until 3 years of age(!). The women in those countries have extremely low levels of breast cancer.
Other possible factors in the low breast cancer rates is the low numbers of abortions, and minimal use of estrogen-based birth control.
Oh Good Lord! Does literally EVERYTHING have to be seen in racial terms?
And seriously, WTF is a racial breastfeeding gap? White people breastfeed more than black people? Maybe we’re just racist and the systemic racism of the good ole US of A is keeping the black woman down, again, by… what? Not letting them breastfeed? No. I’m pretty sure we stopped rounding up the breastfeeding blacks decades ago. Hmm…Not teaching them how to breastfeed? No, I’m sure it’s innate and they don’t need to be taught that. Hmmm.. pushing breastfeeding only in the white neighborhoods ? Yeah that must be it. Systemically racist country only pushing the benefits of breastfeeding in the white neighborhoods.
And the real sleight of hand is burying the lede that this is all about black obesity. There’s apparently a racial “obesity gap” but we can’t say that or something, must be racist, so we talk about the racial breastfeeding gap hoping it’ll correct the obesity issue?
Wow.
Just make it a mandate “because science” and all objections will become invalid. Or so I’ve observed.
“Black breasts?” Someone actually wrote that?
Is this more virtue signaling?
"Hey black ladies - we white leftists really care about you."
First of all, I'm offended that the NY Mag used the term "breast feeding" instead of "chest feeding" and addressed this as an AA "woman" issue instead of using the more correct term of "birthing person." Why would any article on postpartum issues specifically exclude trans birthing persons? Secondly, it appears from the article that obesity in postpartum AA "women" has little to do with a high carb, high sugar diet, junk food or lack of exercise. If it did, many childless AA girls, women and trans women (i.e.,prebirthing persons!) would be similarly obese. Oh, wait, they are! The CDC says the obesity rate for AA female adolescents was 24.8% in 2010 vs 14.7% for white female adolescents. Strangely enough, in 1996 the rate was 16.3% for AA female adolescents and 8.9% for white female adolescents. Again nothing on Trans. Anyway, it appears twelve to nineteen year olds of both races must have been chestfeeding their offspring a lot more in 1994. Anyway, it's good to know that it was largely a chestfeeding issue all along instead of systemic racism and the food desert problems which previously were identified as the principle drivers.
Next up, NY Mag needs to tackle AA men and boys whose obesity rates have also more than doubled over the same period. A first start might be to get AA men and boys to reap the benefits of sharing the chestfeeding load.
"...hospitals’ failure to encourage Black breastfeeding, the presence of formula in maternity wards, and the lack of community support for Black breastfeeders."
Once again, everybody else's fault.
Kay, is it Foucault, then? That makes sense. I started noticing the "Black bodies" language as a grad student in the early 90s, but in the last decade it's broken out of academe and now it's disgustingly everywhere. One of those "signifiers" that put you on the right side of the verbal divide.
The real reason is "they" just want the black mothers to feed the mRNA tainted breast milk to the next generation so they will be dependent on the vaccine for life. Thanks Pfizer!
Power springs from the nipple of teh Black Breastesses…
"Ron Winkleheimer said...
I read the whole article and it can be condensed into -
The government and some activists are undertaking a public health initiative encouraging black women to breastfeed. Black women can be more than just mothers."
You have garnered the rational bits. But that article actually says:
The racist power structures in this white supremacist country are undertaking another racist initiative stigmatizing black women. It would be supporting white supremacy to ask whether breast-feeding is actually good or bad. The point is that mentioning this difference stigmatizes a wide-spread practice in the black community. They always do that. FU whitey. But some black activists are mentioning the difference. How do we think about that?
It almost looks as if a question is bring raised in a very contorted way. I would garner it this way:
Is there a way in our present universe of discourse to advoccte for change in change a community-wide black practice when [white supremacist] medical techniques indicate that the practice - be it formula feeding or avoiding vaccination - is dangerous? The [white supremacists] are making the change being advocated themselves but, easy for them, they are following their own abstract, dehumanizing, racist science. FU whitey. But still, what about us? We are reluctant to follow or even acknowledge the [fishbellies] and their advice. It's so easy to show that the [white-breads] are being condescending and stereotyping per usual and trying to control our black bodies. But ... could our babies be healthier? But ... could our old folks be safer from Covid death? Does FU whitey or Foucauldian textual analysis exercise a protective effect greater than breast feeding and vaccination? How do we discuss this?
The state was explicitly targeting Black mothers and Black children as excessive bodies, offering breastfeeding as appetite-control training to treat food as filling merely physical needs, as opposed to social, cultural, and emotional needs....
Anyone who doesn't understand the "emotional needs" met by breastfeeding, for both mothers and their children, is too ignorant to be saying anything about breastfeeding
"breastfeeders"
Back in the day, these were known as women. That was mostly because at the time it was thought only women could perform such an act. Here in the bright and shiney future, we know better.
if chocolate milk comes from brown cows - what comes out of black lactational organs
Why the assumption that Black women aren't capable of making their decision regarding breast feeding unless the Left is tacitly admits that they have so miseducated lower class Blacks. Or they are implying White Man's Burden.
"In many ways, the racialization of obesity is unsurprising."
I did put on a few pounds lately. Need to check if my skin might be getting darker.
Jeebus! Can we maybe stop having this conversation about race?
'Why the assumption that Black women aren't capable of making their decision regarding breast feeding unless the Left is tacitly admits that they have so miseducated lower class Blacks.'
Same reason blacks can't seem to figure out how to get free government IDs to vote...soft bigotry and all that...
Well played, Scot and wildswan
Thank you!
When I am president I vow to close this breast gap.
'When I am president I vow to close this breast gap.'
Too late...
James Garner, either in real life or in any of his film roles, would support breastfeeding mothers of any race. At least I like to think so.
When I was born in 1952, a public health nurse visited my mother and was astounded that a middle-class white woman had chosen to breastfeed. Breastfeeding was seen as old-fashioned and only for poor and black mothers, while formula was seen as modern and scientific.
When I was born in 1952, a public health nurse visited my mother and was astounded that a middle-class white woman had chosen to breastfeed. Breastfeeding was seen as old-fashioned and only for poor and black mothers, while formula was seen as modern and scientific.
Another hold-my-beer article.
Almost everything written nowadays in the prestige-press about race seems to be a hold-my-beer article.
I slogged through this horrific article yesterday. Try as I might, I can't quite get it out of my mind.
My impressions
- The language is horrible and objectifying. All the talk about black breasts is so creepy and unsettling.
LOOK at this sentence as an example:
We now find ourselves in a moment where efforts by the state, nonprofits, and Black feminist activists — often working in uncomfortable concert — work to recruit Black breasts to lactate. (recruit Black BREASTS to LACTATE? WHO TALKS LIKE THAT???) And so WHAT if they are all working for the same (good) goal for different reasons? Won’t the outcome be good for everybody?
- The politicization of the breastfeeding concept seems crazy to me. For example, making anti-obesity a POLITICAL issue rather than the HEALTH issue it is (for both the moms and the babies/children)
- The total ignoring of the CULTURAL reasons for the breastfeeding gap in the Black community
- SO MUCH hard work in the writing to make everything about something other than what it is – why can’t higher breastfeeding rates in the Black community just have the many good benefits that we know exist without ascribing the motives to something negative? And now junk food is an offensive/racist term? And junk food is NOT something to be discouraged? This feels like Opposite Day.
- The whole thing was exhausting. But deeply concerning that a major NY periodical would publish an article like this shows that this thinking/language is not extreme anymore, but much more mainstream, which is what is most upsetting to me of all.
As a huge proponent of breastfeeding (for ALL colors of breasts, lol) this just seems to me to be one more way of dividing women rather than bringing unity around a topic that could not be more healthy and natural.
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