+
upworthy
Top Splash

It's Black Breastfeeding Week. Wondering why? One gut-wrenching poem says it all.

"I wish I dried up..."

It's Black Breastfeeding Week. Wondering why? One gut-wrenching poem says it all.

This article originally appeared on 8/28/19

It's Black Breastfeeding Week, a week set aside in the U.S. to celebrate and encourage Black breastfeeding parents.

Some may wonder why such a week is necessary. After all, that's a pretty narrow niche, isn't it? Aren't Black moms included in all breastfeeding awareness and education campaigns? Is there something special about Black people breastfeeding?

The answer is yes, there is something unique about Black breastfeeding. Several somethings, actually, but one reason for Black Breastfeeding Week is summed up in a gut-wrenching poem by feminist author Hess Love.


I wish I dried up

I wish every drop of my milk slipped passed those pink lips and nourished the ground

Where the bones lay

Of my babies

Starved while I feed their murderer

I wish I dried up

So the missus babies would dry up too

And be brittle

So I could crumble them to dust

Return them to the ground

Where all children of my bosom lay equal

- Hess Love

As Parenting Decolonized points out, Black parents have only been able to raise their own children for less than 160 years in America. That's basically two 80-year-old grandmothers living back to back. For most of U.S. history, generation upon generation upon generation of Black families were torn apart. Black mothers were often not allowed to nourish and raise their own babies, but were forced to nourish and raise the babies of their enslavers. For most of U.S. history, Black breastfeeding meant wet nursing white babies, sometimes at the expense of a Black woman's own children.

And when I say "most of U.S. history," I mean that literally. Slavery was the standard for close to 250 years on our soil, compared to the 154 years since slavery was legally abolished (and almost 100 of those years still allowed legal discrimination). The impact of that reality doesn't just disappear because slavery ended and the Civil Rights Act passed.

However, the historical effects stemming from slavery are not the only reason Black Breastfeeding Week is important. Black mothers face higher maternal and infant mortality rates in the U.S., and according to the CDC, there are "substantial" differences in breastfeeding rates between Black mothers and white mothers.

Add in cultural and social issues surrounding Black women's bodies, ongoing negative perceptions of breastfeeding, and a lack of representation in the lactation support field, and the answer to the question "Why Black Breastfeeding Week?" becomes apparent.

As Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez wrote on Scary Mommy,

"National Breastfeeding Month, which is observed the full month of August, addresses a few of the social concerns associated with breastfeeding, such as the mental exhaustion, the anatomical challenges, and the lingering stigma. But it doesn't address the ways each of these uniquely impact Black women.

The discourse that developed from Black Breastfeeding Week met me where 'regular' breastfeeding concerns left me struggling. It was a resource that tackled what it meant to nurse in public when your body is already hypersexualized. Black women and girls have some of the highest reports of sexual assault, as society seems to believe our bodies are community property- a message taught during slavery."

I know there will be people in the comments saying, "Slavery ended more than 100 years ago. Get over it." They don't understand the far-reaching effects of historical trauma. They don't understand that centuries of violent oppression followed by another century of blatant, legal discrimination impacts generations, and that the racism at the heart of all of that is still present in the health statistics of Black mothers and infants in America.

This is why Black Breastfeeding Week is needed. For more information, see www.blackbreastfeedingweek.org.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less

A nasty note gets a strong response.

We've all seen it while cruising for spots in a busy parking lot: A person parks their whip in a disabled spot, then they walk out of their car and look totally fine. It's enough to make you want to vomit out of anger, especially because you've been driving around for what feels like a million years trying to find a parking spot.

You're obviously not going to confront them about it because that's all sorts of uncomfortable, so you think of a better, way less ballsy approach: leaving a passive aggressive note on their car's windshield.

Satisfied, you walk back to your car feeling proud of yourself for telling that liar off and even more satisfied as you walk the additional 100 steps to get to the store from your lame parking spot all the way at the back of the lot. But did you ever stop and wonder if you told off the wrong person?

Keep ReadingShow less
Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

8 nontraditional empathy cards that are unlike any you've ever seen. They're perfect!

Because sincerity and real talk are important during times of medical crisis.

True compassion.

When someone you know gets seriously ill, it's not always easy to come up with the right words to say or to find the right card to give.

Emily McDowell — a former ad agency creative director and the woman behind the Los Angeles-based greeting card and textile company Emily McDowell Studio — knew all too well what it was like to be on the receiving end of uncomfortable sentiments.

At the age of 24, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma. She went into remission after nine months of chemo and has remained cancer-free since, but she received her fair share of misplaced, but well-meaning, wishes before that.

On her webpage introducing the awesome cards you're about to see, she shared,

"The most difficult part of my illness wasn't losing my hair, or being erroneously called 'sir' by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn't know what to say or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it."

Her experience inspired Empathy Cards — not quite "get well soon" and not quite "sympathy," they were created so "the recipients of these cards [can] feel seen, understood, and loved."

Scroll down to read these sincere, from-the-heart, and incredibly realistic sentiments.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

This woman's powerful 'before and after' photos crush myths about body positivity

"Body positivity is about saying that you are more than a body and your self-worth is not reliant on your beauty."



Michelle Elman, a body positivity coach, helps people who are struggling to find confidence in their own skin.

After persevering through numerous medical conditions and surgeries in her own life, Elman realized a few years ago that body positivity wasn't just about size or weight. Things like scars, birthmarks, and anything else that makes us feel different of self-conscious have to be a part of the conversation, and she tries to make the movement accessible to everyone.

Sharing her own journey has been one of her most effective teaching tools.

Keep ReadingShow less
via wakaflockafloccar / TikTok

It's amazing to consider just how quickly the world has changed over the past 11 months. If you were to have told someone in February 2020 that the entire country would be on some form of lockdown, nearly everyone would be wearing a mask, and half a million people were going to die due to a virus, no one would have believed you.

Yet, here we are.

PPE masks were the last thing on Leah Holland of Georgetown, Kentucky's mind on March 4, 2020, when she got a tattoo inspired by the words of a close friend.

Keep ReadingShow less