A social media firestorm has surrounded a 25-year-old California mom who started breastfeeding her 3-month-old baby during her graduation ceremony from Cal State University, Long Beach.
Karlesha Thurman posted a picture her friend took of her breastfeeding her baby Aaliyah to the Facebook page “Black Women Do Breastfeed” in support of a woman who complained about receiving dirty stares when she breastfed in public, according to the New York Daily News.
Thurman, who said she has never had a problem breastfeeding in public before the posting of her picture, has since deleted the photo but not before some backlash from Twitter users:
1. Why you breast feeding at your graduation. 2. Why you post of a picture of you breast feeding …ppl weird b ppl weird smh
— DEI. (@SoulikeDarkskin) June 9, 2014
Thurman said she posted the picture to show that “it’s natural, it’s normal, there’s nothing wrong with it,” the Daily News writes. “If you can give your child a gift as great as breast milk, I don’t see why you would deny them that because of society,” she noted.
In February of this year, actress Mayim Bialik, known best for her starring role in popular 1990s TV show Blossom, said she doesn’t think twice about breastfeeding her child in public. She said she believes society and our culture has sexualized what she calls this otherwise very natural process. Bialik, who now stars in CBS’s show The Big Bang Theory, has spoken openly about publicly breastfeeding her four-year-old son.
On Monday, Thurman posted this tweet to her supporters and followers expressing her discomfort with all the attention surrounding her initial decision to post her breastfeeding pic:
Today has been a long day. Thanks again for all the LOVE. P.S. Hopefully something BIG happens overnight and I wake up being “old news”
— ??ARiES BABY?? (@Kay_Danae) June 10, 2014
Image: Instagram via New York Daily News
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