Now onto another mom of color in the news: Salma Hayek. She's gotten a lot of attention for breastfeeding a baby -- not her own -- in Sierra Leone. I don't know all the ins and outs of it (I wasn't there) but it's interesting to see all the reactions in the blogosphere, from disgust to praise. Hayek (who is part Lebanese and Mexican) is pretty brave. Cross-nursing -- i.e. a mom breastfeeding another person's child -- is popular in other countries and has gained traction even here, but it's not widely accepted here at all. As a breastfeeding mom, I don't think Hayek was "acting white" or imperialist or anything, as some have suggested. I don't know, when you are a mom, your heart and your world grows a little bigger and you just do what's right, not what others think. Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing and Salma Hayek talks about how one of her ancestors breastfed another baby to save it from starvation. By the way, some people say it's not right to share your milk because it's solely for your child, but Salma Hayek's baby was already one and likely eating solid food and drinking water and other liquids, so her baby was not going to starve. Here's a discussion about it all at the Rice Daddies blog (though much of it focuses on the author's use of the word "hot" in the post).
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