Kasey Kahne Starts Breastfeeding Controversy
Nascar driver Kasey Kahne has started a big internet controversy about a surprising topic: breastfeeding. According to Fox Sports, Kasey saw a mom breastfeeding at the supermarket and wrote on Twitter: “Just walking through supermarket. See a mom breast feeding little kid. Took second look because I was obviously seeing things. I wasn’t!” He continued: “One boob put away one boob hanging!! #nasty” and said, “I don’t feel like shopping anymore or eating.”
Things got super classy when a woman wrote to him, “I hope someday you have a kid and someone tells your wife that feeding your child looks nasty.” He responded, “And your a dumb b*tch.” She wrote back: “Stay classy a**hole.” (Is it weird that I’m equally offended by his incorrect use of “your”?)
Realizing he was digging himself into a hole, Kasey wrote an apology on Facebook:
“I understand that my comments regarding breastfeeding posted on Twitter were offensive to some people,” he wrote. “For that, I apologize. It was in no way my intention to offend any mother who chooses to breastfeed her child, or, for that matter, anyone who supports breastfeeding children. I want to make that clear.
“In all honestly, I was surprised by what I saw in a grocery store. I shared that reaction with my fans on Twitter. It obviously wasn’t the correct approach, and, after reading your feedback, I now have a better understanding of why my posts upset some of you.
“My comments were not directed at the mother’s right to breastfeed. They were just a reaction to the location of that choice, and the fashion in which it was executed on that occasion.
“I respect the mother’s right to feed her child whenever and wherever she pleases.”
Hmm..something about Kasey’s “your a dumb b*tch” comment makes his apology harder to accept.
The incident comes just as mom Michelle Hickman has organized a Nurse-In at Target, where she says she was harassed and humiliated by Target staff when she tried to find a quiet spot in the store to breasfeed her infant, and now wants to “make a stand in support of nursing in public so this doesn’t happen again.”
Why we find breastfeeding so indecent – or even “nasty,” as Kasey put it? Why is it okay to see giant Billboards of naked women selling perfume, but not okay to see a woman feeding her baby? Do you think breastfeeding in public is unacceptable? If women breastfeed in public, should they cover up?
