My wife is  a member of a private group on facebook for new mothers. It consists of tens of thousands of women across the country of all socio-economic and racial backgrounds. It’s been fascinating for her to participate in as a UK national looking at the horror that American women experience — particularly the poor and lower middle class. The UK, in it’s infinite wisdom has 52 weeks leave. While not all paid at full salary, it is all paid and women are guaranteed their jobs for at least that amount of time. In our case, her job afforded her 4 months leave which is far more generous than most experience here.

Today, in honor of Black Breastfeeding Week one of the members posted a link to promote events around the country. It dismays me to say that what happened in response was completely predictable. The responses were littered with outrage about this excluding white mothers, privileging African American’s struggles to breastfeed above others, etc. — so much so that the moderator, herself a minority, had to issue a statement about the stupidity of many responses and remove the original post.

Over the last many weeks, I’d been discussing with my wife the prospect of approaching both the moderator of the group and various posters about putting together a book detailing the harsh reality of early motherhood in America based on the statements made by a diverse community in a space deemed ‘safe’ because of its privacy – a space in which all of those struggling with the huge challenge of new motherhood could vent their struggles with jobs, partners, health care, sleep, poop, depression — and the joys as well, and the questions and the beautiful uncertainty of it all. While the privacy allows for the honesty of the posts, it is also a story that needs to be told if anything is going to change the horrendous way in which this country treats new parents, and mothers in particular. I don’t think the visceral reality of raising babies in this country is something that has been discussed in a genuine way in public, ever — despite our ‘child positive’ simulacra, and yes, despite the platitudes of many in the Democratic Party.

That said, in that type of space, I expected more solidarity. African Americans breastfeed children at a rate of 58% to 75% for white women — and the duration of feeding rate sinks significantly lower. This is for a plethora of reasons — cultural, economic, educational, historical. There is a very good reason during Breastfeeding Month to have a week dedicated to events specifically targeting the African American community. But even within that space, within a private place of solidarity for new mothers, one finds both the virulence of white privilege and the sheltered conceits of latent [or overt] racism.

If we can’t find common ground on economic issues, or issues of police brutality and the drug war, or, for fuck’s sake, on the issues of how shitty it is to try to raise a baby in this country, how the hell are we ever going to have a rational discussion of race?

Einstein once said when addressing the the students at Lincoln University that ‘racism is a disease of white people’. That was 70 years ago, and racism is still a disease of white people. It is a disease that most cannot see even if they think themselves immune.

To deny both the implicit structural racism and the explicit manifestations must be willful ignorance, as no rational observer could be so blinded. And to get offended when people bring such things to light is, in a word,  racist.

Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don't miss how it's being used—and what comes next.