The Problem Isn’t Always Gender Equality.

          What about color equality? The problem with inequality does not always have to refer to men receiving higher pay than women or unequal rights between a man and woman. The problem can come down to two women, who are doing the same thing, yet treated differently, eerily similar to men and women working together doing the same job, yet men receiving higher pay. However, the controversy I wanted to touch upon is how women of color and white women are often portrayed as different under certain circumstances, like breastfeeding. Earlier this month, two women posted nearly the exact same picture of them in their cap and gown having just graduated college, and both were posted to separate articles.

Clearly printed on the left is a black woman breast-feeding her daughter in a cap and gown, which was published with the title “Breast-feeding mom’s college graduation photo stirs up controversy.” While on the right, a woman doing the exact same thing, except she is white, rather than a WOC (woman of color.) The title speaks for itself: “This Adorable Photo Of A Graduating University Student Breastfeeding is Going Viral.”

As seen on TODAY.com, Karlesha Thurman was proud of graduating and sharing the moment with her daughter. Yet the backlash she received suggested she cover up, and that she was being inappropriate.

However, when graduating mom Jacci Sharkey posted her breastfeeding photo to Instagram hoping for 100 likes she was blown away by the sea of thank-you messages from people and even “Who cares if her boob was shared, breastfeeding is a natural and beautiful thing J” posted right on her Facebook wall.

So what is the difference? It’s clear, and it’s skin color. Why is it that Karlesha Thurman, having earned a degree just as Jacci Sharkey did, is “controversial” while the Sharkey’s is “adorable”? Inequality is not only happening where men and women can be compared to one another. What people do not often see, are situations just like these that are being broadcasted to the media and too few people are paying close attention. Although it is very important to have feministic people and women sticking up for those women who work their asses off everyday to be undermined while being compared to men, who is sticking up for women like Karlesha Thurman who worked her ass off everyday to get hate and “controversy”, while Jacci Sharkey gets to celebrate hers with hardly any backlash?