Dear All:

There are two basic assumptions that have been running through the discussion of 
cultural beliefs about breastfeeding that are flawed:  that you can extrapolate culture to 
the continental level and that if you are extremely poor you have no other option than to 
breastfeed.

Too often, Africa is viewed as a country instead of a continent with a rich and diverse 
array of cultures.  Even within countries, there is tremendous diversity.  There were over 
200 different languages spoken in the first African country that I lived in and 7 different 
languages spoken in the town of 15,000 that I lived in.  I spoke a mere 2 of those 
languages, but could say hello in all of them. Furthermore, on a genetic level -- Africans 
are far more diverse than some of the other pockets of the planet that we migrated too.  

Morgan rightly pointed out that being African doesn't mean that you are "black".   But I 
would take this even further, not all "whites" in Africa migrated there.  In the northern 
part of subsaharan Africa, one of the tribes is much lighter skinned than the others and 
this tribe is considered the "slave" tribe. The slave tribe looks "white" to me, but in some 
cultures they might be considered the intermediate term of "colored" and in some 
cultures with more extreme definitions, "black".

I discovered fairly quickly when I first went to Africa that classification of "white" and 
"black" is highly subjective.  When the new Peace Corps volunteers arrived, ALL of the 
African American volunteers looked "white" to me.  It was only through conversation, 
NOT the color of their skins, that I discovered they were culturally "African American".  In 
that particular country they were considered "mundele" or white.  

So, I agree with those biologist that believe that race is a cultural construct.

I'll deal with the second assumption in my next post (my husband bumped the computer 
and lost the first draft -- so I want to make sure that I don't lose this one).

Susan Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC

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