I'm sure you remember the media storm that raged through the news and gossip factories a few months ago in Feb 2010-(original ABC story with video footage HERE) When Salma Hayek nursed another womans baby while in Sierra Leone. Oh Gods, You'd of thought that she'd done the most horrifying, socially unacceptable thing on the planet. The reactions of many people literally sent me into a stomping rage (no really, ask my husband: I stomped!!). ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The wonderful Salma, was interviewed for this months In Style Magazine (which I'm looking forward to reading in full). CNN Entertainment reports this about the interview and, of course, "The Incident":
Salma Hayek Pinault made headlines last year when she stopped to nurse a baby during a goodwill trip to Sierra Leone.
Everyone else was taken aback by her impromptu breastfeeding, but Hayek Pinault told InStyle that she “didn’t think much of it,” and “was so surprised how much attention it got.”
“This baby was hungry and I was still nursing [my daughter] Valentina, so I fed the child,” Hayek Pinault said. “What was shocking were the hate letters I received. What offended some in particular was that I breast-fed a black child. It was not even in my universe, such a thought. For me, it was a baby who was just born and was hungry. He was healthy but malnourished at this hospital – it was really just a clinic in the countryside – and I was able to help.”
But Hayek Pinault already knows she doesn’t think the same as everyone else. Unlike others in her industry, the actress isn’t interested in getting any surgical tweaks, or even Botox – and she can raise her eyebrows to prove it.
What is wrong with people?!? Hate mail because she nursed a black baby?! Are you freakin' kidding me?! I cannot fathom that there are people out there that not only wrote her hate mail because of this act of immeasurable compassion and kindness, but that actually said in writing that it was because of the difference of their skin colour between herself and the helpless tiny infant that they were writing these hateful things!
You know, after watching Avatar last year, I felt a huge amount of sorrow and shame that I had to call my self human. But at least that was a fictional movie. When I watch The Mission for the first time in the theatre in 1986, I bawled my eyes out for days afterwards. But at least that despicable piece of history took place over 200 years ago.
Apparently fanatical racism, bigotry, and warped hatred are still alive and well in the 21st Century.
Science may have found a cure for most evils: but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.
Helen Keller
