NASCAR Driver Kasey Kahne Bashes Public Breastfeeding After Supermarket Encounter
NASCAR Driver Kasey Kahne has found his way into a heap of controversy for tweeting about his loss of appetite following a glimpse of a woman breastfeeding openly in a grocery store. To make matters worse, after tweeting his thoughts on the act, he spat back at least one disparaging comment to a follower who replied to his tweets in disagreement.
Kahne latter deleted his angry response tweet, but without a apology as if it never happened. Take a look at Kahne’s original comments:
The controversial comments did not go unnoticed by several feminist bloggers.
“You’re being horribly sexist, Kasey Kahne, and your misogyny is really unattractive considering the number of female NASCAR fans,” writes blogger SB Sarah.
“If NASCAR is a family sport, one must assume some of those family members were breastfed.”
Kahne’s comments on Twitter were directly posted on his Facebook and fans liked both posts over 800 times in total, with a heated debate emerging between Facebook users among the post’s 300 plus comments.
“Kasey I used to be your biggest fan but now I just think you are an ass,” commented one Facebook user. Another Facebook user quickly came to Kahne’s defense:
“Lay off of Kasey, people. He is entitled to his opinion. He never once said he was against it, he’s just saying that that was not something he wanted to see while shopping. She should have covered it up!”
Kahne’s NASCAR sponsor Great Clips quickly tweeted a statement apologizing for their driver’s tweet: “Our apologies for this. Please know that response was uncalled for & does not reflect our organization.”
Kahne, however, is by no means the first person to express being uncomfortable around breastfeeding in public.
A recent incident in Houston has lead to nationwide protest after staff at a Target store asked a mother nursing her child in a remote area of the Target to move it to a fitting room. The mother told press she felt that she was harassed by a “whole handful of women Target employees.”
Organizing on Facebook, nursing moms upset with the Target staff’s actions at the Houston store have begun staging “nurse-ins” at locations across the country. The latest nurse-in took place in a Chicago store Tuesday, when about a dozen moms met up at about 10 a.m and began publicly breastfeeding inside the Target Starbucks. NBC Chicago reports that the Chicago store supported the nursing mothers.
Target representatives told NBC that it has always been the store’s policy to make women feel comfortable when breastfeeding.
Tell us what you think:
(H/T: Mediaite)