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Original poster

Bought a print I love, DH is worried it's racist

999 replies

NC4T · 31/05/2018 21:12

Saw it on IG and loved it. Purchased it for the laundry room corridor, but it's arrived and DH is a little worried it might be racist. I can't see how. To me, it's a mum finding a few minutes of calm in the chaos and I love her babies little sleeping face.

We are white Jewish, for cultural context.

What do you think?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
17
JustABrokenDoll · 31/05/2018 21:42

I like it and certainly prefer it to this one!

bobblyflower · 31/05/2018 21:42

Plenty of non-Black women babywear! Plenty of black women have a washing machine

Well yes, obviously.

But the artist didn't just randomly pick a naked baby carrying black woman.

argumentativefeminist · 31/05/2018 21:43

Why does being naked make you poor?? Why does embracing your body and your sexuality make you disadvantaged? Why is black mum's baby wearing associated with poverty when white mum's baby wearing is associated with the recreationally hippy white middle class? 🙄

jedenfalls · 31/05/2018 21:44

Perhaps that’s why the artist has depicted her naked. We don’t know if she is a queen or a pauper. She could be either. The important thing in the picture is her role as a mother with a baby.

She is a mother with a book and access to a washing machine. Having a break.

I like it, it has a nice calm feel. The artist wants us to guess her story. I think she’s a hippie baby wearer. Id like to think that she was a Professional in the city before she started maternity leave. Now she’s gone wholesale for crunchy organic parenting, Maybe the book is about organic gardening.

MiggeldyHiggins · 31/05/2018 21:44

But the artist didn't just randomly pick a naked baby carrying black woman

no, she does various naked women picks of all various race women. Why are the black ones impoverished if the white ones aren't?

JellyBaby666 · 31/05/2018 21:45

*Well yes, obviously.

But the artist didn't just randomly pick a naked baby carrying black woman.*

Maybe the artist is black? And drew herself? Or maybe she is aiming for diverse representation of motherhood, if she herself isn’t black?

SadieHH · 31/05/2018 21:45

No one remembers the Nick Kamen ad when he stripped down to his unders and put all his clothes in the wash then?

I like it but I don't have a laundry room corridor Wink

NapQueen · 31/05/2018 21:45

I dont know anyone who would wander round doing housework naked (though I assume it happens given how many of you lot say you do). So my assumption on the first thought of "why is she naked?" is "because she mustnt have any other clothes". Because it is not my normality to wander round naked and do the laundry. However if I only posessed the clothes on my back then im sure naked laundry would be normal to me.

But hey. Its art. And what is art if not something to be discussed and analysed and create opinion on.

CopONNotLinkedIn · 31/05/2018 21:46

I don't get it. Is she planning to stand there with no knickers on for a full cycle?!

I don't DISlike it either mind you. If it had been a photograph, a genuine moment of somebody's life, captured photograpphically then I would like it.

JustABrokenDoll · 31/05/2018 21:46

@JellyBaby666

This is the artist's picture of herself.

www.yogaprints.dk/collections/seen-on-instagram/products/stop-and-drop-yoga

argumentativefeminist · 31/05/2018 21:47

I'm sure it does happen and my heart breaks for anyone that it happens to but genuinely how many people have one set of clothes but can afford to run a washing machine?

SadieHH · 31/05/2018 21:48

Another one from the set. Still think she's a poor, disadvantaged wretch?

FranticallyPeaceful · 31/05/2018 21:49

I’ve been walking around today with a baby strapped to me in only my knickers btw. I’m white, and I am not impoverished Hmm I’m just busy and breastfeeding Grin . I can relate to this picture without a second thought about her race, I think it’s wonderful

takeoffyourpantsandjacket · 31/05/2018 21:49

I'd like this if I could understand why she's naked.

Not racist though.

teaandtoast · 31/05/2018 21:50

No bleeding after birth, then!

MiggeldyHiggins · 31/05/2018 21:51

So my assumption on the first thought of "why is she naked?" is "because she mustnt have any other clothes". Because it is not my normality to wander round naked and do the laundry

so instead of thinking, hmm, maybe other people do the laundry naked, you thought hmm obviously she's an impoverished african woman with no other clothes who has been transported somewhere else and given a washing machine and a book?
Sure.

OfaFrenchmind2 · 31/05/2018 21:51

I like it. I feel calm when watching it. With the absence of clothes she can be anybody, there is no assumption on class, wealth, job. She is just a mother taking a moment.
Fwiw, I love walking around naked in my house, it's freeing and the weather is perfect for it now.

Whattheactualfuckmate · 31/05/2018 21:51

I really like it.

I carried dd around in the house every where similar to this. Many a time I threw the pants I was wearing in to the washer with baby sill attached.

Reminds me of those days.

I genuinely didn’t see a poor black native African woman.

Folk really do need to stop looking for the bad in things

lljkk · 31/05/2018 21:51

Poor folk don't have laundry washing machines.
Wouldnt appeal to me coz I think she's weird to do laundry in the nud like my mother did everything
Come to think of it, my mom loved yoga, & would have loved OP's print.

Hygge · 31/05/2018 21:52

I thought she was naked because the baby had been sick on everything.

Perhaps it helps to read about the artist and her inspirations. On that website the OP linked the artist says she likes to show realistic women's bodies in all their shapes and sizes, and she seems to like to do this by having them naked and wearing a baby. There's more than one print of naked women wearing babies doing daily tasks.

The pre-natal yoga prints have given me the creeps a bit, but I think she's more about showing the reality of women's lives and bodies than anything else.

Grandmaswagsbag · 31/05/2018 21:52

Mmmm. I don’t think it’s overtly racist however it makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m assuming it was created by a black artist but there is a sense of it idolising or objectifying a black womans body, as her nakedness doesn’t make sense as part of the narrative of the picture. Throughout art history the depiction of black bodies is a pretty loaded subject for many different reasons, so I would feel uncomfortable as a white person having artwork that through a ‘white gaze’ could be seen as part of that narrative.

HarryLovesDraco · 31/05/2018 21:52

Maybe she likes being naked!

I'm genuinely shocked at the assumption that she's meant to be a 'non western' basket on head carrying African woman with no 'mod cons'. She's just a woman. I don't love the painting myself but it's certainly not racist.

MarshaBradyo · 31/05/2018 21:53

My first thought was why is she naked

Then looking at the person’s website it seems they all are, so it makes more sense in context

lunar1 · 31/05/2018 21:54

Not racist no, but not something I'd like in my home. It seems sexist to me. I prefer the one with her brushing her teeth.

Whattheactualfuckmate · 31/05/2018 21:55

Ffs! grandma