by Chris Bodenner
The popular thread winds to a close:
I've long since passed the point where the pink ribbons get anything but derision from me. I think it was after my company's fourth "Breast Cancer Awareness Day" in a year.
Where everyone was encouraged to wear pink, yet again. Now I look great in pink, and have plenty of it, so I wasn't opposed. But we were never asked to chip in any money, no profits were ever allocated, no walkathon scheduled. Pink pencils were handed out, pink balloons were placed around the office, HR e-mails about wearing pink went out. But nothing was ever accomplished.
I just want to scream "YES! I am aware of breast cancer!" because that's all the pink ribbons are. They're just for awareness. They're not for a cure, not for research, not for anything productive. Every time I see one of the odd pink ribbon products I tell my wife "I'd completely forgotten about cancer, but now that I've seen that pink thing I'm once again aware. Surely, now that I'm aware of it, we're that much closer to a cure!"
Enough already. Fund research or don't. Fund prevention, or don't. But stop pretending to do something about cancer when you're really just selling pink crap.
Another reader maintains his sense of humor:
I had anal cancer. I tried to wear a brown ribbon, but I was shouted down because it was, I was told, offensive.
Another:
Your discussion of all things pink brought to mind Barbara Ehrenreich's discussion of her experience with being "grouped" by breast cancer victims in her book Bright Sided:
The first thing I discovered as I waded out into the relevant [web] sites is that not everyone views the disease with horror and dread. Instead, the appropriate attitude is upbeat and even eagerly acquisitive. There is, I found, a significant market for all things breast cancer-related. You can dress in pink-beribboned sweatshirts, denim shirts, pyjamas, lingerie, aprons, shoelaces and socks; accessorise with pink rhinestone brooches, scarves, caps, earrings and bracelets; and brighten up your home with breast cancer candles, coffee mugs, wind chimes and night-lights. "Awareness" beats secrecy and stigma, of course, but I couldn't help noticing that the existential space in which a friend had earnestly advised me to "confront [my] mortality" bore a striking resemblance to a shopping centre. …
Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a "gift", was a very personal, agonising encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before – one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and blame only ourselves for our fate.
My mother had breast cancer, and she could not have agreed more.
(Screenshot from Komen's merchandise store)
The Dish 