BY MELANIE SMITH
Every day it is a fight to get up, to put a smile on your face and move forward. The cancer makes you feel sick, and the “treatment” makes you feel sicker. It would be easier to stay in bed, to wait for death. But you don’t, you keeping going. With a pang, you realize the date: the first of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Through your window, you spy teens already heading to the bus stop, clad in an overdose of pink. Scoffing, you wonder how any of these things represent the pain you are subjected to endure. While Breast Cancer Awareness Month may have been created on the foundation of a noble cause, its over commercialization has corrupted its original intentions.
In the 1990s, Charlotte Haley, created and distributed handmade peach hued ribbons to support awareness for breast cancer. Cosmetic company, Estee Lauder, requested her design to be the symbol for breast cancer awareness but Haley, fearing the icon would be used commercially, declined. Estee Lauder, still determined to use the ribbon, simply changed the color to a light pink.
October celebrates the holiday of Halloween, however, lately it appears that another holiday is emerging: Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Also known as “Pinktober”, the month was originally created to raise awareness of the disease and to encourage women to get monograms. However, these goals have become blurred over the last few years.. With people dressing up in the color pink and companies selling merchandise, a month that should be honoring, supporting, and trying to cure cancer victims, has transformed into some kind of sick, moneymaking holiday.
One of the main driving forces in our society is the desire to make money. Ready to pounce on the seemingly “good cause”, companies lure in unsuspecting costumers with pink covered products. The Better Business Bureau released a statement warning consumers of scams that claim to be for charity. The NFL started to sell breast cancer merchandise to raise funds for cancer research. Ironically, only about 8% of the profit went to actual cancer research while 50% went to the retailer. October 13th was National NoBra Day. Who is all of this truly helping?
Breast cancer is a serious problem. However, it is not the only cancer disease that threatens lives. While Breast Cancer gets its own month, other cancers remain virtually unknown. From 2003-2007, lung cancer killed six times as many people as breast cancer with a death toll of 792,465 people. Colon and rectal cancer killed a total of 268,783, while breast cancer killed 206,983. These cancers have awareness dates(November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and March is National Colorectal Cancer Month). However, for some reason, the media and the public doesn’t recognize these dates the way they do for breast cancer.
Overall immature sexual connotations, ravenous corporations, and the media have all contributed in creating another shallow, commercialized holiday. Instead of focusing on “supporting” the cure for cancer with cheap bracelets and socks, why don’t we all become part of the solution? Wearing pink doesn’t save lives, raising money to fund research does. Participate in authentic charities, like Relay for Life, or try to lift the burden of the disease from someone with a sincere act of kindness. Instead of creating a glossy façade of pink product, cure cancer with the heart. For it is not physical strength that will push cancer victims over the hurdle, but a steadfast will that perhaps one of us can inspire.
