Stage 6: Drowning in Pink

Day 74: Raspberry 5 Hour Energy! Yum!

Ah, October. Who doesn't love the turning of the leaves, the return of rain to the Seattle skies or the overwhelming degree of slacktivism in the air? Nothing gives makes you feel the cold bite of winter quite like seeing a bunch of shitty pink crap everywhere you go. Plenty of ink has been spilled on how silly and ineffective corporate America's masturbatory pinkwashing campaigns have been. I'm not going to say much about that. I'll just say that of all the money exchanging hands for pink crap, little of it goes into hands of the charities they claim to help, and even less goes into helping the women (and men) they claim to be doing it for. This amount becomes incredibly miniscule if you look at the recent studies showing that mammography is far more likely to do harm than good, especially in young women. All of the pinkwashing is little more than thinly veiled targeted marketing. It's condescending and sexist.

Dahlia hated all the pink. While others (usually older survivors) saw the pink ribbons as objects to rally behind, she saw them as a series of platitudes. It's a feel good solution to a problem which has been solved for the last 25 years: Breast Cancer Awareness. We are aware of the threat of breast cancer, but mortality rates have bottomed out. Very little money is being spent for a cure, and several companies lined their pockets. The pink ribbon was a declaration of aid from the unaiding, ignorant of the actual problems that threatened her every day. It was air dropping sandbags in the desert.

When she was alive, I tolerated all of it because it seemed unavoidable, not to mention that there were more important things to deal with at the time. Now it's impossible to see a ribbon and not think about all of the campaign's failings. I've just done my best to avoid it this year. It's been difficult.

The two closest grocery stores, for example, are both Safeways. Last year every cashwrap was covered in pink streamers. The aisles are filled with yogurt containers congratulating the purchasers for helping women in need. It's just a little much for me right now. I've been avoiding it by going to the Red Apple in Madison Park or the Central Co-op in Capitol Hill, so my grocery shopping experiences have been even more filled with rich white people as of late.


Even football has been difficult to watch. The NFL has found an ingenious way to sell football jerseys to women. Make everything pink! Use pink penalty markers! Make the players wear pink! Fine them for wearing something else! It's all gotten a little ridiculous. While I haven't been avoiding it entirely, I've been listening to more of it on the radio then I've been watching and frankly, it's nice to have my Sundays back for a little while.


Look, I don't know what the solution is here. Cancer is a hard problem. The pink ribbons made a lot of amazing things possible 30 years ago, but they've become part of the problem. We need cures, not awareness. In the meantime, all the pink is just a reminder of what I, and far too many husbands and wives, have lost to breast cancer.