I grew up with the pink ribbons and the races. One of my earliest memories involves going to Race for the Cure and checking out vendor booths. Mimicking my older relatives, I took a turn squeezing what years later I realized was a prosthetic breast, to be placed in a bra after a mastectomy.
Komen ingrained themselves deeply into the breast cancer world. They are synonymous with the pink ribbon and breast cancer itself. They surely realized that when a loved one is affected, you will do anything if you think it will help stop their pain. And when it just wasn’t meant to be, you will do anything to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. All they needed to do was create a community, make it uplifting and valuable to participants, sell them pink trinkets… and profit.
Throw in capitalism and business savvy, some massive profits, and it was only a matter of time before they hooked up with the GOP and lobbied for atrocious bills that favored the HMO over the consumer. In return, the Komen founder was made an ambassador by George W. Bush in 2001.
Let’s directly fund people who are doing research and providing essential care for women, not padding the pockets of a “charity” marketing organization. As for “awareness” — what? Who isn’t aware? (They’ve been in a coma for the past 20 years.) Breast cancer has become a punchline, and sex is used to sell charity functions. Stop marginalizing women.
This isn’t about “saving the boobs,” it’s about women dying when they’re 38, have two young daughters and a husband will continue to find themselves lost without her even 14 years later. It’s about seeing a hazy, pale blue apparition wearing your mother’s nightgown and walking down the hallway from the bedroom, a week after she died. (Such hallucinations are normal during grief, multiple psychologists and psychiatrists have assured me. I don’t recall ever seeing anything else that wasn’t really there before or since, nor do I believe in ghosts much.)
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I too am weary of Komen and their form of ‘feel good philanthropy’ that prays on those whose hearts have been broken by this disease.
As for me, that wound is still very raw even 14 yrs later. I will not attend and have not attended the Race since the last time I attended with your dear mom. I refuse to wear the pink ribbon.
I too had a visit from your mom, it was in a dream, less than a month after she died. For me it was real.
Your thoughts here in this blog are exactly how I feel as well.
Love you
K -
Hi Julie, I stumbled upon your blog and I love what you wrote and I completely agree with you. I’m a 37 year old mother of 6 year old twin boys, and I am a survivor of breast cancer, twice. I despise the pink ribbon merchandising. And I despise even more what Komen has become; they have forgotten their roots, where they started, and why they started.
You think your snuggie was ridiculous, check out some of these:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19923&id=1632892813&l=b0d17a7dc7Anyway, best wises to you and take care!
Jennifer
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