advocate, agitate
Puck Fink
  • Blog
  • Cancer Warriors

Pink is not the new anything!

Stinking pink!  I see that pink ribbon on so many items in the store.  Well guess what, I am sick of it.  And my friends still get cancer.  Buying that crap has not saved one life, not one! Want to spend some money toward a good cause?  Click the link below!  Really, you'll be happy you did!

DONATE: Movember in Monticello

Thinktober

10/9/2013

3 Comments

 
This post is from guest blogger Joy Garling Prud'homme. Check out her blog, Mid-Life Crisis Travel Adventures.
  • When we moved into our new house when I was five years old, my mother helped me decorate my new bedroom. I chose the colors: pink and brown. My mother found fabric of bright pink and brown flowers to make the curtains and the bedspread. And then she went a little crazy. She painted the walls bright pink. She found an old secretary desk and painted it pink. She found a vintage kitchen clock in an amazing Pepto-Bismol. Pink was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes at night, and the first thing I saw when I heard the birds singing in the morning. My toys had pink ribbons. My favorite stuffed animal, a frog named Murgatroyd, was appropriately green on his back, but his abdomen? A bright pink felt. I was surrounded in pink, drowning in pink.

  • And after a while, I grew weary of pink. Pink had lost its appeal.

    Now, more than forty years later, I find myself once again surrounded by pink. The marketing genius of Komen Foundation has spread pink everything to the four corners of the Earth. The whole damn’ month of October is pink. Pinktober. And it has also become meaningless, has lost its appeal. Pink is the color of a little girl, sweet and innocent. Pink is the color of flowers, hair ribbons, 80s prom dresses, of cotton candy. Pink is not the color of adult women, suffering from a horrific disease.

    Cancer isn’t pink. On pictures of scans, it is black as night. I imagine it as dark red, bulbous purple, brownish-grey, without well-defined borders, eating people. It is ugly, it is monstrous. It has eaten friends. My former colleague and friend died recently from Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, and I attended her visitation in early October, that month of pink. The sky was grey. The brick on the church was brown. Many people wore black. Their faces were pale, colorless. I imagine no one in that church was thinking pink thoughts. No one was passing out pink candy. No one was selling t-shirts, from which a “portion” of the proceeds would go to cancer research. They were just thinking about having lost that bright light, that friend, that daughter, that sister, that mother.

    I would like to change “Pinktober” to “Thinktober”. Think. About where you want your money to go. You can buy a pink mixer, a pink car, a pink pair of running shoes…or you can donate your money to a cause that really matters. That same wonderful woman, before she died, had suggested several organizations on her blog that are helping those living with the disease, or actually doing research to help save lives or increase quality of life for those whose cancer has metastasized. You can find this list at http://www.livinglegendary.org/top10/.

    Think before you Pink.

    --Joy Garling Prud'homme


3 Comments
Cynthia link
10/9/2013 04:17:50 am

perfectly said...thanks

Reply
Priscila
10/9/2013 01:23:25 pm

Amazingly perfect said!

Reply
essay writing help link
9/27/2017 03:41:57 pm

I respect your opinion about the color pink. There are many people who actually like the color and there are people just like who hate it. I think that the color pink representing cancer is not meant to disrespect people who have cancer. I believe that the reason why they choose to use the color pink is because cancer is already a horrible thing to have. So the color pink gives off good vibes and somehow, it portrays positivity so I guess that is the reason why people want the color pink to represent cancer.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Johnell Bentz

    An educator and volunteer.  Fundraiser and activist. Inconsistent blogger.

    Archives

    April 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All
    Advocacy
    Cancer


Proudly powered by Weebly