The Wrong Way to Raise Awareness for Your Cause

By Daniel Dessinger

November 27, 2008

I am writing this article to make you aware.

I recently bought a pair of household gloves–you know, those neon yellow rubber ones for dishwashing. Imagine my surprise when instead of yellow, the gloves were neon pink and a card illustrating how to check myself for breast cancer came sliding out of the box.

My first thought was “What the hell is this?” and then I remembered, “Oh, yeah. October was breast cancer awareness month.”

All of this reminded me of another situation. A few years back I went on vacation with some relatives and their friends. The night before we set out on our adventure, I noticed nearly everyone in the group wore plastic yellow “Live Strong” bracelets. This was right before the trend took off and everyone wore them. It was the first time I had seen this iconic jewelry. I asked what they were for and my sister-in-law explained that the bracelets raised awareness for cancer and that the money from the sales went toward cancer research. One of the people sitting near us offered to sell me one and told him I didn’t want a bracelet. He gave me a puzzled look like I was a big pro-cancer supporter.

It’s not that I’m for or against any cause. I’m just against ribbon and bracelet-wearing in general and I think that all of these awareness months and ribbons have gotten to the point where it is ridiculous. There’s a color for every cause. And there are more causes than colors. I can think of two or three organizations that have picked red as their ribbon color.

I suppose breast cancer awareness month is a good thing because it reminds women to go get a mammogram, but if I wear a pink ribbon, that action on my part doesn’t do a darn thing toward saving someone from getting cancer.

During the award season for films, celebrities by the dozen wear red ribbons for AIDS awareness. For what purpose? Yeah, AIDS is a horrible disease without any cure and what does your ribbon-wearing do about it?

Any disease is horrible and I don’t know anyone who says we shouldn’t look for cures. I just don’t think people should wear awareness on their sleeves.