Pink Pander

I've been noticing a lot of football teams wearing pink this month. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the pink-clad football players are just a piece of the pink tidal wave spilling across the country. I've known far more women who have been stricken by breast cancer than I'd like to, so any effort to raise awareness about breast cancer, early detection and fund research is appreciated.
But all this pink is troubling. If we cared as much about breast cancer as the abundance of pink products would suggest, breast cancer would have been eradicated ten times over years ago. But it hasn't been and the amount of products with  pink ribbons on them increases year after year.
That leads me to a concept initiated by Breast Cancer Action they dubbed, "pink washing." Perhaps you've heard of white washing as it relates to Tom Sawyer? Pink washing is the same idea, splashing pink on products during October for the purposes of...well, that's just it. The purposes aren't always clear. Breast Cancer Action's "Think Before You Pink" campaign attempts to drive this point across.
The NFL, for instance, sells many of the pink-laced items online and donates the money to breast cancer research. Most of these pink-laden products promise the same and certainly money is raised and donated. Most people, like me and my family, like to do what we can to support breast cancer advocacy. Research in the past, after all, helped save the lives of some people we love. We'd like to think we're helping, in some small way, save the lives of many others in years to come. I have to believe we're not alone in that thought. And so we happily buy these pink products. And, in kind, companies donate some of the revenue to breast cancer research and advocacy groups. But how much? Some. Like roughly? A portion.
If I broke off a tiny crumb of a chocolate chip cookie and gave you the bulk of the cookie, that's a portion. But so is just a single chocolate chip. I can imagine which portion you might prefer.
Sure, every little bit helps, but does it seem appropriate that companies put these pink ribbons on their products, encourage consumers to buy them to support breast cancer causes and then take the bulk of the cookie and leave advocacy groups with mere crumbs?
So where does that leave consumers? Unfortunately, if consumers are serious about their desire to help eradicate breast cancer, they have to do a little work. Responsible companies--and there are some--will be able to easily answer some basic questions. First and most obvious is, what is the exact portion of the "portion of proceeds" that goes towards the breast cancer fight? A company that donates crumbs instead of cookies probably isn't worth your time. Next is which organizations get these proceeds and what do they do with the money once they get it? It's important to be certain your consumer dollars are being put towards maximum affect. New office chairs don't do a lot to save lives for cancer victims. Lastly, is there a cap on the funds available. This is mind-boggling for some people to even think about but it's a pretty common practice for corporate "philanthropy." There is a program with a local baseball team, for instance, where a credit card company donates a certain amount of money to a selected cause for each home run the team hits. If you read the fine print, the really, really, really fine print, they say their maximum donation is $50,000. That's still a nice sum of money. However, while there is still a benefit and motivation for a team to hit more than 50 grand-worth of home runs, money spent on pink products once a cap has been reached is literally doing cancer patients no good. Further, there is frequently no means (or effort) to inform the public once a predetermined cap has been reached. There are no drum rolls and tote board numbers tumbling once consumers have bought a million bucks-worth of yogurt.
There are other things you can do as a consumer to ensure your purchases are having the impact you intend, but these three simple questions are a good place to start.
I'm grateful my loved ones who survived breast cancer are still here to enjoy life. The money raised in the past and the research that resulted is something I'm endlessly thankful for. And for whatever small benefit seeing my favorite football team dressed in pink has, I'm happy for that, as well.
Equally, I'm thankful and hopeful for future generations of people who can tell their own survival stories or, better yet, won't develop those stories to begin with. It's just a shame, amid all of these pink products, if the only thing a glut of yogurt purchases gets me is improved calcium levels and nothing else.