Cares Enough to Wear Pink

JJR512

JJR512

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In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Howard County Professional Firefighters (IAFF Local 2000) has created a special t-shirt that their firefighters are required to wear as their standard on-duty uniform shirt. As a volunteer, this requirement does not apply to me, but like many other volunteers, I am voluntarily (no pun intended) wearing it also.

pink_lg.jpg

The main photo is of the back. The inset is of the standard HCFR logo on the left breast.

http://iaff2000.org/osb/itemdetails.cfm?ID=1
 
So, instead of donating $15 to breast cancer research, you bought a pink t-shirt?

Edit:
From the website, " Sadly, our wives, mothers, grandmothers, and sisters are all affected by this disease."

Because all women get breast cancer and no men get breast cancer?
 
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And because your 3 aunts, mother, 2 grandmothers, and sister that died of MIs/cardiovascular disease are less important than your one aunt that died of breast cancer?

Sorry, just a little bit sick of the whole pink breast cancer awareness crap when the truth is things like heart disease and lung cancer kill many more women. Unfortunately the result of such "awareness" is that MANY women believe breast cancer is the number one cause of death for women (far from the truth) and believe their mammograms and pink shirts are more important than quitting smoking or implementing diet/exercise in prolonging their lives.

Most of this pink breast cancer awareness stuff is nothing more than a marketing technique. Somehow breast cancer is more glamorous and therefore concerning to our country than the bigger threats - smoking, obesity, CV disease, sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, diabetes etc. Unfortunately the AHA's "Go Red for Women" campaign has failed to be as successful. Perhaps more people prefer the color pink.
 
JPINFV said:
So, instead of donating $15 to breast cancer research, you bought a pink t-shirt?
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First of all, a portion of the cost of the shirt is going to, I believe, http://www.the-red-devils.org/. I'm not sure how much, exactly, to be honest, but I can say the cost of the standard uniform t-shirt is around six bucks, so maybe around $9 is going to the charity. I don't know.

More importantly, if I donate $15 to charity, what does that do? It gets $15 into the hands of one charity. But if I spread awareness about the underlying problem that the charity is fighting, then maybe—just maybe—some other people will decide it's time for them to contribute something, too. Maybe it won't be to the same charity, but which exact one gets it doesn't really matter. And most people that see this shirt won't do anything at all; I'm not delusional. But most people that see a Burger King billboard don't go to Burger King for dinner that evening, either. Yet Burger King spends millions of dollars on advertising, and obviously, they feel it's profitable. I'm spending $15 on advertising, and I'm hoping it's profitable (so to speak). And if I'm a fool...I can live with being a fool who doesn't try to pick apart and crap all over people that try to make a positive difference in the world...

Edit:
From the website, " Sadly, our wives, mothers, grandmothers, and sisters are all affected by this disease."

Because all women get breast cancer and no men get breast cancer?
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Granted, this copy isn't well-written. May I kindly suggest you send the webmaster an email instead of crapping on my thread? Why don't you give me the link to your department's website and I'll see how many errors I can find on it! I just think it's nice, what they're doing, and I'm just trying to share my pride a little bit, OK? Excuse the crap out of me!
 
Wow, I don't see why you need to be so angry. I take no issue with those trying to support a good cause, I'm just frustrated attention has been diverted from other issues which have consistently, statistically proven to be more pressing. I think it's just sad that so many women believe breast cancer should be their biggest concern due to the huge amount of attention that has been placed on it. I don't see why you are so offended.
 
I love your highly mature, dignified and appropriate signature.

To all those who ignore cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and all other common causes of death of women and prefer to focus on cancer of boobies since they're so jiggly awesome, pink is pretty, I can buy pink breast cancer awareness doo-dads and Disney, ABC, Tide, McDonalds, Wrangler and Target say its important, you can "suck it." Or just do your research, take a deep breath and act like an adult in a medical profession. Your choice.
 
Now where's my Marlboros and Burger King Think Pink for The Cure Big Mac?
 
JJR512 said:
More importantly, if I donate $15 to charity, what does that do? It gets $15 into the hands of one charity. But if I spread awareness about the underlying problem that the charity is fighting, then maybe—just maybe—some other people will decide it's time for them to contribute something, too.
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Yes, because every time someone sees pink they run out to donate to breast cancer and every time someone sees a cheap wrist band they donate to Livestrong. Want to go and buy t-shirts for participants doing serious fundraising so it looks more official (e.g. Fill the Boot for muscular dystrophy or Knights of Columbus for mental retardation, or any other group that does fund raising), sure. However I don't buy into the concept that wearing a shirt or wrist band, or anything else is going to entice other people to donate.
 
LucidResq said:
I love your highly mature, dignified and appropriate signature.

To all those who ignore cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and all other common causes of death of women and prefer to focus on cancer of boobies since they're so jiggly awesome, pink is pretty, I can buy pink breast cancer awareness doo-dads and Disney, ABC, Tide, McDonalds, Wrangler and Target say its important, you can "suck it." Or just do your research, take a deep breath and act like an adult in a medical profession. Your choice.
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Well thank god I'm not in that group. I can pay attention to and support one thing without ignoring anything else. I can also do it without crapping all over someone else who isn't supporting whatever it is I'm paying attention to at this particular moment. And THAT is what I'm so upset about. If you don't care, fine. If you'd rather support something else, fine. If you'd like to try to support everything at once, be my guest. Go start your own thread about it, and you know what? When you do that, I'll even come by and say, "Hey, that's a good cause, it's great that you're supporting that, I hope your successful with bringing awareness to your particular cause and I hope it helps." Yeah that's right, even though you CRAPPED all over this, I'd still do that, because THAT is the kind of person I am.
 
JJR512 said:
But maybe you're right; maybe everybody else is just as apathetic as you are, but that's the concept I choose to not buy into.
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I'm apathetic because if I had the means to donate I'd rather donate the full amount to charity than a partial amount while getting a t-shirt to say, "Hey, look at me, I want to save second base?" Funny, I always thought that you weren't supposed to stand on a street corner and yell out that you did a good deed.
 
JPINFV said:
I'm apathetic because if I had the means to donate I'd rather donate the full amount to charity than a partial amount while getting a t-shirt to say, "Hey, look at me, I want to save second base?" Funny, I always thought that you weren't supposed to stand on a street corner and yell out that you did a good deed.
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This whole "second base"/"save the jigglies" is really immature. Can't you think of "breast cancer" without stopping after the word "breast" and trailing off into a drool-filled daydream, like Homer Simpson thinking of a donut? Do like LucidResq said and act like an adult in a medical profession.

The shirt doesn't say that I did a good deed. The point of this thread wasn't to say that I did a good deed, either. It was to share some of my pride in the department I'm associated with.

And OK, you care enough to make a small donation to the cause, so maybe apathetic isn't the best choice of words for you in particular. I guess I can't think of the right word to use for someone who would rather give a small amount than raise awareness and potentially cause even more than his own small amount to be donated by multiple people in the long run.
 
omg, you are blowing a gasket over a couple of knuckleheads who don't agree with you? geez. a little thin skinned are you?

personally, I like this sticker myself
save_the_ta_tas-breast-cancer.jpg
and my ex roomate had this
topprod3.jpg


But if t-shirts are what your department (or rather, your department's union) wants to do, more power to them.
 
JJR512 said:
This whole "second base"/"save the jigglies" is really immature. Can't you think of "breast cancer" without stopping after the word "breast" and trailing off into a drool-filled daydream, like Homer Simpson thinking of a donut? Do like LucidResq said and act like an adult in a medical profession.
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Actually, to be fair, "Save the jigglies" is Lucid's post. Mine was "Save the Boobies." Also, I'm sorry if humor is a little lost on you, but it's not like breast cancer groups are against using it. After all, there's the entire "I got squished" shirts to encourage mammograms.

The shirt doesn't say that I did a good deed. The point of this thread wasn't to say that I did a good deed, either. It was to share some of my pride in the department I'm associated with.
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:unsure:

And OK, you care enough to make a small donation to the cause, so maybe apathetic isn't the best choice of words for you in particular. I guess I can't think of the right word to use for someone who would rather give a small amount than raise awareness and potentially cause even more than his own small amount to be donated by multiple people in the long run.
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Awareness doesn't pay for treatments or research, and I'm fairly certain that people know that breast cancer exists.
 
Now "Save the Ta-Tas is something I can get behind (unlike, say, colon cancer. I'd rather stay in front of that).
 
I'm not a big breast cancer supporter, but save second base made me chuckle and steal for facebook.
 
Not to pile on, but out of sensitivity for my friends who actually deal with breast cancer, I made a donation and vowed to never buy anything that's pink for breast cancer. Go through any grocery store- the money wasted on changing all the packaging could feed a small nation for the month of October.

I'll warn them that if they end up having to call 911, they might have to deal with it too. Preparation in advance helps these things go over better.
 
DrParasite said:
omg, you are blowing a gasket over a couple of knuckleheads who don't agree with you? geez. a little thin skinned are you?
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Please do not call me names.



To the OP - again, this was not a dig at you and I'm sorry it was interpreted that way. I am just frustrated with how the whole "pink breast cancer awareness" thing has become more a trend or marketing strategy rather than a purposeful way to help people with cancer, and the fact that the disproportionate amount of attention tends to mislead people into thinking other diseases such as heart disease and lung cancer are less prevalent and not as important.
 
Nobody is calling anybody names.

542-PE-337-AY4917.jpg
 
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Our union is doing this as well:

http://www.fairfaxfirefighters.org/index.cfm?section=1

Breast CA is covered as one of the seven presumptive cancers covered under Virginia legislation. We're rocking the t-shirts for one day. Sure, the money that pays for the shirts could have instead been donated, but they're getting a massive amount of free advertising from the FF's. That's worth way more than a couple of bucks a shirt.

We come through for various charities, not just "Fill the Boot" for Jerry's Kids. This is just another one. It's a good thing. It's not like we're rocking shirts that contain various slang phrases referring to the breasts.
 
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