Looking back I get livid. And not just because some students were selling the bracelets for non-cancer fund profits or because people were buying them but because those bracelets just make me angry. Maybe some of what follows is just me rationalizing my gut reaction to “consumer activism,” but I don’t think that changes how problematic it is to justify anything simply because it makes some marginal amount of money for cancer research.
Like most logos, Livestrong bracelets and the pink ribbons of the breast cancer movement project underlying values – the yellow bracelet is the same shade as the leader jersey from the Tour de France and the pink ribbon hints at a resilient femininity despite threat (though its history is not so simple). But the logos are so much more than that – they’re dissociations. They gloss over if not almost entirely supplant the horrific elements of cancer. There is nothing that reminds consumers particularly of a cancer cell, a breast, or a testicle - much less the metaphorical invasion and colonization of organs by cancerous cells, or actual images of growths, tumors or lesions.
It has been so effective that for most people, when they hear the words "breast cancer" their first thought is not of a tumor, a bunch of rogue cells, a bald head, or a post-mastectomy woman. It is of the pink ribbon, or a Race for the Cure event.
And it’s not like this has come in favor of some elegy as is the case with locking a ghost bike (an all white bike) at the site of an accident that killed a cyclist.
It’s just absurd. The meaning in the ribbon and wristband are constructed by continuous juxtaposition to events and causes that turn the whole thing into a money game, ironically sterilizing cancer – a disease whose treatment is largely defined by sterilization - like sequestering patients in a separate wing that is sterilized to ensure that bodies with weakened immune systems due to chemotherapy do not get infected, or by visual sterilization as these wings are frequently entirely white, or the cultural sterilization where people would rather wear wristbands than visit the patients. Actually, maybe absurd is a bit kind.
I think Sarah Jain puts all this pretty poignantly: "After all, what would it mean to really acknowledge—really acknowledge—the fact that 41,000 people each year die of a disease from which one literally rots from the inside out with no cure while so many known causes continue to be pumped into the environment?"
I guess it’s not surprising if the most important thing for cancer activism is making money. It is pretty impossible to imagine a company like BMW sponsoring an event that foregrounds the carcinogens both producing and driving a car pumps into the environment. It is equally hard to imagine an aisle in a supermarket being full of products that bear tumescent images rather than the comforting pink ribbon (I mean, given people often buy food based on how appetizing it looks, who would market a package covered in tumors and lesions?). As ribbons and wristbands, then, cancer is “safe” to partner with because it doesn’t actually resemble cancer.
And no, “but it raises money” is not a defense of these practices because it means that the corporations in control of these donations can set the agenda for what cancer activism works on. That means focusing on things that are proactive so that partnered companies can look like they’re doing things – they’re helping people find out earlier and they’re helping people get cured. Sure, that’s great, but that means care for current patients falls by the wayside – especially for people lacking health care, so for many this focus just means finding out about the cancer earlier and knowing you have it for longer without being enabled to do anything about it.
What a farce. As if money drives the world. More than that, as if continuing to tell people the best way to help out is to buy some saltines with a ribbon or use a bank with a pink ribbon card (I’m actually considering closing my Bank of America account because I’m sick of having that advertised to me every time I use the ATM) or pick up a pink bucket from KFC is going to actually help create a society of people who actively care about solving problems.
This cause related marketing just lets us pat ourselves on the back for doing absolutely nothing, because let’s be honest: we were going to buy whatever it is anyway. The ribbon just makes us feel good about destroying lives and the planet, as if it’s somehow okay to consume so much now (and this is without even scratching at how the monetary schemes hidden by the fine print).
What’s worse is that these problems that could be somewhat prevented, too. But that’s not positive, that’s not “doing something” that companies can use to leverage advertising – focusing on making money means advertising the best way possible and so prevention falls mostly by the wayside in favor of "proactive" measures such as early detection and treatment options. Looking into prevention means cutting back on things and "un-consuming," particularly emissions, carcinogens, and the like, which are central to the operation of the businesses that fund research, resulting in a cycle where products are bought to donate to stopping cancer, while simultaneously contributing to its prevalence.
Maybe it’s what I should expect from corporations. The idea that pairing ‘doing good’ with agents solely invested in making money not raising red flags in our minds is ridiculous.
I guess now I at least understand what corporations mean when they say they’re dedicated to "giving back." It subtly implies that something was taken in the first place, and these corporations are "giving back" by giving money to finding out how to retroactively cure the ills they help cause.
The revolution will not be tweeted – HA! As if technology was the corrupting element in social movements. The revolution will not be bought. Viva la non-profit industrial complex!
