Nicole Robinson

Maybe I’m just heartless, but I’m not wearing any silicone bracelets to support a cause. I don’t have any cutout magnetic ribbons on my car. Been there, done that, but I didn’t get the T-shirt.

The other day, I stopped in my tracks when I spotted a bag of pink M&Ms in the drugstore. Lately, I’d been seeing a lot of products that raise money for various causes, but this one struck me as the most bizarre yet. I immediately Googled it when I got home to find out what all the fuss was about.

Turns out October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Those with a conscience can buy pink candy-covered chocolates, a pink umbrella, a pink necktie, pink golf balls, a pink teddy bear, a pink cookbook, a pink blender, a pink mixer, a pink coffee mill, a pink George Foreman grill and a hair straightener with pink ceramic plates. If that’s not enough, there are polo shirts, baseball shirts, thong sandals, thong underwear, plastic bracelets and more plastic bracelets. Song Airlines painted one of its planes with pink ribbons. Pop singer Pink performed a benefit concert Sept. 30 in New York.

It’s not that all this is a bad thing. If products can raise awareness – and money – to improve society, then they could bring very real, life-changing benefits to a lot of people. Hey, the research funded by the profits from this plethora of pink paraphernalia could even save my life one day.

And yet I continue to ignore, even avoid, the myriad monochromatic merchandise that seems more popular than ever. Compassion is all the rage, it seems, and by that standard, I’m looking pretty shabby right now.

It feels false to me. Like any other trend, this stuff is only temporary.

Retail isn’t the only arena where compassion is fleeting.

Remember the rainforests? We used to talk a lot more about saving them.

For awhile after Hurricane Katrina hit, I couldn’t talk to people without a good chance they would want to discuss how awfully tragic it was, how New Orleans was a unique cultural center that would never be the same again.

Depending who you asked, President Bush either was responsible for the federal government’s fatally slow response or a victim of certain brainless Americans who blamed him for the hurricane itself.

I tried, probably without much success, to stifle the urge to roll my eyes. As the talking points disappeared from the news, such conversations became less and less frequent.

It’s not that I don’t care. Diseases and disasters that claim huge numbers of lives are indeed something the public should be aware of. But is the ability to rattle off New Orleans trivia you heard on the news last night really the kind of awareness that will make a difference? If I buy the merchandise, do I really do it for the cause, or is it more about my own experience?

I was nine when the first Gulf War started. I remember being shepherded out to the playground along with all the classes in my elementary school to tie a yellow plastic ribbon on the chain-link fence and wave at the National Guard troops as they drove by.

I’m sure that stretch of highway crowded with parka-clad kids raised some spirits that day. But the ribbons were for those of us left behind. Tying them up and seeing them on the fence every day made us feel like there was something we could do in the face of a situation much too big to comprehend.

Winter turned to spring. The ribbons deteriorated and fell to the ground.

I think we need those rituals and symbols. But let’s not get so focused on our own experience with them that we forget what we intend them to stand for.

Koehler is a senior English literature and print journalism major
and managing editor of The Spectator.