Unawareness requires action
I never understood the pink
ribbons.
Of course I knew they stood for
breast cancer awareness the way
people sport red ribbons to symbol
ize their support of people living
with AIDS. What I didn’t realize
was the enormous importance those
pink ribbons would come to have
for me.
I feel like my generation has
really grasped the art of gestures.
We wear our ribbons and say
politically correct things about
causes.
What disappoints me is how
little awareness and action are
behind those gestures.
I mean, how many people who
support AIDS awareness actually
practice safe sex?
They mean well, but can’t apply
the standard to their own lives. To
most, AIDS is still something that
only happens to “other people.”
Unfortunately, awareness
becomes reality in some people’s
lives. The pink ribbons gained new
significance for me last week as I
found out a woman very close to me
had a tumor in one of her breasts.
I went through all the usual
feelings.
I certainly never thought it #
would happen to anyone close to
me, especially someone so vibrant,
and yes, aware. In her case,
awareness didn’t translate to yearly
doctor’s visits or breast self-exams.
She’s in her mid-50s, well past
the age when women should start
being aware of the reality of breast
cancer.
Doctors’ recommendations on
the age at which women should
begin a program of breast examina
tions have changed many times, but
at the very latest she should have
started paying attention in her 30s.
I’m not blaming her, and I’m
certainly not one to talk.
And for a generation so self
consciously, vocally proud of its
Krista Schwarting
“Someone close to me
has that tumor not
because she deserved it
or did anything wrong.
But she may not have
done the right thing. ”
awareness, I don’t set a very good
example. I too avoid doctors like
the plague, and while I’ve seen
cards explaining how to do self
exams, I still wouldn’t have a clue
what to look for.
I remember a poster I saw in my
college’s health center. It depicted
an older woman, and the caption
read “Died of shame.” What it was
trying to say was modesty over
potentially embarrassing diseases
was not worth dying over.
When I lived in New Orleans, a
city still associated with the Old
South and all its antebellum
traditions, I came to understand
that modesty firsthand. Women in
my sorority who could speak about
most things without inhibition
suddenly became hesitant about
others. When someone came to
speak to us about women’s health,
the talk went on for days.
The interesting thing about these
conversations was not the topic, but
the manner in which they were
spoken. Voices normally loud and
clear would dip dramatically to
almost whisper the words “breast
cancer.” I came out of them feeling
that these were words of shame and
degradation, things not discussed in
polite conversation.
The lack of talk and action helps
explain why symbols have gained
in popularity. It’s so much easier to
wear red or pink ribbons rather
than practice safe sex or leam to
look for signs of breast cancer.
Most of the public service
announcements I’ve seen for AIDS
feature some version of the line, “I
never thought it could happen to
me.” I’m sure the woman on the
“died of shame” poster thought the
same thing.
Unfortunately, life and health
don’t work that way. Someone
close to me has that tumor not
because she deserved it or did
anything wrong. But she may not
have done the right thing.
We have to stop lowering our
voices when it comes down to
difficult issues and health concerns.
We have to stop thinking nothing
can happen to us and put meaning
behind the symbols.
Symbols have meanings, and
they turn a complicated idea into
something simple. It’s become too
simple to wear a ribbon or spout a
phrase just because it’s fashionable.
Symbols make it too easy to forget
the pain and reality of what they
represent. They also let us think
that AIDS and breast cancer still
only happen to other people.
I’m not saying we should get rid
of the ribbons. They’re a small step
toward at least admitting the
problems exist. But people need to
take that acknowledgement and
move it forward into practice in
their own lives.
I understand the ribbons now.
I’m just not satisfied with what they
say to me.
Schwarting is a graduate student in
broadcast journalism and a Daily Nebras
kan columnist
Garcia commands respect
Everyone needs a placebo:
cigarettes, sex, god — all the same
thing really. Emotional/philosophi
cal fixes allowing us to go another
mundane 24/7 without jabbing an
ice pick through our skulls.
For more than 30 years, Jerry
Garcia was the Geritol curing the
tired blood of a culture that had
grown disenchanted with the
“American” way.
He served as the figurehead of a
once important movement and a
father figure for a lost generation.
For this he deserves our respect.
Unfortunately, last week Mr.
Garcia unwillingly took his place at
center stage in the wonderful off
Broadway musical “Pop Culture
Martyr” — that ever so glorious
production that occurs whenever
anyone of marketable relevance
dies.
With this current wave of
asinine seventies revival/worship in
full force, a worse time for his
passing could not have been picked.
As I sat with my lids opened
wide, ingesting the news of his
death, the unmistakable rank smell
of this year’s Big Thing came
wafting in through the window.
Out in the distance I saw
Generation X rear its ugly head and
begin gobbling up and spewing out
any sincerity the man and his music
once possessed.
A sad trickle of vomit came
tumbling down from heaven as
Jerry watched his carcass become
another mall-rat accessory item to
go with your genuine Cobain-skin
vest and mass-produced, factory
made, cannabis glorification cap.
His death became another badge
to be placed on the shirt of someone
desperate for acceptance; trying to
prove that they saw it, did it, liked
it, bought it, had it, heard it, knew
it, lived it, and loved it first...
whatever the hell it was.
I doubt that even Courtney Love,
smoking gun in hand, predicted
that — once Madison Avenue took
over grunge — the die-hard
wannabes would pump 1.21
Aaron McKain
“As I sat with my lids
opened wide, ingesting
the neivs of his death,
the unmistakable rank
smell of this year’s Big
Thing came wafting in
through the windoiv. ’’
jigawatts into their tattered libidos
and travel back 20 years to rehash a
scene that was tired four presidents
ago.
C’mon people, the sixties are
gone, daddy, gone. It’s the nineties
now, where raw expression is for
sale and identities can be slipped on
and off like a prom dress.
These days you can buy your
counter-cultures over the counter —
today’s rebellion has been FDA
approved and contains the recom
mended daily allowance of banality
and teen angst.
Freed from the burden of
thought, MTV sucker-punches
millions daily, force feeding us
their blueprint on the art of being
different.
No matter how artistically
bankrupt our society has become,
retrieving artifacts of the past is no
way to pave the road to the future.
I pray that the intensity of the
nation’s most entertaining blip this
century can be credited more
toward societal unrest and the
burning fires of lost causes than to
acid and a guitar solo.
And if that is the case, you can’t
go back and re-create that political
and social climate with tie dye,
cheap drugs and bad vinyl.
A societal situation, such as the
one experienced in the late ’60s, is
a masterpiece of time, space and
dimension; it cannot exist in a
vacuum, and it cannot be rebuilt
like some sociopath’s diorama.
Cultural movements are not TV
dinners that can be yanked out of
mommy and daddy’s closet 20 years
later and reheated for mainstream
consumption.
When we refuse to accept the
responsibility of forging a new
path, we become no better or worse
than hamsters spinning around in a
wheel.
We’re so indentitiless that I’m
not even sure how our kids will
make fun of us.
But then I look back and think
that I’m being overly critical of ol’
Gen X.
Not only did we have the
misfortune of being named after a
suck like Billy Idol, but we were
cheated out of the tragedies that put
a face on Mr. Potato Head.
We didn’t get a war, we didn’t
pioneer the drug thing, and our
presidents weren’t awe-inspiringly
crooked. Hell, our rock stars aren’t
even cool enough to choke to death.
Anyway, Mr. Garcia was a lot of
things to a lot of people. I was not
one of them.
His death does not give me, or
anyone else, an excuse to pretend
that he was our savior.
A man is dead, let’s not put his
head on a pike for fast acceptance
and a greased palm on the already
slimy social ladder.
To the true Deadheads, my
deepest condolences.
All aboard, next bandwagon stop
... Terrapin Station.
McKain is an undeclared sophomore
and a Dally Nebraskan columnist
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