Get Your Gray Ribbons Ready

October is pink ribbon month. It's also pink product month. Everywhere you go, pink trinkets are for sale. The promise is that for every dollar you spend, a few pennies will be given to breast cancer research. Some folks think it's a bit of overkill. But in making their point, they trivialize a birth defect which affects millions of innocent victims, including me. Listen to a typical example from Susan Reimer, writing in the Baltimore Sun: "You'd have to be colorblind not to see all the pink products."

Yes, I am colorblind--hang on a second while I get my tongue in my cheek--and I am sick and tired of people making light of this incurable congenital condition. Do you think Ms. Reimer would have written, "you'd have to be a paraplegic not to keep up with my grandmother"? How do you think such language makes us feel? We're already discriminated against. Whole career fields are closed to us, notably that of airline pilot and railroad engineer. Where are the people demanding a cure for this debilitating and heartbreaking disease? When we run red lights, do people treat us with the compassion we deserve? No! Just write 'em a ticket, Mr. Policeman, and let 'em pay the fine. And then there's the ridicule we endure when we wear mismatched clothes. Colorblindness may be the last birth defect that it is still politically correct to make fun of. Could it be that so little is allocated to colorblindness research because the overwhelming majority of victims are men? Just asking.

So, colorblind people of the world unite! We demand our own awareness month. November will be just fine. We invite you to join us. You can show your support by wearing a gray ribbon. Of course, we'll all think they're pink ribbons and accuse you of overdoing the breast cancer thing, but there's no perfect system.