Color Codes

J-Walk's got a post today about those little ribbon pins people wear to raise awareness for specific causes. The problem I always have is that I don't know what the different colors mean. Well, he also has a link to the color definitions and it appears that it is far more complicated than I had imagined.

I mean you see a woman walking down the street with a pink ribbon pin and you sort of assume it's got something to do with breast cancer. Maybe she's a survivor. Maybe she just want to raise awareness so people will support research. But after looking at this chart..... well.... she could be a transvestite with testicular cancer. Or maybe she has Hodgkin's disease. Or maybe she's a birth parent. What am I to think?

And then, if you start combining possible meanings, it's like a mix-n-match smorgasborg of mental images. Let's take green for example.

Meet Joe construction worker. One day, while on the job, his mind starts to wander as he thinks of his child at home who seems to be chronically depressed. He thinks, "Maybe this weekend I'll take him out to the environmental preserve and we'll do some fishing. That'll cheer him up. Oh wait... it's a preserve... they won't let us fish." Depression starts to set in. "Oh yeah.... it's tick season too. Wouldn't want him getting Lyme disease. I wonder it there's a cure for that? Bone Marrow transplant maybe?"

Suddenly the air-powered nail gun he's holding slips and a three-inch framing nail grazes his eye. He's rushed to the hospital. The doctors tell him he'll be fine but he needs to wear an eye patch for a couple weeks. After filling out all the necessary paperwork, he is released.

As he's walking through the hospital lobby, a recent kidney transplant recipient notices the patch on his eye and the green pin on his jacket.


"Hey... did you just donate your eye? That's so cool!"

"What!" Joe replies.

"The green pin on your jacket. Did you donate your eye?"

"Are you kidding man? There's mass genocide in Darfur!"

Or maybe orange -- Hunger... Self-Injury... Leukemia... Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy... we must embrace them all. In the name of Cultural Diversity.

Black -- Prevent Gangs with Mourning and Melanoma.

Purple -- Macular Degeneration and Alzheimer's leads to Animal Abuse.

Blue -- Arthritic Child Abuser's with Reyes Syndrome....

Errr... I think I'd better stop there.